
Show HN: Open Logos – Free logos for open source projects - arasatasaygin
http://openlogos.org/
======
mmjaa
Very nice! My only thought is that I wish you'd update it every week with new
designs, and then sort of open it up so others can contribute their logo's for
others to use, something like a logo-bazaar with regular updates. I think
you'd attract quite a few artists willing to participate akin to DeviantArt,
although with a commercial twist.

Bookmarked for another visit in a few months just to see what sort of progress
you'll have made .. good luck!

~~~
arasatasaygin
Great idea. Honestly I was not expecting a big support like this. I hope the
current state of the project can help some projects now and hopefully in the
long term we can include new designers and help as much as project we can.

~~~
hahamrfunnyguy
Cool concept. How about using a repository on GitHub and using pull
requests/voting to manage submissions?

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schappim
This is a great example of how you can contribute to open source projects
without being a developer. Well done Arasatasaygin!

~~~
bytematic
Developers seriously need to work to incorporate designers in OSS more. Even
just basic UX would go a long way for many projects. Maybe some sort of better
issue templates, or perhaps a more custom solution is necessary?

~~~
jbrooksuk
I'm currently trying [1] this but I don't know how to pick up more traction
from designers. Perhaps I'm looking for someone who can both design (change an
existing new design) and implement it at the same time, which may be too much?
I don't know.

Good designers can make a project succeed. We need more in OSS.

[1]
[https://github.com/CachetHQ/Cachet/issues/3111](https://github.com/CachetHQ/Cachet/issues/3111)

~~~
doctoboggan
In my experience it is much easier to find someone who can mockup/wireframe
well with no coding experience.

I personally enjoy the process of taking a design and bringing it to life in
the real codebase. I find it somewhat meditative and a good task to work on
when you brain is a little overloaded.

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antirez
A few of these are great, however if you are serious about your OSS project,
IMHO you should identify one that seems like a fit, and work with the author
(paying him/her) in order to start a process to reach a logo that very
uniquely and precisely represents your project.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Another perspective is that you're a starving startup and grab a free logo to
get started; if you ever get successful, you won't have forgotten that one
logo and its artist that started you off back in the beginning, and then pay
them for their contribution.

~~~
antirez
Trust me, people forget everything.

~~~
cannonedhamster
People forget everything, especially when there's a financial or emotional
incentive to do so. This transcends any one field. It's a human trait. :( I've
worked very hard personally because I recognized this to never forget the
people who help me along the way.

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esquivalience
Are you gifting the copyright as well as the right to use the logo? Good
practice is to mention this on the webpage to help people know where they
stand. The two usual options are:

1\. When you give the right to use the logo, you also give the copyright in
the logo along with it; or

2\. When you give the right to use the logo, you retain the copyright.

(Edit - at least from an EU perspective, you can also "assert your moral
rights", which is a bit like requesting attribution. Or you can "waive your
moral rights", which is like saying no attribution is necessary. This is an
oversimplification but hits the main points.)

~~~
arasatasaygin
Hey, After giving the logo, project owner can do whatever she wants with it.
I'm not expecting anything from them. They can credit the project with
courtesy though.

~~~
yitchelle
An interesting scenario would if I use one of your logos for my project. Is
that logo still available to be used by others? Potentially, more than one
project could be using the same logo.

~~~
arasatasaygin
One logo can be only given to one project. This project will have all
exclusive rights of the logo. Every logo has one github issue that you can
introduce your project to and claim. Community can upvote your comment and you
can upvote other projects as well under these issues.

------
lexicality
Quite a lot of these look _very_ close to existing brands. Close enough that
if you do something similar to them using it you're probably going to need a
lawyer.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Hey, I did not and have no intention to steal any creative property. If I
mistakenly did anything bad to harm any kind of business or organization, I
can delete what I created, as I don't want to spend time on zero sum games
honestly. Here are some sketches, that will no prove anything also I guess :)

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LolhGR_OIaSmyX8YMQYEQK8VUHI...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LolhGR_OIaSmyX8YMQYEQK8VUHI4F-9x/view?usp=sharing)

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tEr6HJI795UvR3BrDwv0JlKBO_...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11tEr6HJI795UvR3BrDwv0JlKBO_zWgUN/view?usp=sharing)

~~~
lexicality
I certainly would not want to accuse you of theft. Inspiration certainly but
not theft.

Hell, given how much advertising and branding we're constantly blasted with
these days it doesn't even necessarily have to be conscious inspiration. I'm
convinced I've seen the "recurse" logo within the last month, but I've seen so
many icons that I can't begin to speculate where.

~~~
arasatasaygin
No worries, I'm not offended. Biggest inspiration was reading Draplin Design
Co.: Pretty Much Everything. Also [http://logo.pizza/](http://logo.pizza/) and
[https://bootstraplogos.com/](https://bootstraplogos.com/) were good projects
as reference.

------
beauzero
Some days I wake up and look at HN and see some things that give me hope from
the good ol' days (started in 95 on web stuff).

Sincerely...thank you.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thank you.

