From d73985633bee32bf846cfdf82891238f2f371757 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Nexoniarz Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2026 18:19:09 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] docs: a branding folder, and the three marks are not interchangeable Shift is the logo, Guru is the icon, SchCotie is the mascot, and the difference between them is not stylistic. An icon works once, at one size, in one state. A mascot has to be able to *do* things -- confused, pleased, asleep, seen from behind -- which is why it costs more and is drawn last. Written down because this is exactly the kind of decision that gets re-derived badly. Assets/ becomes docs/branding/, which also fixes two things: * Filenames had spaces in them, so every reference needed quoting. They are lowercase and hyphenated now. * Assets/ held hand-written SVG and generated PNG in one directory, which is the one rule docs/guides/layout.md states. The guide records what was previously only in people's heads: * The constraint everything answers to -- include/logo.h is a 128x128 single-channel coverage mask, so a mark has to survive as a solid shape in one colour and be recognisable at 24 px. Colour is the last decision, never the first. * Guru's purple is load-bearing. PSOGM_BG #4B1D9A is deliberately not the accent #7C5CFF, and theme.h's rule is that the full-bleed purple belongs entirely to failure. If Guru appears in accent violet on a sticker, the deep purple stops meaning "the machine stopped" -- and it is the only colour in the system that means anything. * Why shift-mask.svg is a separate file from shift.svg. mklogo.py reads ink as (255 - luminance) * alpha, so tones survive as coverage and the relationship inverts: darkest here is brightest on screen. Copying the violet fills would light the object from below. * Why a raster is committed beside its SVG. inkscape is not a build prerequisite, so requiring a vector rasteriser would break the build on most hosts for a file that changes about once a year. * That the BSD daemon is copyrighted and SchCotie must be drawn from the concept rather than from Beastie. A daemon is a Greek daimon and a Unix background process; neither is ownable. The pitchfork, the sneakers and that face are. Format rule: SVG, or PNG at high resolution with no lossy compression, nothing else. SVG is the source of truth for every mark and a raster is generated from it, never edited. include/logo.h regenerates byte-identical from the new path -- only the source comment differs. The two old wordmark SVGs were deleted outside this session and are left deleted; their PNGs are kept as superseded-*.png for reference. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2 --- Assets/SchOS Full Logo.svg | 138 -------------- Assets/SchOS Text Logo.svg | 130 ------------- Makefile | 2 +- README.md | 2 +- docs/README.md | 12 +- docs/branding/README.md | 179 ++++++++++++++++++ .../SchOS Guru.svg => docs/branding/guru.svg | 0 .../branding/shift-mask.png | Bin .../branding/shift-mask.svg | 2 +- .../branding/shift.svg | 2 +- .../branding/superseded-full-logo.png | Bin .../branding/superseded-text-logo.png | Bin .../branding/uberblock.svg | 0 include/logo.h | 2 +- tools/python/mklogo.py | 4 +- 15 files changed, 196 insertions(+), 277 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 Assets/SchOS Full Logo.svg delete mode 100644 Assets/SchOS Text Logo.svg create mode 100644 docs/branding/README.md rename Assets/SchOS Guru.svg => docs/branding/guru.svg (100%) rename Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.png => docs/branding/shift-mask.png (100%) rename Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.svg => docs/branding/shift-mask.svg (94%) rename Assets/SchOS Shift.svg => docs/branding/shift.svg (94%) rename Assets/SchOS Full Logo.png => docs/branding/superseded-full-logo.png (100%) rename Assets/SchOS Text Logo.png => docs/branding/superseded-text-logo.png (100%) rename Assets/SchFS Uberblock.svg => docs/branding/uberblock.svg (100%) diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Full Logo.svg b/Assets/SchOS Full Logo.svg deleted file mode 100644 index b7bc5c7..0000000 --- a/Assets/SchOS Full Logo.svg +++ /dev/null @@ -1,138 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Text Logo.svg b/Assets/SchOS Text Logo.svg deleted file mode 100644 index 74e56ff..0000000 --- a/Assets/SchOS Text Logo.svg +++ /dev/null @@ -1,130 +0,0 @@ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile index