Helix icon/logo brainstorming

[cessen]

In #279 @pickfire suggested that we might want a logo for Helix at some point. I figured it couldn't hurt to open an issue for people to toss some design ideas around.

I don't think this is in any way urgent, so let's just have fun playing with ideas. No pressure, no real hard goal yet. And then at some point in the future, when we're actually ready for a logo, we can use this issue as a resource.

[cessen]

Here's one idea I had. Just a sketch of the basic idea, not a fleshed out logo.

[archseer]

I've been liking these type of double helix designs:

https://thenounproject.com/term/dna/57372/ https://thenounproject.com/term/dna-helix/1122681/ https://thenounproject.com/term/dna-double-helix/285077/

There's also a few cool ones on dribbble. I wanted to commission a logo initially but didn't have the budget

[robinvd]

What is the budget range required for a commission?

[DrZingo]

My contribution. Since purple is the default theme, I think the logo should be that too.

[DrZingo]

My doodling for a logo.

[CBenoit]

I really like these:

[PabloMansanet]

This is my favorite so far. It reads like "HX" and can't be easily confused with an "A" like similar ones. Reproducible, simple and clean.

[pickfire]

Yeah, those @CBenoit showed feels like xh. I also like the one that looks like disk on the right.

[DrZingo]

Some more doodling yesterday.

[sudormrfbin]

I really like this one - you can see the whole name, the x looks like a helix, and a nice splash of colors that match the default theme (the shadowed purple is a very nice touch ! ):

[kirawi]

I like it too, I think it could be polished a little further though. The helix pieces are disconnected, so I think getting that resolved first would make it look a lot better. I also think you might want to look at a different font, because that one doesn't really fit the logo. Feel free to explore further, there might be an even better design out there waiting to be thought of.

[DrZingo]

It's only sketches until we can boil it down to which one to further fix. Polishing, colors etc. is the final step. The font is easy to switch for whatever we want, I custom designed the font in 20 minutes. Here are some more (and a quickfix of the last one). When I know which design you want, I will do all touch ups, and create svg files for scaling etc. Remember that a logo can be one way, and the icon a part of it.

[pickfire]

I still prefer the one @PabloMansanet like, looks like hx. Any of the new long one with words doesn't look as nice at least to me.

[cessen]

There's something I like about the flow of @DrZingo's more recent ones, but I like the simplicity of @pickfire's favorite. I wonder if we can take the "flowiness" of the former, and apply it to the latter.

[DrZingo]

Here is two examples of how you can create a profile. I have to point out that I am not expecting you to chose any of my suggestions, I just have happened to appointed myself as logo creator by chance. The background purple in the default theme does not fit good at all on dark, you can barely see it, and looks almost black on light background (lower right).

[cessen]

@DrZingo:

I just have happened to appointed myself as logo creator by chance.

Honestly, you're doing an amazing job. My first attempt looks like crap by comparison. And I've been really impressed by how you've been taking on everyone's feedback and iterating. So as far as I'm concerned, by all means, appoint yourself. :-)

[DrZingo]

Revisiting gradients vs solid colors

[PabloMansanet]

Still feel the last one is best (by the way, I love the color split you did, gives it a lot more volume). Solid colors make it a lot easier to reproduce too.

As for the letters, they look great, but:

It may just be me, but the overlapping of the I and the X makes the gap between the L and the I appear a bit too long comparatively, to the point my first reading was "HEL 9" in roman numbers. I wonder if this can be solved with some kerning magic without making it feel crowded? It may just be me, in which case disregard.

[archseer]

@DrZingo

These are pretty great!

I like the top icon, but it could use some curve tweaking to make it look sharper. For the text itself I quite like Inter Bold that's used on the website: https://helix-editor.com/

Icon color wise, try:

fg: #ffffff bg: #281733 fg: #a4a0e8 bg: #281733 fg: #a4a0e8 bg: #ffffff

I also had a few more saturated purple colors #6F44F0 / #7958DC derived for the : helpbox.

The website also uses a subtle radial bg in the middle, from #281442 to #281733 that might suit as an app icon background. For the site itself, I guess just the icon as #fff might work, it would match with the header text.

Here's also a swatch of colibri colors: https://archseer.github.io/colibri.vim/swatch.html

[pickfire]

What about this?

[pickfire]

Or this.

[DrZingo]

@PabloMansanet I'm happy to try with other fonts, give me suggestions. Take a look at dafont.com for fonts. @archseer Instead of guessing which background you ment I did both. I also made a sketch with harder bends. Give me a link to Inter for dl, I found more than one which was the wrong font. @pickfire Yes I think some type of the disc-like is quite cool, but how cool is it in 10 years? The same goes for gradients (even if you can easily get rid of gradients in the future). Less is more, and I think we are on to something with the simple HX that both says the command and looks like a double helix/dna. Simple, works for everything from print, striping, stickers, screen, small, large.

More sketching:

[DrZingo]

Upper left is the old one we used (with a bit rounded corners) and Inter Bold upper case. The other three is 30% gray #b3b3b3, and #A4A0E8, with the font Inter Bold lower case (taken from goolge's site), with a bit of kerning. I think this one looks great. Wait an hour before you decide if you like it, as we are used to the more narrow one now. It also works on many backgrounds, like purple, white, black, dark themes, and light themes.

[archseer]

I like the first one here (& the two color black-white one next to it)

The text here is great, but I prefer the sharper icon (no soft corners).

One idea: make the horizontal line a bit more narrow? That way there's some distinction between the curve and the ladder: https://thenounproject.com/term/dna/3928/

[pickfire]

@DrZingo I like the shape in the old design, especially when the HX is very proportionate. And I like the colors more in the new one, it looks more relaxed to my eyes.

