project logo

[rkurchin]

Eventual plan is to create a new org to host these packages, models, and we want a logo!

[cormullion]

Cool!

[rkurchin]

cataloguing some general concepts:

• something cutesy involving a camel since "CheML" kind of sounds like that if you try to pronounce it 🐫 🐪
• Anant had a cool idea about a typical Bohrian atom diagram (see e.g. this) but with the electrons as the Julia colors (if we go with this concept we should be careful to be quite distinct from the Juno logo... Perhaps we could combine the above two with a stylized "CheML" in the shape of a two-humped camel (the Ch in on and ML in the other) as the "nucleus" of the atom?

@cormullion had shared some concepts on the Slack that are nice starts but I worry they look a bit too "experimental chemistry" focused...

[cormullion]

Yes, it's going to need steering away from familiar chemistry iconography, but at least I've got it out of my head now! 😀

[cormullion]

I've not yet managed to make a convincing camel...

Meanwhile, some kind of machine learning-y vibe with Julia coloration... I thought adding the name would be useful in the early days - perhaps there is room for sub-project names there...

Pity about losing the flasks - such a strong shape! :)

[SinaMostafanejad]

Something to be aware of:

https://github.com/hachmannlab/chemml https://hachmannlab.github.io/chemml/

[cormullion]

Yes, too good an idea to be original... :(

[SinaMostafanejad]

Interestingly, its author was our software fellow at MolSSI as well.

[rkurchin]

Ahh thanks for catching that, Sina, good to know (and funny coincidence!). I'll consult with the other folks on the project again and see if there's a consensus "second-choice" name...my current leaning is toward something like ChemFlux, for the parallelism with DiffEqFlux, etc.

[rkurchin]

Seems there's good consensus around ChemFlux so let's assume it'll be that...

[cormullion]

What does 'flux' mean, in this context?

[thazhemadam]

Ahh thanks for catching that, Sina, good to know (and funny coincidence!). I'll consult with the other folks on the project again and see if there's a consensus "second-choice" name...my current leaning is toward something like ChemFlux, for the parallelism with DiffEqFlux, etc.

If I'm not wrong, DiffEqFlux is named so because it "utilizes DifferentialEquations.jl and Flux.jl as its building blocks". Wouldn't something as significant as the entire project's name sound better if it wasn't a nod of the dependencies and frameworks it uses? Just my two cents.

Also, kind of thinking outside the box here (hoping it might give someone else better ideas for a name), but maybe the project name itself doesn't have to have the word "chem" in it, or at least doesn't have to necessarily start with "chem"?

"alchemy" came to mind for some reason as a potential name. Sounds kinda cool (at least to me), it looks like "A.I. Chem-y" at first glance, and it also helps that the word "chemistry" itself is derived from the word alchemy. ("JuliAlchemy" seems a bit more difficult to pronounce)

[cormullion]

Naming things is hard! It's always nice if the name (and iconography) can convey something about the project, but in reality there's a limited number of ways you can twist groups of letters to get completely original yet meaningful names. Me, I quite like the idea of names that have nothing much to do with what they're about; like Kubernetes or Hadoop.

Being original might not matter too much - as long as there's some kind of limited uniqueness in a domain. So for example you could probably call a shampoo and a software framework the same thing, but probably shouldn't use the same name for a physics-related project and a chemistry-related one.

Searching github for project names is a quick way to check out the possible competition. There are >4000 repos with "alchemy" in the name, but if none of them are in the same field as yours, it sounds like a nice place to start from.

[cormullion]

camelia and camellia have quite a few repo hits, chamomile has a few, camomile a few more. chamelia, chemelia, and chemalia don't, though. Perhaps there's some flowery image possibilities here, too...

[rkurchin]

Okay, do people think AIChemy (with an upper-case i) is mainly confusing or mainly clever, especially given the prevalence of sans serif fonts...?

[rkurchin]

Another idea: Chemeleon

[rkurchin]

It was just pointed out that one would rarely if ever actually have to type AIChemy since it's the name of an org, not a package, so the AI could be called out by a different color in a logo...I'm now leaning somewhat towards that, though Chemelon does hold some charm too...

[cormullion]

An "A" is a nice simple shape to play with - and "alchemy" is an interesting theme, too, with lots of symbols available in Unicode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_Symbols_(Unicode_block)) (although a wizard's hat is a stretch, I admit).

Chameleons are cute, though... (Well, for reptiles they're cute...)

[rkurchin]

Zomg that chameleon is cute but the team seems to be leaning towards Alchemy spelled with an L but some logo that calls out that it looks like "AI" (if you're in a sans-serif font)

[cormullion]

I think I see what you mean:

It could be worth working up...

[rkurchin]

Oooh this is a cool concept!

[rkurchin]

Assuming you made this in Luxor, would I be able to get the script to play with? I'd of course still credit you in whatever final version we come up with.

Alternatively, here are some variations I'm contemplating:

• while obviously there should be some gold in the logo, I'm not sure I necessarily like this much...I wonder if there's a way to tone it down a bit, maybe a little "token"-like image somewhere, or even a gold-colored atom cartoon...
• I'm curious also about doing a sans-serif font and calling out the "AI" with color instead (could even by something like AI in red, "chem" in green, and "y" in purple perhaps?)

Final question: I'm about to submit a JuliaCon proposal about this work, would you mind if I put one of these as a tentative session image? I've been assured it can be changed later in the final program assuming the talk is accepted and we've iterated on the logo by then...

[cormullion]

• here's a Julia version you can play with (https://gist.github.com/cormullion/dba61ad1beedb9d8e1313837722db7d5) I'm using a font called Archer because I like the big serifs here, but probably many other serifs would do, such as Roboto Slab... Everything is positioned "manually" (ie with magic numbers) which is like holding everything together with sticky tape....
• I'm happy to continue helping you with this, so feel free to do what you will - and good luck with the proposal (although I'm sure you'll be accepted...!)

