Have a mascot about admin HOT 86 CLOSED

I don't think i'll have more time to invest in this, but here are the assets of the retweet from @JacobMGEvans
Maybe someone wants to keep iterating or put in a shared figma file, or other. (.fig file and svgs for the variations)

Do whatever you want with it in the name of OSS spirit 😅

node frog (svgs & fig file).zip

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How about a Node Turtle on a surfboard? I think water / waves can represent speed as well. Also the water form is quite versatile so it can be quite flexibly styled.

Here are the standalone & integrated versions.

Standalone mascot with waves

Standalone mascot without waves

Integrated with text logo

Integrated with text logo (BW)

Here I tested the design with "V8" on the surfboard

Symbolism explained:

• 🌊 Waves → ocean → deep sea → stuff "invisible" to the naked eye (invisible to the frontend) → backend
• 💧 Water: flexible
• 🏄‍♀️ surfing: lightweight & fast
• ∞ on the surfboard: can be "infinite" (for infinite possibilities) and 8 as in "V8"
• 💪 dumbbell: heavy-duty, strength and prowess

A slightly animated version:

Let me know what you think!

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If a frog is chosen then a “it’s Wednesday my dudes” meme can be posted every week, which would be a huge plus

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I know this is not what was suggested (🐢🚀) but in a burst of inspiration i went for something more abstract (it can become anything though, a 👻, 🐢, ☠️ , etc.) i just love how this simple shapes can scale.
There are 3 different eye shapes for character variants.
It's also an example of how you can be playful with the file and/or the svgs if anyone wants to iterate over, or test things. (files attached)

node eeaao (svgs & fig file).zip

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Meet Rocket Turtle 👋 https://twitter.com/nodejs/status/1759953849849167878/photo/1

I guess this issue can be closed?

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+1 for rocket turtle. I made one for the nodebugme project a while back almost a decade ago (oh my god), happy to donate it / or for others to use it however:

pixelmator assets live here

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This is what the Node.js homepage looks like on a 4K screen. You're on to something!

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This is what the Node.js homepage looks like on a 4K screen. You're on to something!

fixed

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What about a cute little capybara?

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Velocifire mascot from 99 design

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Matteo... hear me out South African Rain Frog

https://twitter.com/JacobMGEvans/status/1702706027358036189

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i'd also echo @bnb's comment that a frog - especially a green one - should be a nonstarter for US political reasons (even though frogs are cute and i like the previous comment's artwork)

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I think it would be a much wiser choice and much better look for node to pay an actual human artist for whatever mascot the project chooses.

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Here's a rough sketch with a fresh take on the old unofficial mascot. Replaced rocket with, turbofan wings.

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My only concern with the turtle is that is usually associated with being slow 😅

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My proposal is Jess the Node Toad! (tentative name)

Concept	Quick sketch

I see that I wasn't the first one to come up with the toad concept but I think there is a consensus on either a frog/toad or a turtle (preferably with a rocket) although that might be the mascot for JS as a whole rather than Node. I have to admit that I am a lot biased towards frogs and "it's Wednesday my dudes" like @imcm7 mentioned 😉

I designed it to be a bit hexagonal and green like the Node logo with a simple :> face and I encourage people to elaborate on the idea.

Alternative versions:

Alternative concept	Alternative sketch	Face concept	Face concept 2

The last two faces could also double as a turtle.

It would also be nice to see a concept of an isometric cube turtle in the same vain as the hexagonal logo.

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We can still do a turtle, though.

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i'd also echo @bnb's comment that a frog - especially a green one - should be a nonstarter for US political reasons (even though frogs are cute and i like the previous comment's artwork)

Awww DAMMIT, I googled frog and "US political reasons"... Yeah I agree, thanks for the callout @ljharb & @bnb

Context:
https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/pepe-frog

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I'm not a fan of the turtle idea. I generated some AI images using electric eels and beavers. Electric eel represents the energy and power of Nodejs. A beaver represents the industrious nature, building complex structures, and working efficiently.

My wife (a Canadian) notes that's an otter not a beaver: They're known for intelligence, playfulness, efficiency, and adaptability.

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Hi everyone, excited to introduce the Node.js Mascot Design Contest! 🤩

• Submit by replying to our Twitter or LinkedIn posts or DM us by November 6
• Must abide by the Code of Conduct
• No AI generated art submissions
• Must be separate from the current logo
• All submissions will be reviewed by our TSC
• The winning submission will be used by our design team to create the newest Node.js mascot!