b279425..27cb7a9 100644 --- a/Makefile +++ b/Makefile @@ -1045,7 +1045,7 @@ qemu-schfs: esp $(BUILD)/schfs.img $(OVMF_CODE) $(OVMF_VARS) # The mark, not the wordmark. "SchOS Text Logo.png" is the text form and would # be illegible scaled to LOGO_PX; the small logo this used to name is gone, # replaced by the full logo, which is the same mark slightly redrawn. -LOGO_SRC = Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.png +LOGO_SRC = docs/branding/shift-mask.png LOGO_PX = 128 logo: diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 3954901..5b401fd 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-SchOS +SchOS **A 64-bit operating system, written from the metal up.** diff --git a/docs/README.md b/docs/README.md index 7a5de3f..9d6e620 100644 --- a/docs/README.md +++ b/docs/README.md @@ -10,8 +10,10 @@ different questions and go stale at four different rates. | **[guides/](guides/)** | *How to work on it* | Imperative. Build it, test it, add to it. | | **[history/](history/)** | *Why it is the way it is* | Past tense. Bugs whose cause is not visible from the fix. | -Plus one rule that belongs to no category and applies to everything: -**[licensing.md](licensing.md)** — read it before copying anyone else's code in. +Plus two that belong to no category and apply to everything: +**[licensing.md](licensing.md)** — read it before copying anyone else's code in — +and **[branding/](branding/)**, which holds the marks and the rules for using +them. --- @@ -98,6 +100,12 @@ good chance it is in there. | [layout.md](guides/layout.md) | Repository map, and how to add a program or a port. | | [adding-a-driver.md](guides/adding-a-driver.md) | Writing one, binding it, publishing its class vtable. | +## branding/ — the marks + +| | | +|---|---| +| [README](branding/README.md) | Shift the logo, Guru the icon, SchCotie the mascot: what each is for, the colour rule, and why a raster is committed next to its SVG. | + ## history/ — why it is the way it is | | | diff --git a/docs/branding/README.md b/docs/branding/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c498293 --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/branding/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,179 @@ +# Branding + +Three marks, three different jobs. They are not interchangeable and the +difference is not stylistic. + +| | | | +|---|---|---| +| **Shift** | *the logo* | An abstract mark. Non-human, non-animal. Signs the system. | +| **Guru** | *the icon* | A pictogram. Denotes one state. Has a face; has no body. | +| **SchCotie** | *the mascot* | A character. Has a body, poses and expressions. | + +The distinction that decides everything else: **a mascot has to be able to +do things.** An icon works once, at one size, in one state. A character has to +work confused, pleased, asleep and from behind — which is why it costs more and +why it is drawn last. + +--- + +## The one constraint everything answers to + +**The kernel draws its mark as a 128×128 single-channel coverage mask.** +`include/logo.h` holds no colour at all — two pixels per byte, sixteen levels of +ink — and the kernel composites it in whatever `include/theme.h` says. + +So any mark that will end up there has to survive as **a solid shape in one +colour at 128 px, and be recognisable at 24**. That rules out hairlines, thin +rings and anything that depends on a gradient to read. The mark this replaced +failed on all three counts. + +Colour is therefore the *last* decision, never the first. Design the silhouette, +then colour it. + +--- + +## Shift — the logo + +`shift.svg` + +Three slabs, displaced: the layer diagram in +[../architecture/README.md](../architecture/README.md) as a solid object, and +the kernel's name (**SchIFT**) as a shape. + +- **Any colour.** This is a fact about the pipeline, not a preference — the + coverage mask carries none, so the loader draws it in metal and the kernel in + the theme accent, from the same bytes. +- **With or without a wordmark.** Set "SchOS" beside it in **Roboto Bold**, + which is already in the tree (`ports/Roboto`), already Apache-2.0, and already + in `NOTICE`. +- Non-human and non-animal, permanently. The character work belongs to + SchCotie; a logo that starts growing a face has taken the mascot's job. + +## Guru — the icon + +`guru.svg` + +The crash face. Mythic rather than cartoon — closer to a temple carving than a +character — square or nearly so, with an expression that stays in the +`:(` / `:|` register. + +**Purple, and only purple, and only here.