Bower logo

bower-logo.md

In addition to awesome docs #228, Bower deserves a proper logo. See below for sketches. I'm curious if you think any of these are worth me putting more effort into.

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Take a look at Yeoman right now.

The other two entities have awesome logos. Bower's got to represent.

Background

@fat introduced me to Bower by showing me this video: The Vogelkop Bowerbird: Nature's Great Seducer. Bower gets its name from the Bower bird, a line of birds who build structures to seduce their mates. As you'll see in the video, the Vogelkop is the most creative in its collection of treasures. It will stash leaves, bottle caps, berries, dung balls, mushroom heads, etc. This is essentially what Bower the project does - putting together a treasure trove of lots of goodies.

The Vogelkop is the best collector bowerbird, but for visuals, I've been drawing the Flame Bowerbird, with its striking red/yellow/green plumage.

YouTube has a whole Smithsonian show just on the Flame Bowerbird Dancers on Fire. Watch 26:33 for a male in 'full twerk', seducing a female. He's presenting a blue leaf, and doing this one-wing swivel move.

Mood

I see Bower as approachable and practical. It works as a lil' helper. It's friendly.

Sketches

Studying the flame bowerbird.

Illustration

The good ones

Mascot

This is more of a traditional mascot. That's a blue leaf in its beak. It's doing the seduction twerk.

Geometric B

Geometric representation of a flame bower bird. It's cute cause it's a B. It's simple so it can be reduced to tiny sizes like avatars and favicons. With that B shape, we could do stuff like

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These are not final. Let me know what you think. I'm not the best illustrator. If you are, please feel free to sketch something up.

I like the "B" one as a logo (square is good), but I agree that it maybe looks too much like a "P" when presented with a yellow wing. What does it it look like with a green wing next to "OWER"?

Very nice, well done.

Love this, you're right about the wing. Maybe you can just use a small line on the left side that suggests the other wing?

I really like the revision from March 19th. Nice work, sir!

What, you don't like Copperplate? :)

I love the direction. Are you going to try and mimic any of the geometric symmetry from Twitter logo? http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/twitter_gives_you_the_bird.php

What's the rationale for the geometric theme? This isn't resonating with the name "Bower" for me, or the homage to Twitter's bird. Though, anything is better than Copperplate. Not to be "that guy" but I'd love another direction to choose from. :)

Perhaps the Bowerbird could have a rakishly cocked eyebrow? It's trying to seduce us, after all.

Also: I like the possible implication that the Bowerbird has killed the Twitter bird to procure that blue feather.

@neagle It's a blue leaf. The bowerbird is a lover, not a fighter!

<armchair graphic designer>

I wonder if the two lines-of-sight created by the head/leaf and wing pointing in different directions could be improved by having them converge?

Something like this: http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/fss/7bb4504adaa5125852048648b6ead10f/bower-wing-curl.jpg (excuse the Photoshop hatchet job)

</armchair graphic designer>

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: aligning with Twitter branding - That thing in the bird's mouth is a leaf, not a feather. If you watch videos about bower birds, they tend to present blue leaves. I realize the shape is very feather-y, right now, I need to make it more leaf-y.

The leaf will be Twitter Blue, but that's about it for aligning it with Twitter branding. The Twitter brand guidelines encourage other brands to use their own unique branding. Even though this project very much a part of Twitter, we like to keep our branding just for Twitter. I'm already stepping close by using a bird with one wing.

@artzstudio the rationale for the geometric illustration was to do something different than another friggin bird. At Twitter, everything is a bird.

@neagle Oh man, that cocked eyebrow may actually make it in. Good one.

👍

Heading in a good direction. Simplify (some more), IMO! We should see how this works at smaller sizes too. Keep up the great work Dave!

I really like the direction this is going.

Looking great Dave — is there a word mark also?

Logotype will be the next thing. I'll be attacking that along with the docs redesign

Love the logo. Thanks for taking the time to document your process, it's very helpful!

Looks great! Funny, when it popped up in my twitterfeed, I also thought the Bowerbird had eaten the Twitter-bird...

Also, I love the "BOWER" type, but I think the 'B' looks messy. It's neither a bird or a 'B'. Great work overall, though.

@desandro It looks so good. Great work on it!

great work! 👍
thanx for sharing the SVG

Awesome logo!!

David, I enjoyed seeing the creative process, and learning about the story behind the logo. I think extending the body, simplifying the design, and saturating the color, made a big difference! Credit to @isaacdurazo also, I was not aware that it was a blue leaf the bower bird is holding. I always thought it was a feather too, and maybe there was some connection with Twitter, now I know! Thanks for sharing, and keep up the great work!

http://nemorathwald.com/bowerbeforeafter.png

It's fascinating getting to see the this logo in making. Thanks.

Thank u, :). This was really inspiring for me.

Very nice job!

amazing!

👍

Awesome work!

Yeah awesome work @desandro 👍 😄 ! I used your first revision, geometric B for the bowerder project which is related to bower. The rendering isn't exactly the same considering that i made it from scratch, but i hope you will appreciate. I also hope that this decision isn't a problem 😄 !

Very cool to see the progress!