Can't wait to see what you all create 💚

• https://x.com/nodejs/status/1713984983566610540?s=20
• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7119750694634491904

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There are some great ideas in this thread! Here's an early concept from me, an (yet-to-be-named) aviator turtle. Felt like a nice reference to the unofficial mascot and also a nod to Node's hexagonal logo.

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+1 for a redesigned rocket turtle

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use AI generators for it is prettry fun

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I'd also like to request that people stop dropping AI art in here. If AI is something the project wants to go with, we're fully capable of writing prompts ourselves and having a ton of AI images in the thread is only decreasing the legibility of this issue.

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Let's do this! I'm a rocket turtle fan with a new design. Or...a rocket tortoise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tortoise_and_the_Hare

cc: @kyliewd

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^{I can be the mascot, Im already a joke 🤡}

Okay, now for all seriousness, I love the idea of the turtle and the V8 rocket ✨

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I think we would need to get a “fresh” drawing done (maybe with a contest).

Yes! The community will love it 👏

I see a lot of potential for swag! We all love stickers! ☺️🐢

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Yes ! 200%

Why not a community contest ? Would also be nice to be able to have the mascot as a 3D printable file (stl) for fun 🐢🚀

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Not sure if a turtle is the best look. We have a hexagon theme on our site, we could go with a honeybee to complement the honeycomb theme.

I believe when we were working with someone from LinkedIn, they actually took it upon themselves to do a full mascot treatment with a bee. They put a lot of work into it, and I appreciate it, but my recollection was that it wasn't quite what anyone involved with the website redesign was expecting/felt represented Node.js. I'm not sure where that treatment is, but I assume it still exists somewhere.

I'm fine with rocket turtle/redesigned rocket turtle, but would expressly prefer we don't use a frog for... uh... U.S. political reasons.

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Not sure if a turtle is the best look. We have a hexagon theme on our site, we could go with a honeybee to complement the honeycomb theme.

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oh crap, I completely agree @ljharb. Being not US'ian I wasn't aware of that. Sorry! 🥹

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it's AI works, really ugly, lol

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The above discussion has focussed primarily on different vertebrates. I was wondering if a more appropriate logo would be the honey bee.

The nodejs logo uses a lot of hexagons and bees use hexagon shapes when they build their hives. Bees are also highly social creatures which would match nicely with the idea of nodejs relating to a "node in a network" (@ThisIsMissEm).

Both bun (https://bun.sh/) and deno (https://deno.com/) place their mascots in circles next to their logos. A nice twist on this might be to place a bee within a hexagon shape a bit like the attached, which was put together using GIMP and Inkscape.

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turtle with rockets and goggles

can be dynamic, too, where it's just a hexagon until the turtle and rockets come and extend out

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Let's have a contest, post it to hackernews, winner gets $1000. I'll help contribute to the pot.

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I've just seen the tweet that went out on the official Node.js twitter feed, calling for submissions in a logo design contest, and quite frankly, I'm deeply upset: this is speculative work, and undervalues the work that designers do.

Primer on "Spec Work" (Speculative Work): https://www.nospec.com/
Longer thoughts: https://hachyderm.io/@thisismissem/111264978146405220

The notion of spec work being harmful dates back to at least 2007. Have we learned nothing? Just because Node.js is an open source project, that relies on 'volunteer' contributions (often from those employed by large companies specifically to work on node.js), does not mean that it should rely on speculative design work, which greatly undervalues the value that designers bring when they create branding for a project.

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What about Xuanwu? It is a mythical beast in ancient China, and its image is a combination of a snake and a turtle.wiki

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My only concern with the turtle is that is usually associated with being slow 😅

Well as we say in french : ne pas confondre vitesse et precipitation !

A turtle can be seen as an animal moving steadily, that's fine for me :D

https://read.gov/aesop/025.html

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@nodejs/tsc should we delegate to the OpenjS marketing committee to organize a contest and then have us (or a subset of the TSC) as final judges?

@mcollina currently working on a plan and will contact the TSC very soon. 😄

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Update, looks like OpenJSF folks are taking it from here

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A contest would be amazing! I would leave it open to new ideas, maybe something totally new 😄

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i approve the idea of a tortoise

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@ThisIsMissEm Oh! The "rocket turtle" was Node's unofficial mascot ca. the <0.5 days, pre-2011 – the illustration @mcollina posted is by James Halliday, AKA Substack, who was one of the early node community's most influential contributors. IIRC it's in reference to the V8 "rocket engine" speeding up the JavaScript language (I'd be kind of sad to see the turtle go, though I understand it's not got the most relevance anymore!)

