Jupyter-book: Jupyter Book Logo

[javag97]

The current Logo breaks Jupyter Branding Guidelines for logo misuse (page 10). I'd be sweet if we could come to some logo ideas that accurately communicate the tone of the project and is reproducible across various screen sizes. I would be happy to help come up with some ideas if this is something we want.

[choldgraf]

yep - I know :-) I whipped together the logo quickly for a talk a while back and haven't have bandwidth to really dig into the issue. I agree it'd be good to have a logo that meets the guidelines (and is more well-thought-out in general haha). In this case, I just wasn't sure how to convey the idea of a "book" that was obviously more than a "page" without adding a third dimension, but I am more than happy to check out ideas!

[javag97]

I can come up with sketches and share some ideas!

[javag97]

Feel free to share thoughts : - ) I'm planning on further exploration.

[choldgraf]

Nice! I like the one that you've got on the "powered by" image - I had also noticed similar logos where the book was facing towards the viewer and upward, maybe something else to think of for inspiration:

[javag97]

I will iterate on that logo you liked. I will also try a direction that is more similar to what you shared and show you where that leads me.

[choldgraf]

Cool! just to be clear, I'm only suggesting! I am excited to see your own take on the design as well!

Would also love to hear @emdupre 's and @SamLau95 thoughts on this

[javag97]

I'm always open to suggestions! I tend to use periods a lot when typing on the web and I think it gives me a different tone than I intend. I've been trying to sprinkle in some varied punctuation : - )

[javag97]

A goal that I am considering is lowering color count to 2 as it will help with reproducibility. Not sure how big of a concern that is, but that limitation might lead us in a better direction. If I am not mistaken, colors _should_ be on brand.

[SamLau95]

Thanks for trying out these designs @javag97 !

Some thoughts:

• I think the logo should feel more like a "book" than a "bookmark".
• If we use a book-like graphic in the logo, I think it should be oriented in a naturalistic way. I like Chris' example of a book lying open on a table because it feels familiar to how I use books in real life. For this reason, an icon of a book hovering open with its pages open towards the bottom of the screen feels less familiar.

[choldgraf]

hey @javag97 - a friendly ping on this one! It would be great to see a better logo for jupyter book :-)

[javag97]

You got it! Apologies that I've been away from Github for a couple of weeks. Thank you for being patient with me : - )

[javag97]

Thank you for your direction. From rotating the book, the angle of which the book is open doesn't look like a book laying down on a flat surface. I will play around with that. I will also play around with color usage and reconvene when I get to a good sharing spot.

[javag97]

Happy Holidays all! I apologize busy in the past couple of months. I should have some time over the next couple of days to devote to this. I wanted to ask regarding the background of how Jupyter Book started. I just wanted to better understand where the project is now and where it is headed.

Guiding questions: How did it start? How long has it been active? Has anything substantial changed since its original idea? Anything that

[choldgraf]

Hey @javag97 - here's the short version:

The main goal of Jupyter Book is to make it easier for people to communicate their ideas with collections of Jupyter-based content. While it has always been technically possible to do this kind of thing with static site generators, at Berkeley we needed a way to do this without a ton of developer time for each book (and assuming that many teachers don't know or want to learn web development skills). So Jupyter Book was created as a way to (relatively) easily create a book that looked good, made reasonable decisions about UI/UX, and that incorporated interactive elements that were possible because we knew there was a Jupyter Notebook under the hood for each page.

In the months since, Jupyter Book has been adopted by a broader audience, and has been used for textbooks, documentation, and general guides. Its developer and user base is now much bigger than UC Berkeley, and so it is now run as a general open project.

I think that next steps for the project will be to find a way to grow the publishing features that are supported - things like equation references, cross-references, bibliographies, etc. I'd like for Jupyter Book to be an excellent, lightweight, configurable tool to create rich books that show off scientific computing content.

Does that help?

[javag97]

Yes, that works thank you for sharing! I wanted to share some of my thoughts. I have been experimenting with various versions, none of which have panned as nicely _yet_. So that y'all have access to all of my work, what I can do is set up a cloud sharing link on Sketch/Figma that will always have the most up to date version of any work I do. Any iteration of anything can be found there. I can post it tomorrow morning and give some context to explain some of the decisions across various ideas.

[javag97]

Additionally, if anyone in the thread happens to find any logos/icons we would like to move towards like the last one posted by @choldgraf, that would be very helpful. Your input and opinions are very much appreciated!

[javag97]

https://www.figma.com/file/Zsynl3FJCRFFEqTAM2J3Uj/jupyterbook?node-id=0%3A108

Let me know if y'all can see the stuff in here.

[choldgraf]

yep! I can see it!

[javag97]

That's great! With that link, you should be able to access any changes that I continue to make. I am using Figma as a place to test out and share ideas. Once we have a set direction, I can take that into something like Illustrator and refine it.

[javag97]

Happy MLK day! This is something that I've been working on taking into consideration feedback, appropriateness, distinctiveness, and reproducibility. I would like to hear your thoughts!

(This can also be found in the Figma link above)

[javag97]

Logos appearing in context (and not on a blank screen)

[choldgraf]

Thanks for the new design! It's an interesting direction - I'm not sure how I feel about the heavy use of curves in the logo. It feels a bit exaggerated to me, and is a bit difficult to parse (also, it kind of looks like an M...not sure if that's intentional).

[javag97]

Thanks for being patient with me!

My reasoning for exaggeration is to try to make it look like a book as clearly as possible. Looking back, I see the M as well... I can try to branch from here taking into account your feedback. I am looking to brew a couple of different variants and we think speaks to the needs of the community. Stay tuned!

[choldgraf]

hey all - FYI we are discussing branding of not only Jupyter Book but the other related projects in the "Executable Book Project" over here: https://github.com/ExecutableBookProject/meta/issues/57

[javag97]

@choldgraf I'm glad there's some internal discussion about that! I love it when people react strongly to my work! I have some links that I wish to share from my world because I think it can help aid discussion.

1. Sagi Haviv describes a good logo as 1. appropriate 2. distinctive 3. simple

2. Pentagram worked with DK Publishing to redesign their logo.
   This redesign came around the time I was working on this logo, so I find that quite funny. Measuring logo success based on those three metrics I think is a simple yet effective way to gauge what makes a good logo and a bad logo.

[javag97]

I hope you enjoyed that window into my world!