------
savydv
Hey! Great project. We are also working on a similar project
[https://themesfor.app](https://themesfor.app) which provides Free bootstrap
themes for startup and side-projects.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Looks great.

------
projectramo
I think the main reason this has done well is because of the quality of the
logos. They are simple yet detailed, and just fresh and nice.

However, is there a mechanism to "call" the logos? Suppose I want a fox one
for my open source foxy-pythons project and my arch rival uses it for foxy-
rails and we don't discover it till the great tech crunch final battle.
Shouldn't there be a way of knowing someone already used it?

~~~
Operyl
As far as I can tell, you "apply" for them and then get exclusive rights to
it. Only one project gets it?

EDIT:
[https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos](https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos)
"One logo can be only given to one project. This project will have all
exclusive rights of the logo."

~~~
projectramo
Ah, I missed that you apply for them.

I thought you just take them off the site and drop them in and go.

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NVRM
Very nice. Curently polishing a web app with a bsd front-end, but closed back-
end. Is a submission feasible? Relevant link:
[https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2858...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/285866/gplv3-frontend-
and-bsd-backend-do-i-have-to-disclose-the-backend-source/285868#285868)

------
daw___
A suggestion: I would make the "How it works" section always visible.

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unwind
Interesting, although a bit strange to me ... is the author expecting existing
projects to want to claim a logo and rename themselves, or are the names of
the logos only placeholders?

Anyway, I think the "globe"[1] one is quite close to looking like AT&T's[2]
which would at least make me a bit wary.

[1]
[https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos/issues/24](https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos/issues/24)

[2]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AT%26T_logo_2016.svg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AT%26T_logo_2016.svg)

~~~
laumars
He does explain a little more if you click the "How it works." link.

I do agree with you about the globe / AT&T logo though. Steps[1] is also very
similar to an old icon on Windows (I think it was a placeholder icon for
Microsoft Visual C++ or Borland Builder projects? But can't rightly remember
off hand)

[1]
[http://openlogos.org/logos/steps.jpg](http://openlogos.org/logos/steps.jpg)

~~~
gurkendoktor
It was probably the placeholder icon for MFC apps, shown in the middle at the
end of this blog post:

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/02/27/happy-25t...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2017/02/27/happy-25th-
birthday-mfc/)

~~~
laumars
Ahhh yes, that looks familiar. For some reason I don't remember it with
lettering on it though. With the lettering the MFC and steps logos aren't
actually that alike.

------
TuringTest
Very nice work. I love those with human characters, and the animals are cute.

~~~
arasatasaygin
@( * O * )@ thanks

------
fareesh
The head of the fox in the foxy logo looks very close to the gitlab logo

~~~
buraksarica
Because it's a fox..

~~~
fareesh
Regardless - it would be a bit counterproductive to select a logo that so
resembles that of a popular company

------
ericskiff
Thank you for this! What a wonderful contribution :)

Similarly, I provide my 8-bit music (
[https://ericskiff.com/music](https://ericskiff.com/music) ) to any game or
video makers that want to use it under an open-source compatible CC-BY
license, and it's paid such amazing dividends every day. I love getting to see
who uses it and what creative things they create! I hope you get similar
satisfaction from the projects you help enable!

------
yoz-y
Some of these are pretty nice. Although I'd say that one of the aspects that
appealed to me in creating a new project was to design an, often terrible,
logo for it.

~~~
arasatasaygin
I have this exact thing for domains :)

------
nghiatran_feels
Such a brilliant and simple idea I've seen on HN so far. It's a strong
evidence that the designer can contribute back to the community. Btw, I've
written my claim at
[https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos/issues/1#issuecom...](https://github.com/arasatasaygin/openlogos/issues/1#issuecomment-398488963)
Hope I will get it

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davej
More open source projects should have logos. This is great.

I had a similar idea a few months ago but I was coming at it from the opposite
direction (demand-side instead of supply-side). It has turned into a
repository of existing Node.js project logos instead:
[https://github.com/davej/nlogo](https://github.com/davej/nlogo)

------
iatek
Thanks arasatasaygin - As of July 1, how will you decide which logos get
awarded first? Is is by most popular of all the logos, or in order of the
GitHub issue for each logo?

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Matrixik
Example of user that started some time ago creating free logos for OS
projects: [https://github.com/Tobaloidee](https://github.com/Tobaloidee)

------
aminmemon
Nice! We at [http://draftss.com](http://draftss.com) had been thinking to do
something similar for the startup and open source software community.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I think I see where you are going with this and am interested in how your
pricing is working out.

You seem to have a flat monthly fee structure - and at a fairly "high" price
point. If I was "just" looking for a logo I could pay your monthly fee just
once at somewhere like 99designs, so I might not take retainer. But if I had
greater needs for design 250 a month would be a bargain and you are too low
and you will be doing a lot of work for nearly zero.

How has it been working out?

Have you considered tiered pricing ?

~~~
aminmemon
To get a decent logo/branding done, one would have to spend around $200-$400
where we can provide 1 month retainer for almost similar price point, which is
the real bargain! One could get their Logo, Stationery or anything else
designed with the same price point.