[rkurchin]

Okay, so turns out there are in fact a few packages/datasets with the name Alchemy and/or Alchemist that are close enough to our application that I'm worried about the ambiguity...so it's back to the drawing board...some other ideas, some pedestrian and others a little more "out-there"...

• ChemFlux, as we discussed before (I still think this is a solid option, as do several collaborators)
• CaraMeLize or similar (because onions, like ML models, have layers...)
• Chemeleon (also discussed above)
• chemelia or similar (also above) Another broad concept is something to do with differentiability, since differentiating through the featurization is something we eventually plan to have as a distinguishing feature. To that end, one sort of idea is playing on the nabla symbol for the vector derivative coming from the word for harp and maybe some name related to that...but I don't have any specific ideas on that front.

I'm bummed about this because I spent a bunch of time yesterday playing around in Luxor and came up with a concept I really liked for a logo... Ah well.

[cormullion]

I like(d) it! Add it to your "great ideas whose time is yet to come" folder! 😄

[rkurchin]

Playing around with camellia-type motifs, mainly inspired by this image: http://verdego.com/product/camellia-japonica-pink-perfection/

Here's what I've come up with so far:

Code:

@draw begin
    origin()
    background("green")
    local rad = 80
    local counter = 1
    for pt in reverse(spiral(15, 1.3, period=10pi, stepby=0.5))
        blendstart = between(O,pt,sqrt(rad/160))
        blendend = between(O,pt,1.2+counter^0.8/90)
        setblend(blend(blendstart, blendend, "violet","lightgrey"))
        if rad > 30
            rad = rad-1.3
        end
        circle(pt, rad, :fill)
        counter = counter + 1
    end
end

I'm not totally satisfied with the middle part yet (I think I probably need shapes other than circles), nor am I completely sure how/if I would want to integrate any lettering, or for that matter if I even like the colors, but a proof-of-concept anyway...

[rkurchin]

Other onion-related musings:

• vidalia (a few packages, but seem pretty far afield)
• cipollini

Other random ideas:

• Almiraj, a mythical creature which is a rabbit with a unicorn horn (and would allow the same playing with "AL/AI" as above

[rkurchin]

okay actually going to compile all the options still "in the running" in one post because I've just been dropping things throughout the day...

1. chemellia or similar, design concept for a logo (which could be central, or could be smaller and just serve as the dot on the I or something):
2. chemeleon, see logo concept above
3. ChemFlux (kind of vanilla, but still a reasonable option)
4. something to do with onions (because they have layers, like models...): e.g. caraMeLize, vidalia, cipollini, ...
5. chemoMiLe or similar (I like tea...)
6. Almiraj, a mythical creature which is a rabbit with a unicorn horn (which is just fun, and would allow the same playing with "AL/AI" as above
7. something alluding to differentiability, maybe playing with nablas and harps...

[venkvis]

I like almiraj! AI, Mirage. Nice wordplay and mythical creatures are great!

[rkurchin]

@cormullion, if I were to play with that, how would you suggest proceeding? e.g. for the chameleon above, did you "draw" it yourself in Luxor or just import some clipart?

[cormullion]

For something non-geometric like the chameleon I'd usually draw it on my iPad then digitize it, then the points can live as raw path coordinates in a Julia file, or, sometimes, just place an SVG on the drawing (readsvg() ... placeimage()).

I hope your Almiraj fares better than my Julyax! 😄

[rkurchin]

Okay, critiques on this option? (@cormullion I'm having so much fun with Luxor! :D )

[rkurchin]

Okay okay I'm actually going to go do something else now, but here are five versions with different fonts...

[cormullion]

Awesome work! I love it....!

A few suggestions off the top of my head:

1 You'll probably need a squarish graphic-only icon/logo which works on both light and dark backgrounds, so I'd suggest some kind of mixture of the flower and the bee placed on a contrasting color (sorry I had to quickly make a cheap rip-off of your flower design):

2 For the word mark (icon + name) you can choose colors that work well on both light and dark backgrounds - mid-tone blues and reds are usually OK: so the same colors work whatever the background, and you don't have to provide two versions, or write CSS that switches between two graphics depending on the user's background preferences...:

I'm a little bit hesitant about your gradients... perhaps a bit WordArt-y for my taste but if you love them , go for it!

[rkurchin]

It's a fair concern; now that I see the WordArt-y-ness, I can't quite unsee it haha...will keep playing, and thanks for all the other advice as well! Can I get the code for how you did the flower? I like that one and might create a sort of hybrid between the two.

[cormullion]

😄 Hybrids? - perhaps some machine learning opportunities ...

using Luxor, Colors

function main()
    Drawing(500, 500, "/tmp/chemellia.svg")
    origin()
    sethue("maroon")
    setline(0.75)
    squircle(O, 240, 240, :fill, rt = 0.3)
    for n in 110:-1:5
        rotate(deg2rad(137.5))
        petal = makebezierpath([ngon(O, n, 3, 0, vertices=true)...], smoothing=1.1)
        @layer begin
            translate(n, 0)
            setblend(blend(O, O + (n, 0),  "purple", "white"))
            drawbezierpath(petal, :fill)
            sethue("grey40")
            drawbezierpath(petal, :stroke)
        end
    end
    finish()
    preview()
end

main()

[rkurchin]

Okay, the newest iterates: both large-logo and little-box versions, on both white and black backgrounds...

[cormullion]

Nice work! I like the Arima version!

Will someone be asking "where are the Julia colors/dots"? :) Not sure they'll really fit in very well...

[rkurchin]

Thanks for everyone's help and input!