
The Design of the Emacs Logo: Part II (2003) - signa11
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/emacs/logo/logo2.html
======
sanoli
Sorry to the people who will defend free software unquestioningly, but the
logos are _bad_. That emacs logo is just downright ugly. Even the other one,
the stylized E in the circle that dkbrk talks about, is very bad. Both look
like some high school student messing around in CorelDraw for a couple of days
would come up with. The only reason I can see why the people involved in these
projects wouldn't get a real designer (meaning: someone who designs for a
living) is that they have a lot of technical skills, but very little design
understanding. Or they just don't care, knowing that in the end its how good
the code is that matters, and don't want to bother. This extends pretty much
to the whole universe of Linux software and distros. So it doesn't matter much
with Emacs, but it does matter when you want to make a distro that is user
friendly.

~~~
na85
Horrible branding is a hallmark of GNU. Even the name "GNU" is cringe-worthy.

It's a systemic problem. Some of their software is really top notch but they
seemingly remain clueless about making something that looks compelling.

Technical merits alone don't win hearts and minds.

------
dkbrk
I guess this is Emacs' "primary" logo, which has remained pretty much
unchanged since. But unless you leave the splash screen enabled, the far more
familiar logo for most people is the one used for graphical shortcuts and
thumnails. This one is derived from the horns of the GNU, forming a stylised
'E' in a circle. As it has been looking quite dated, over the past couple of
months Nicolas Petton has been redesigning it [0]. Reception from the
community has been mixed - there will always be people opposing any change -
but overall, I think, quite favourable.

[0]: [http://nicolas-petton.fr/blog/working-on-the-emacs-
logo.html](http://nicolas-petton.fr/blog/working-on-the-emacs-logo.html)

~~~
escherize
I use a similar one to that: [0].

[0]: [http://take.ms/VMJ7a](http://take.ms/VMJ7a)

~~~
ericmo
Did you mean that the one you use is similar to the one from @dkbrk comment,
or that it is similar to the one in [0]? I liked the one from [0], very clean,
where do I get it?

------
brudgers
Link to Part I:
[http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/emacs/logo/logo.html](http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/emacs/logo/logo.html)

------
escherize
The round logos on [http://emacs.sexy/](http://emacs.sexy/) are clean, clear,
beautiful updates, as well.

------
girzel
Apropos of this, there's been recent movement on the Emacs website as well, to
make it look more modern/shiny.

[http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/195496](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/195496)