** `theme.h` states the rule it +enforces: + +> normal states are calm and dark; only failure is loud. PSOGM keeps the +> full-bleed purple entirely to itself, which is what makes it mean something. + +That purple is `PSOGM_BG #4B1D9A`, and it is deliberately **not** the accent +`#7C5CFF`. If Guru ever appears in accent violet on a splash, a sticker or a +README header, the deep purple stops meaning *the machine stopped* — and it is +the only colour in the system that means anything at all. + +So: Guru does not leave the crash screen. + +## SchCotie — the mascot + +*Not drawn yet.* + +A daemon: **the process that works while nobody is watching.** The horns are a +pun on the word; the meaning is the background job that keeps running after you +have walked away — which is `schinit` supervising, restarting what dies, awake +at 3am. Patient and watchful rather than mischievous. + +Horns carry **X** — POSIX, Unix, X11 — one substitution reading three ways. + +Two constraints that follow from the section above. A thin X is two diagonal +strokes and dissolves at small sizes, so it wants to be **solid wedges with the +X notched out as negative space**: the horn silhouette survives downscaling and +the X appears as you get closer. And it needs a **turnaround** — front, side, +three-quarter, matching heights on shared construction lines — because a +character drawn once at one angle only ever works at that angle. + +### The licensing point, which is not optional here + +**The BSD daemon is copyrighted.** Marshall Kirk McKusick holds it and the terms +are not a free licence. A character that reads as "Beastie, but purple, with X +horns" is a derivative-work argument, and this mark would be in every image +SchOS ships, beside a `NOTICE` file this project has been careful about. + +The concept is not the problem. A daemon is a Greek *daimon* and a Unix +background process — neither is ownable. What belongs to Beastie is the +execution: the pitchfork, the sneakers, that red, that face, that pose. Horns, a +tail and a small imp are generic and thousands of years old. + +**Draw from the idea. Do not have a picture of Beastie open while you do it.** + +--- + +## Colour + +From `include/theme.h`, which is the source of truth. Nothing here restates a +value it does not already define. + +| | | | +|---|---|---| +| `SCH_BG` | `#0C0E13` | Ground. Near-black with a blue cast, because pure black reads as "switched off". | +| `SCH_FG` | `#E6E8EC` | Primary text | +| `SCH_DIM` | `#707784` | Secondary | +| `SCH_ACCENT` | `#7C5CFF` | The one accent. Shift, SchCotie, anything calm. | +| `PSOGM_BG` | `#4B1D9A` | **Failure only.** Guru's ground and nothing else's. | + +## File formats + +**SVG, or PNG at high resolution with no lossy compression.** Nothing else. + +No JPEG anywhere — a mark is flat colour with hard edges, which is the exact +case JPEG is worst at, and the ringing it leaves around an edge is permanent. +No screenshots of marks. No re-exports of re-exports: go back to the SVG. + +**SVG is the source of truth for every mark.** A raster is something generated +from it, never edited. + +## What is in here, and why a raster is committed + +``` +shift.svg the logo, in colour +shift-mask.svg the same geometry in greys -- see below +shift-mask.png rasterised from it, committed on purpose +uberblock.svg SchFS +guru.svg the crash icon +superseded-*.png the old wordmark, kept for reference only +``` + +The pipeline is three stages: + +``` +shift-mask.svg --(inkscape)--> shift-mask.png --(make logo)--> include/logo.h +``` + +**Both intermediates are committed, and that is deliberate.** `inkscape` is not +a build prerequisite — see [../guides/building.md](../guides/building.md) — so a +build that required a vector rasteriser would stop working on most hosts for the +sake of a file that changes about once a year. The PNG is regenerated by hand +when the SVG changes, and `make logo` turns it into the header. + +### Why the mask is a separate file from the logo + +`tools/python/mklogo.py` reads ink as `(255 - luminance) * alpha`, so **tones +survive as coverage** rather than being flattened — and the relationship +inverts: *darkest here is brightest on screen*. Copying the violet fills from +`shift.svg` would light the object from below. + +So `shift-mask.svg` is the same geometry in greys chosen for how the mask reads. +Two files sharing one geometry is a drift hazard; the `` in both says so. +If either is edited, edit both. + +--- + +## What this does not cover + +- **No trademark position.