The new logotype looks great. The capitalization is a non-issue in the long term, it doesn't matter if people continue calling it lowercase git.
I have qualms about the Octocat mark though. Everyone wants to be Apple and drop their name in favor of a recognizable logo. What people forget is that the logo for Apple is actually an apple. That's what made it so easy for Apple to adopt this strategy early on. The same approach can work for companies that have a massively recognizable brand and an advertising budget dedicated to burning the icon into our retinas (Nike). But it still requires having a memorable mark.
For applications of the logo where scale comes into play, GitHub's designers clearly haven't reviewed their branding 101 coursework. Read Paul Rand's IBM style guide for a refresher on the 8-stripe and 13-stripe versions of his logo. The applications they show on their site at 30x30px and lower are barely readable.
The original Apple logo was doubly clever, as it referred to both of Newton's important contributions to physics (gravity and prismatic separation of light).
There is also a story saying that it was a reference to Alan Turing, who committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple following a forced hormonal treatment after being convicted of the "crime" of homosexuality.
When the Octocat Mark is rendered at any size less than 75x75 pixels, it's pretty much impossible to tell that the "tail" of the cat is actually a tentacle.
That's unfortunate, because on https://github.com/logos the only recommended use for the mark is in social buttons, which are going to be relatively small.
Even at larger sizes, the tentacle just seems tacked on.
See the home button in the upper left corner of the page. You don't see the suckers but it is recognizable. I don't think they're terribly worried about seeing those details.
Agree. They should have a guideline about using the cat at small sizes, or provide customized low-rez versions. I looked at it and thought it might have worked better if they ditched the suckers and just used multiple waving tentacles.
The homepage now looks very bland. Perhaps to people who really know typography the GitHub name is very distinct, but to me it doesn't distinguish itself and reminds me of a bootstrap site with a couple hours of tweaking more than a unique and memorable brand / style.
Given the old icon was just a lowercase g in various containers, I think this is a good step. The octocat is already recognizable, and although it's a little too detailed for small rendering, it's still relatively unique and distinct.
Nice work on this one. It may not be the perfect symbol, but it is uniquely and definitively github.
While I love GitHub, and I use it on a daily basis... I'm really confused how news like this gets to the very top, but other submissions (many highly technical) sometimes barely get 5 votes. I'll get off my soapbox now.
I wasn't suggesting anything's wrong with it. Certainly the creator of Bootstrap has liberty to copy himself. I guess I'm just a little surprised he didn't want to showcase his variety.
The purple space background was designed by an illustrator here at GitHub and I just put it to use. That the page ended up being purple and blue like Bootstrap is kind of just a coincidence. Previously the Enterprise site's background was a custom-made OS X ish space background—lots of blue and gold.
Beyond that I don't see a huge concern of the two looking similar. Bootstrap 3's homepage will be massively different from v2s today if it helps though.
We make quite a few octocats here at GitHub. Since they probably wouldn't be seen by more than a few people internally, we created the Octodex as a way to show them to the world. Everything on this list is official GitHub artwork and is under GitHub's trademark license, so we only include submissions from people affiliated with GitHub."
And their quality is indeed very high.
Since others might be wondering about the implications of what you quoted:
"Q: Can I make my own octocat?
So long as it is created for personal/fan use, you are more than welcome to create and display your own octocat. If you choose to distribute your octocat, you may not do so with a license, Creative Commons or otherwise, that allows modification or distribution of the octocat."
It probably feels to them like GitHub is so well known that the company needs to be called that. I think they're actually early enough on that they could just make it one of their products.
Well, it's pretty common to have a generic name for your corporation. No one but their lawyers ever really knew about that name. I'm saying that I think they could actually build a corporate brand separate from GitHub.
It seems that GitHub wants a more "serious" look. I wonder why that is. Do managers dismiss GitHub for Enterprise as a possibility because it feels hackish/unprofessional?
I'd really like to hear their thoughts around the capitalization of GitHub. Everyone who uses git interacts it with it in downcase. To see it upcased like that is unfamiliar.
I think the difference is the command vs the product. Even the git homepage refers to it in uppercase almost everywhere [0]. A similar example would be capitalizing Java everywhere, but using java for commands.
I'm a little surprised by the striking similarities between Octocat and the "Octonauts" (www.octonauts.com) - a cartoon in the UK that my two kids are mad about.
I'm trusting that these copyright/design right concerns have been contemplated at least - not least because of the similarity in name as well as in design.
(See the google images link for a collection of octonauts: http://goo.gl/Xek21)
If the Octonauts wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octonauts) is correct, the show's airing was 2 years after the founding (and copyrighting of the octocat) of GitHub
The Wikipedia page also notes that the Octonauts are based on books published in 2006, 2 years before the founding of Github.
While I am not a lawyer, I do not think there is very much similarity between the two. Github's Octocat is half-octopus, half-cat. The Octonauts are 8 nautical animals (including an octopus and a cat).
Not really that similar, big heads and round ears. The artist who drew the octocat has plenty of other characters in the same style: http://www.idokungfoo.com/
That...thing...doesn't really do much for me as far as a corporate logo goes. Rather complex shape (see references to scaling problems), sorta catish but not, WTH is that weird tail (cat, four legs and a...), this post is the first reference to "octo" I've seen in the months I've used the service, there's 5 limbs not 8, etc. Makes me think of a little kid in a Halloween costume.
