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Git Logo Design Guide Feedback

2 years ago from

I'm working on a project to brand git and I want to get feedback. I posted an Ask DN about a month ago about visual design guides and tried to apply some of the patterns in the guide. I want some feedback on the current state of the my logo guide: https://www.gitdvcs.com/resources/logo/

I also want to know what types of files I should support in a bundled zip of logos? (svg, eps, ia, sketch??)

Thanks in advance.

12 comments

  • Adam Brenecki, 2 years ago

    It worries me a bit that you've got a website that looks like it's trying to pass itself off as the official Git website, that's soliciting donations for some mysterious entity called "DVCS" that isn't the Software Freedom Conservancy (the Git project's stewards).

    It would probably be a very good idea to be clear on the home page that your site isn't the official site of the Git project, and be more clear about where the donations you're soliciting go to.

    15 points
    • Joe BlauJoe Blau, 2 years ago

      The concern is understandable. What's pretty interesting from your comment is that you think that the Software Freedom Conservancy are the stewards of git. That thought process is a testament to the Software Freedom Conservancy branding of git. While they do a lot for the community, they are not official. The actual official git website is the Linux kernel at https://www.kernel.org which is where Software Freedom Conservancy (and my site) gets the data from.

      On the donation front, I'll remove all of the information. I don't think a lot of value will come from that anyways and it seems to be causing more confusion right now.

      The long term goal is to be the official git website have resources go back to git community. I'm reaching out to content producers and developers to try and create educational tools for people interested in git, but talks are still in the early stages. This is an MVP for a long process.

      I definitely appreciate your feedback as well as everyone who up voted.

      1 point
      • Adam Brenecki, 2 years ago

        Git is a Conservancy member project. It serves the same purpose for Git and a bunch of other projects as something like the Python Software Foundation does for Python, which includes accepting donations, and those donations go back into Git itself.

        I'm glad you've removed the donation links.

        0 points
    • Art VandelayArt Vandelay, 2 years ago

      Here's an easy way to sum up this comment without any "subjective rebuttal".

      You're boarding the line of trade dress. Which could be problematic from a legal standpoint.

      0 points
  • Alex PateAlex Pate, 2 years ago

    Just out of curiosity, what's the difference between this and the official Git website?

    3 points
    • Joe BlauJoe Blau, 2 years ago

      Great question — This really requires a bit more in-depth response to answer, but in short I'm trying to create a better experience for developers who use git. The official site1 simply offers documentation and some Q&A. What I want to create is a place with update-to-date resources including video tutorials, quick reference guides, interactive guides, and links out to other resources.

      There is also git-scm 2 , which is not official, but probably the most well known resource. It's maintained by Jeff King with occasional open source contributions but based on a post Jeff posted a few months ago3 has an architecture that is not totally open and it's extremely difficult for him to maintain. git-scm has received a lot of support in the mean time, but it's still a pretty low process to update that site.

      I've created this for the same reason I created gitignore.io — I want the community (starting with myself) to have better resources and tools.

      [1] - https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/

      [2] - https://git-scm.com

      [3] - http://marc.info/?l=git&m=148600283715424&w=2

      0 points
      • Alex PateAlex Pate, 2 years ago

        Sweet, sounds like a cool project.

        As Adam mentioned though, think you would be doing yourself a favour if you were a bit clearer on the website about the differences between your project and git-scm.

        Looking forward to seeing this grow though.

        0 points
  • Josh McKenzieJosh McKenzie, 2 years ago

    I like the simplicity of the logo. The branch idea is an obvious one but nicely represented in the diamond in a way that doesn't make it feel too literal. Very nice.

    Two things I don't like so much: the choice of typeface for the word Git, and the placement of the diamond above the Git word.

    Typeface: I don't have a suggestion for an alternative typeface I'm afraid, but perhaps the letter spacing could be tightened up a little? The spacing between the i and t feel wider than the spacing between g and i.

    Logo placement: When the diamond is placed above the letter i, the dot from the letter i feels like it's pushing the diamond out a bit too much. Instead of text and logo mark feeling feeling tightly coupled together, they appear a bit disconnected. That's my impression, but others may not see it like that way :-)

    2 points
    • Joe BlauJoe Blau, 2 years ago

      Thanks for the feedback! I'll take those points into consideration and try and update the revision.

      0 points
  • Ean MoodyEan Moody, 2 years ago

    First off: Why?

    So I guess my question is: why not use the better-known Git logo popularized by git-scm? It's licensed under Creative Commons allowing unrestricted re-use and derivative works with credit. If you want to improve tooling, you could just adapt his logo and make a better website to hold it.

    Which brings me to...

    Licensing?

    Your logo doesn't have any explicit license listed, so I can't risk using it elsewhere without asking your permission.

    Do you intend to license it under a more permissive license? Which one?

    How do you intend to deal with people who make/use similar-but-derivative versions and dilute the brand?

    Design

    It feels like there's a disjoint between the logo and the font: you've gone very geometric on the logo with very uniform widths and angles, but your font uses odd angles and tapered widths. The dot on that i in particular is bugging me, it's such a great chance to repeat the square-diamond shape from the logo.

    You may want to look at some more geometric base fonts, or go much further away from geometric/digital designs if you want to go that route.

    Inevitable comparison to git-scm logo

    By contrast with the git-scm version that illustrates the nodes it feels much more generic, I feel like those are a big part of communicating the concepts going on if you're going that route. It's also very similar to that logo. They'd have a solid case to make that you're failing to provide proper attribution in your derivative work of their logo.

    1 point
  • Zarino ZappiaZarino Zappia, 2 years ago

    I guess every designer will be different, but for me, SVG and transparent PNG are the only two formats I ever use.

    Is that documentation site on GitHub anywhere? I've noticed lots of spelling mistakes, but when I looked for a GitHub repo link, to submit a pull request fixing them, I couldn't find one.

    1 point