** These are marks the project uses, not marks anyone + has registered or defended. +- **No usage rules for third parties** — nothing says what someone else may do + with them. Worth writing before anything is published. +- **SchCotie does not exist.** Everything above it is a brief, not a + description. +- **Guru is drawn but not wired in.** `panic.c` still renders `:(` from + primitives, and there is a real argument for keeping it — see the note in that + file about being "legible as a mood without being a picture of anything". +- **No wordmark lockup is specified.** "Roboto Bold beside it" is not a spacing + rule, a size ratio or a clear-space margin, and it will want to be. diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Guru.svg b/docs/branding/guru.svg similarity index 100% rename from Assets/SchOS Guru.svg rename to docs/branding/guru.svg diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.png b/docs/branding/shift-mask.png similarity index 100% rename from Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.png rename to docs/branding/shift-mask.png diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.svg b/docs/branding/shift-mask.svg similarity index 94% rename from Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.svg rename to docs/branding/shift-mask.svg index 8e2483b..6bd38d0 100644 --- a/Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.svg +++ b/docs/branding/shift-mask.svg @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ SchOS — Shift, as an ink mask - SAME GEOMETRY AS "SchOS Shift.svg". Only the fills differ, and they are + SAME GEOMETRY AS "shift.svg". Only the fills differ, and they are greys because they are not colours: tools/python/mklogo.py reads ink as (255 - luminance) * alpha, so what is stored is coverage. The kernel then composites that coverage in whatever include/theme.h says the accent is. diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Shift.svg b/docs/branding/shift.svg similarity index 94% rename from Assets/SchOS Shift.svg rename to docs/branding/shift.svg index 4bd2cbf..ed9d5ba 100644 --- a/Assets/SchOS Shift.svg +++ b/docs/branding/shift.svg @@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ without it the slab has no thickness where it is widest, and the corner reads as a hole rather than an edge. - Geometry is shared with "SchOS Shift Mask.svg"; see that file. + Geometry is shared with "shift-mask.svg"; see that file. diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Full Logo.png b/docs/branding/superseded-full-logo.png similarity index 100% rename from Assets/SchOS Full Logo.png rename to docs/branding/superseded-full-logo.png diff --git a/Assets/SchOS Text Logo.png b/docs/branding/superseded-text-logo.png similarity index 100% rename from Assets/SchOS Text Logo.png rename to docs/branding/superseded-text-logo.png diff --git a/Assets/SchFS Uberblock.svg b/docs/branding/uberblock.svg similarity index 100% rename from Assets/SchFS Uberblock.svg rename to docs/branding/uberblock.svg diff --git a/include/logo.h b/include/logo.h index a50dae5..0510b0e 100644 --- a/include/logo.h +++ b/include/logo.h @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ #pragma once // GENERATED by tools/mklogo.py -- do not edit. Run `make logo`. -// source: Assets/SchOS Shift Mask.png +// source: docs/branding/shift-mask.png // // An ink-coverage mask, not colour: 0 is background and full scale is // solid logo. Whoever draws it picks the colour, so the palette stays in diff --git a/tools/python/mklogo.py b/tools/python/mklogo.py index 587d2a6..bf8650d 100644 --- a/tools/python/mklogo.py +++ b/tools/python/mklogo.py @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ #!/usr/bin/env python3 -"""Turn Assets/*.png into a C header the kernel can draw. +"""Turn docs/branding/*.png into a C header the kernel can draw. Why this exists rather than a PNG decoder in the kernel: the boot logo is one fixed image that changes about never, so decoding it at runtime would mean @@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ is ink -- which lets the kernel composite it in whatever the theme's accent happens to be, anti-aliased, at one byte per pixel. Storing RGB would be four times the size and would hardcode a colour into the kernel image. - python3 tools/mklogo.py "Assets/SchOS Small Logo.png" include/logo.h 128 + python3 tools/python/mklogo.py docs/branding/shift-mask.png include/logo.h 128 """ import sys, zlib, struct