"Github" name works fine. "Git" spoofs "get" a la archiving, "hub" is central connector/repository, concatenated the name just rolls off the tongue and instantly works as a coined term. Rendered in a nice unique font, great. But then there's that creature...
It was a stock image that started on the 404 page. People loved it, so the octocat started showing up in more and more places and then grew to become the logo.
"git" can mean anything, depending on your mood.
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not
actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a
mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the
dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually
works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks
I may be reading too much between the lines, but thy post, and the logo-page, are corporate, goal driven projects (maybe top down) that are then wrapped up in nice fluffy words.
Its not the same as nice fluffy ideas, getting thrown out and tested, with maybe as much attention from lawyers as aspell.
Of course it happens, but this is the time github went from that nice sparky startup, to the long slide into corporate beige.
In many ways its a triumph, startups just don't succeed like this. And I would wish success and money and more success on them all - but my antennae twitched.
Still paying monthly for it though. Octocat will cry all the way to the bank
The negativity and bitterness (even when wrapped in the veil of a nice comment) on HN continues.
The only difference between a sell-out and a not-sell-out is the presence of a buyer. That's it.
How you treat your customers and your employees, the work you put into your products, and the service and loyalty that you engender in continued business is all that matters. GitHub does all those things extraordinarily well, and more.
Changing a typography and logo a tiny bit signifies nothing more than they wanted to change their brand's typography and logo a tiny bit.
Providing the usage scenarios for their marks is not needed at worst, and really useful at best.
Uh, what? Github is still run by its founding team. They're big because they sell something that is extremely awesome compared to the market substitutes. The good guys don't always win, but they did this time. Spare us the anti-corp agita.
They are stretching past the ability of a founding team to be intimate with everything - which in many many ways is fantastic - top 1% of startups only.
But I read an outsourced rebranding that came in nicely wrapped up, even with legalese in appendix A. And then octo-goodness sprinkled on top. This does not feel like a move and an announcement with GitHub DNA at is heart. It feels added on. Done well, but my antennae twitched.
The move from scrappy startup to 100m in funding is fantastic - real poster-boy stuff. But losing your identity in that move, what makes that team great, is so common it should have a name.
I want Preston-Warner et al to succeed. I want them to leap the chasm into a functioning corporate body that does whatever they have planned. But this one feels like the huge difficulties in running a fast growing high profile company might just be stretching them. I don't know - all I have are inferences and hunches. Maybe they have time each day to think and ruminate on what GitHub needs to become, have time for creativity. Or maybe they run from one to another meeting exhausted at days end. Who knows.
But like I said, if they even read this, they can wipe the tears away with bunches of Benjamin's. good for them, good luck. Think of it commenting on growing pains, not diagnosing terminal cancer
Anti-corp agita? I used to take over the college buildings in student protests, then sit up all night arguing market driven solutions beat socialism everytime.
Who cares. Lone founders are apt to redesign logos too. The fluffy language was probably added because a simple, "here's our new logo cause it's better" is probably a little too brief, especially for companies who may have incorporated those marks into their own assets, and need a little justification for re-work.
-Very similar logotype
-Signup form on the right, with huge signup button
-Tons of whitespace w/ 'floating' elements
-Footer styled very similar
-Same ___location on the page and method of promoting their paid product -etc
Looks pretty twitter bootstrap like, if you ask me. I feel that a lot of designs are ending up like this due to bootstrap influence, which, might be influenced by dropbox for all I know.
I wrote all the styles for Bootstrap and refactored GitHub's forms and buttons a few months ago for a similar approach. Not 100% the same, but definitely close. All those styles are tested thoroughly within Bootstrap and made it super easy to update and standardize our styles, while at the same time dropping mad duplicate code.
The overall homepage though I think looks nothing like Bootstrap's docs, if that's what you're implying. Also, Bootstrap, and GitHub, was not influenced by Dropbox. We just iterated on that stuff internally in a pull request and shipped when we were happy with it.
I wasn't implying that it looks like Bootstrap's docs, I was saying that it looks influenced by the conventions Bootstrap conforms to, which, makes sense from your first paragraph.
Either way, I don't think it matters. It looks good and clean.
Slipped my mind that you went to Github. Definitely looks a lot like Bootstrap as well. Though if it wasn't inspired by Dropbox, there are nevertheless some strong similarities. Namely the signup form, footer and the call to action for the paid product. I can see developers not understanding what I mean, but surely a designer must!
Not trying to be critical by the way. I'm a huge fan of every company/framework/person etc mentioned here. I'm just really interested in the form, function and messaging of homepages.
I have qualms about the Octocat mark though. Everyone wants to be Apple and drop their name in favor of a recognizable logo. What people forget is that the logo for Apple is actually an apple. That's what made it so easy for Apple to adopt this strategy early on. The same approach can work for companies that have a massively recognizable brand and an advertising budget dedicated to burning the icon into our retinas (Nike). But it still requires having a memorable mark.
For applications of the logo where scale comes into play, GitHub's designers clearly haven't reviewed their branding 101 coursework. Read Paul Rand's IBM style guide for a refresher on the 8-stripe and 13-stripe versions of his logo. The applications they show on their site at 30x30px and lower are barely readable.