[DrZingo]

I like the first one here (& the two color black-white one next to it)

It is not black though, it's #281733. Colors look very different in text and plates, and depending on background/surrounding colors.

The text here is great, but I prefer the sharper icon (no soft corners). One idea: make the horizontal line a bit more narrow?

Should I go on with the narrow or the wide logo? I definitely like the wide one more, and it scales better too.

I like the shape in the old design, especially when the HX is very proportionate

Give the new one some time. You will probably like it more after a couple of hours.

[archseer]

Yeah I mean #281733 as helix black :)

I think the narrow logo looks better (it fits a lot nicer into the black square), but with the "ladder" part even narrower than the curve. The wide one is too wide proportionally to the text.

[teenjuna]

These look like icons I would click just for the sake of it. Very good! I personally like variants with one color more. Looks very simple and elegant.

[DrZingo]

The problem with a background for an icon is that it eats away 25% or more estate. You cant even figure out what it is if the icon is small. There is a couple of other solutions if you are afraid it would disappear on certain themes. Contrasting outline or simply change the color for different themes.

[DrZingo]

[python128]

All of the logos look good to me. Though I would suppose having an ascii character would be helpful, such that easier to type logo.

I'm thinking this one: ♓

[Aloso]

I really like the current ideas. But since I'm a perfectionist, I noticed that the curvature of the helix doesn't look entirely smooth. It should approximate a sine curve to look realistic.

[DrZingo]

Sine, but you should know that logos is never about realistic, it's about esthetics.

[cessen]

I think I prefer the non-sine one. The curve isn't as smooth, but it's more suggestive of the letters HX. It strikes a better balance, IMO.

[Omnikar]

These look like icons I would click just for the sake of it. Very good! I personally like variants with one color more. Looks very simple and elegant.

I wholly agree. These are definitely some of my favourites out of what's been posted here, but I do prefer this:

[rscircus]

Hi, thanks for this great editor. A few other ideas:

I'd like to expand upon that and bring it closer to the more recent vim logo. A bit like the one on the right. :)

[rscircus]

Alright, I brought it closer to kak and nvim: :)

Note, that the second from the right is a gradient with a shadow, while the one on the right is without. :)

[VuiMuich]

I think a combination of @DrZingo and @rscircus designs might work really well. I like the horizontal lines in the latter hinting for the application being a text editor, but the curve shape I like better in the other. Here is a very crude mockup sketch how I roughly envision the combination of those (but I am very inexperienced with inkscape, sorry): I tried to play a bit with asymmetry and indentation.

[NNBnh]

This design is a follow-up to from #946. But tl;dr:

This logo was heavily inspired by VScode's logo with Material color.

But now I make it to look more like a double helix! (I also tested it, this logo still look great on both dark and light background).

_{Figma link.}

[VuiMuich]

This design is a follow-up to from #946. But tl;dr:

This logo was heavily inspired by VScode's logo with Material color.

But now I make it to look more like a double helix! (I all so tested it, this logo still look great on both dark and light background).

Figma link.

I actually like this one a lot:

How about this direction:

Edit: :thinking: smh looking tike LZ now...

[NNBnh]

How about this direction:

Edit: thinking smh looking tike LZ now...

This could be tweaked to look more like HE (somehow).

I actually like this one a lot:

Thanks, I think that rotate the logo standing vertical not only differ it from VScode but also highlight its symmetry. So I make a rotated version for the new design too:

[archseer]

Hmm, the horizontal one looks really nice! The vertical one looks like a butterfly.

What about this angle? https://thenounproject.com/icon/dna-double-helix-285077/

And maybe experimenting with a bit more curve?

[NNBnh]

Okay! How about this? I'm trying out new thing, inspired by DrZingo design:

_{Figma link.}

Upside down version

[Omnikar]

That looks nice! But I personally don't like the slant for that particular design, especially since it IMO takes away from the fact that the it also looks like an "h" and an "x" in addition to looking like a double helix. I should add though that I do still think I prefer @DrZingo's design just because of how simple it is, even only needing one colour to be recognizable. And I'm also not quite sure about having a logo that looks similar to VSCode's, since I don't think Helix is really all that similar to VSCode.

[Aloso]

I don't like the logos that look similar to VS code. Some people will assume that it's a product by Microsoft, because it uses Microsoft's design language.

I do like the last one, but I also think that it would look better if it isn't rotated.

[NNBnh]

Thank for the feedback. At first I give this icon a bit of slanted because I want to mimic the angle from the example that Archseer gives and I pretty like it, I still think it gave the logo a bit of style and characteristic. Through after rotate it straight, I realize that this design is easier to work with, icon friendlier and somewhat more timeless:

I should add though that I do still think I prefer DrZingo's design just because of how simple it is, even only needing one colour to be recognizable.

I also make a Mono version to use in some difficult use case that require one color usage only (this now got too much inspired from DrZingo :smile:):

[pickfire]

I still prefer @DrZingo's design, it looks more 3d but just the color does not look as nice.

[dorianmeric]

I am proposing another design, using the same general idea (with a focus on legibility and making sure the logo is not mistaken for an "X")

[NNBnh]

This is probably the nicest typeface so far. But it's currently look a bit more like "ᴎelix" than "Helix"...

[David-Else]

Not a big fan of this one as I don't like the H shape or the books stacked behind.

This is nice! How about what it would look like with the words helix?

Is maybe my favourite, but still not quite there.

The ones that look like VS Code just look too much like VS Code, even though they look very professional.