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How about instead of a turtle or frog, we say it's a toad (w/a rocket?), which rhymes with Node.
e.g. "Toby the Node Toad" 😉 " 'Tobe' the Toad, for Node" 🤣

...just saying, more specifically,

maybe something like this ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ?

e.g. "Toby the Node Toad" 😉 " 'Tobe' the Toad, for Node" 🤣

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Thank you for the positive feedback @michaelfaith. I've made a slight adjustment to the antenna and now we have something that works on both light and dark backgrounds (first image). I've also inserted the mascot within the nodejs logo to see how it would look (second image). You can see it also works well on a lighter background if this were required (third image).

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It's kinda sad how most of the Tweet's replies are "AI" generated nonsense when it was clearly stated no "AI" generated submissions 😔

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How about instead of a turtle or frog, we say it's a toad (w/a rocket?), which rhymes with Node.

e.g. "Toby the Node Toad" 😉 " 'Tobe' the Toad, for Node" 🤣

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@nodejs/tsc should we delegate to the OpenjS marketing committee to organize a contest and then have us (or a subset of the TSC) as final judges?

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FWIW, as a collaborator and someone who has been through multiple iterations of the "we should have a mascot" discussion, I would highly recommend we try to avoid design by committee. It's worked once in the past (io.js logo was a design by committee, IIRC) and never again. I would like to see this find success, so felt obligated to say this 😅

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A spider, because the modules, the code and the rest are as tangled as its web. And node is for web. And the programmers are like the flies that landed in his net.

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I don't think i'll have more time to invest in this, but here are the assets of the retweet from @JacobMGEvans Maybe someone wants to keep iterating or put in a shared figma file, or other. (.fig file and svgs for the variations)

Do whatever you want with it in the name of OSS spirit 😅

[node frog (svgs & fig file).zip](https://github.com/nodejs/admin/files/12623256/node.frog.svgs.fig.file.zip)

Where do we vote XD

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The nodejs logo uses a lot of hexagons and bees use hexagon shapes when they build their hives. Bees are also highly social creatures which would match nicely with the idea of nodejs relating to a "node in a network" (@ThisIsMissEm).

I love the bee idea, personally. Themes align well.

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but actually I like the image from the first post better

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What about a "Spider" as a pet ?

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Love this! I will start doing some thinking 🤓 💻

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Isn't the Deno logo also sort of a turtle?

@ovflowd no, Deno is a dinosaur.

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We discussed in the TSC meeting last week so removing from the agenda going forward.

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@kyliewd what exactly does

Must be separate from the current logo

imply?

I see a lot of Twitter submissions that are based on the original logo. Is this a strict no-go?

Also, the Twitter DMs are restricted to verified (premium) users.

hi @zimonitrome ! i hear you. the goal is not to replace the node logo, it's to have a supplemental icon to the logo. so we just don't want something created on top of the logo itself. hopefully that makes sense!

most of the submissions we are getting are through replies so all good. i'm monitoring and collecting them :)

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Text-based mascot idea:

<• _ •>

<' o '>

<# . #>

<` ~ `>

<- , +>

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I think we would need to get a “fresh” drawing done (maybe with a contest).

Absolutely, though I also agree with what @marco-ippolito said, new ideas would be good too.

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arachNode? With a cute cartoon spider? 🤷🤷

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hi @zimonitrome ! i hear you. the goal is not to replace the node logo, it's to have a supplemental icon to the logo. so we just don't want something created on top of the logo itself.

Thanks @kyliewd, I thought as much 🙂

Hopefully it's still okay to take inspiration from the current Node logo when creating mascot submissions (i.e. green color, hexagon outline, cube shape).

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I've just seen the tweet that went out on the official Node.js twitter feed, calling for submissions in a logo design contest, and quite frankly, I'm deeply upset: this is speculative work, and undervalues the work that designers do.

fwiw I completely agree with @ThisIsMissEm on this. I was also deeply upset when I saw that was the approach we took, especially since we've done it multiple times in the past and... it's never been ethical or at least not in the instances I've seen and it ends up taking advantage of community members who put time, energy, and effort in only to toss away their work when we instead could be directly compensating someone we as a project (presumably the TSC) select for their work.

Initially I wasn't going to say anything, and I don't plan on saying anything further, but wanted to +1 what @ThisIsMissEm said since I both agree with it and appreciate her speaking about it.

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"Spiders" are a professional Node Makers !!!