It has been working out really great, We have launched around more than month
back and we are at $3,325 in MRR. We are writing our journey here : Zero to
$3,325 MRR in 30 days ([http://draftss.com/blog/index.php/2018/06/18/zero-
to-3325-mr...](http://draftss.com/blog/index.php/2018/06/18/zero-to-3325-mrr-
in-30-days/))

We are looking for a strong feedback on our pricing model. What do you mean
about tiered pricing? Would love to know more :)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I _love_ the rent-an-in-house-designer concept - it solves a big mental block
I have had with the 99designs style approach.

However I get the feeling your price point may be too _low_ \- there is a lot
of value a designer can add, not just in "logos and stationary", and that can
mean a lot of work - I guess you just have to suck it and see.

Which takes me to tiers - it's a lot easier to have the "you are now in the
platinum tier" conversation than the "stop asking me to do a full time gig on
200 bucks"

As it is so hard to guess how much work, and you want to get away from looking
like it's piece work, can I suggest offering streams of work. Bear with me

Logos and stationary are one basic stream of work. But the long term gigs will
probably come from two classes of company - mid sized firms wanting to get in-
house designers to revamp the existing art work to be more consistent, and I
strongly suspect internal enterprise teams wanting to build distinctive
internal brands

That to my mind gives three streams - the try-me-out level of logos and
stationary, the internal branding and the wider revamp. Each feels like
increasing amounts of complex work. but each feels like a distinct market, and
with levels inside

Edit I guess the internal brand one is most exciting to me - give developers a
pattern library for their app, and keep adding to it as they add features or
work. A bootstrap/react pattern library that you can retheme would probably go
long way?

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m4rc1e
While I'm all for FOSS, I wouldn't use these. Branding is not the same as
writing software, you're entering a den of protectionism,
[http://www.businessinsider.com/colors-that-are-
trademarked-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/colors-that-are-
trademarked-2012-9?IR=T#magenta-2). Using these will result in a cease and
desist if your product catches on.

Fyi, used to work in branding and trademark disputes were common.

~~~
craigc
Is that true for open source software that is not making any money? I would be
very surprised if a big company went after someone maintaining an open source
project.

That would be some pretty terrible PR:

“Billion dollar company X sues open source developer because the shade of blue
used in their logo is too similar.

A spokesperson for X said that ‘Although they are releasing this software for
free to help the community, we can’t have people being confused about the
shade of blue they used.’”

It almost sounds like an Onion article to me.

~~~
majewsky
It's reality: [http://www.dw.com/en/german-caf%C3%A9-owner-takes-on-
apple-a...](http://www.dw.com/en/german-caf%C3%A9-owner-takes-on-apple-and-
wins/a-17138587)

~~~
craigc
No. That’s the opposite. That’s a small company taking on a big one and
winning. The OP that I was replying to was talking about big companies going
after minnows.

~~~
majewsky
Apple initially went after the small shop in this story.

~~~
craigc
I see (sorry I skimmed it before). From the looks of it it seems she got a lot
of support though because of that.

It’s a little different too since she was actually selling products with her
logo on them vs. developing free software, but good point.

------
timhaak
Really like as well. Have also added to your patreon :) as think we should try
and help reward things like this.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thank you very much! This is the most satisfying $1 I've ever got in a while.

------
BFatts
This is a great idea! I really like the open nature of it, especially in
regards to open source projects.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks.

------
avinashbarua
Love the idea. Like some others have said, it would be nice to have other
designers contribute.

------
Skunkleton
What a cool idea! The logos look great, and it is a really neat idea for a
project.

------
mobikasamobile
Nice. I think it would be better if there are some categories as well.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Hopefully will add if the number of the logos increase. Thanks.

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mnx
The "foxy" logo looks very much like gitlabs logo to me.

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henryluo
Thanks for the work and idea. Hope this project will take off!

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks for supporting.

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jugg1es
I just want to add to the existing kudos here. Kudos!

------
pechay
Quick! Someone plug these into an adversarial network!

Great work OP!

------
fka
Awesome move. Keep up good work!

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks.

------
diffeomorphism
> This project will have all exclusive rights of the logo

> Free logos (as in gratis? or as in liberty?)

> Open source

This seems kinda contradictory to me.

~~~
ztoben
The logos are being provided free of charge to an open source project of the
communities choice. I don't really see how that's contradictory, they make no
claim of the logos being open source.

~~~
diffeomorphism
They seem to offer proprietary logos for open source projects, which some
projects might like (branding) but others won't (proprietary). Calling them
"free logos" instead of "gratis" also does not help to clarify this at all. My
question was hence whether they offer "free as in freedom" or "free as in no
money" logos and whether non-free but gratis is appropriate for open source
projects.

------
Walkman
Terrific idea! Very nice act.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thank Walkman. (Best username ever)

------
prydt
This look amazing!

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks.

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Slown
thank you for sharing, it's really good.

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks for supporting.

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don_csay
i love it aras.. thumbs up buddie :)

~~~
arasatasaygin
Thanks bruh. We missed you in the office :)