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Love this

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Wow, I didn't even know there was an old unofficial mascot.

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Not sure if a turtle is the best look. We have a hexagon theme on our site, we could go with a honeybee to complement the honeycomb theme.

The turtle's shell is made of green hexagons 😉 That image is so good on so many levels.

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Isn't the Deno logo also sort of a turtle?

I also think that even tho turtles are slow, they are steady and live long ;D

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would love another design apart from the turtle

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Isn't the Deno logo also sort of a turtle?

@ovflowd no, Deno is a dinosaur.

Oh true!!

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I have really enjoyed working with NodeJS and would be glad to see it have an official mascot.

I am not a graphic designer so not sure how I could contribute.

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At least for me since beginning of usage of NodeJS the turtle with rocket was always seemed as the true mascot of Node.
So I would vote also for a rebump of it.

Feel free to use my cat(profile pic, but he was too young in the pic, nowadays he is lazy and fatty , like Garfield haha) which is also Node hehe

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There are relatively few green animals that look good inside a round shape (a grasshopper is not round, neither is a lizard, a snake, an alligator or a centipede) - which means that there are few options besides a frog or a turtle. It is a pity for the frog, because it seems to be everyone's favorite. I am not sure that a stylized frog wouldn't be ok - just don't make it look like Pepe which would be bad taste anyway - a meme is a bad choice for a mascot no matter what else it is used for. Maybe you should ask a PR consultant.

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Maybe the competition is to come up with the best way to use this potentially huge platform in "tech for good" way. The principles, subsequent behaviours and comunication methods (broadness, credibility, unpreachy) of the mascot would be the first design challenge, the visual would then follow - in my head mascots are not just drawings, they're usually people. There's a whole bunch of things, global healthcare, climate, education of women, vaccine distribution, etc.

It's a good challenge competition-wise as well, the mad bit of my brain says get companies that use Node to compete on this one rather than (or with) contributors, as they might have a bit of cash and/or brains to fire the rocket up.

These are just my quick ideas though. There are better ones for sure! The mascot could forgo swag and hand out donations, TB vaccines for example, or better, offer a choice for the "unswagged"? Or, could they make a point of being resource negative; or, focus on women's education outside our bubble?

[[ I did some number searches - successfully, once I got past the unqualified search giving just US results then adding "global" producing eager node educators - and I'm sure there'll be folk here that know more than my short search - but here's a few: 30 million websites globally - 36% of devs globally (~10mil) - 2% of the entire web - 85 countries - most popular at start-ups - sat under some of the biggest tech brands inc Netflix, Ebay, Amazon and Reddit. ]]

An example in the real world: https://www.moretondaily.com.au/news/mascots-with-a-message - coincidentally one is a turtle.

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Hmm... everyone is suggesting animals, that's boring. Why not use something different which everybody loves - ice cream! Other foods can also work... well maybe not buns :)

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I'm not sure why everyone's loving turtles here.. I always think of node.js as in "node in a network", so perhaps a little circle stick-figure type character. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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@ThisIsMissEm Oh! The "rocket turtle" was Node's unofficial mascot ca. the <0.5 days, pre-2011 – the illustration @mcollina posted is by James Halliday, AKA Substack, who was one of the early node community's most influential contributors. IIRC it's in reference to the V8 "rocket engine" speeding up the JavaScript language (I'd be kind of sad to see the turtle go, though I understand it's not got the most relevance anymore!)

I'm well aware @chrisdickinson, I've been around in the community since the 0.0.95 days, you just mightn't recognise me today :)

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@ThisIsMissEm D'oh, my apologies! I wanted to give some context around why everyone was loving turtles for those missing it. (Sorry again!)

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A new rocket turtle would be rad.

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If a frog is chosen then a “it’s Wednesday my dudes” meme can be posted every week, which would be a huge plus

Color is not what is need to be, more green like node site and logo.

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It was recently pointed out on twitter by @bnb and @marco-ippolito that Node.js does not hav mascot.

Tweets for posterity:

https://twitter.com/bitandbang/status/1701328551201350138

https://twitter.com/matteocollina/status/1702639741768708340

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@kyliewd what exactly does

Must be separate from the current logo

imply?

I see a lot of Twitter submissions that are based on the original logo. Is this a strict no-go?

Also, the Twitter DMs are restricted to verified (premium) users.

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Tagged for agenda as Foundation staff will provide a private update on how the submissions are goind so far.

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It seems that people in this thread missed the whole "Must be separate from the current logo" part

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