d73985633b
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are left deleted; their PNGs are kept as superseded-*.png for reference.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 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2
179 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
179 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
# Branding
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Three marks, three different jobs. They are not interchangeable and the
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difference is not stylistic.
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| | | |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Shift** | *the logo* | An abstract mark. Non-human, non-animal. Signs the system. |
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| **Guru** | *the icon* | A pictogram. Denotes one state. Has a face; has no body. |
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| **SchCotie** | *the mascot* | A character. Has a body, poses and expressions. |
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The distinction that decides everything else: **a mascot has to be able to
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do things.** An icon works once, at one size, in one state. A character has to
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work confused, pleased, asleep and from behind — which is why it costs more and
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why it is drawn last.
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---
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## The one constraint everything answers to
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**The kernel draws its mark as a 128×128 single-channel coverage mask.**
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`include/logo.h` holds no colour at all — two pixels per byte, sixteen levels of
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ink — and the kernel composites it in whatever `include/theme.h` says.
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So any mark that will end up there has to survive as **a solid shape in one
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colour at 128 px, and be recognisable at 24**. That rules out hairlines, thin
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rings and anything that depends on a gradient to read. The mark this replaced
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failed on all three counts.
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Colour is therefore the *last* decision, never the first. Design the silhouette,
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then colour it.
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---
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## Shift — the logo
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`shift.svg`
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Three slabs, displaced: the layer diagram in
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[../architecture/README.md](../architecture/README.md) as a solid object, and
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the kernel's name (**SchIFT**) as a shape.
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- **Any colour.** This is a fact about the pipeline, not a preference — the
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coverage mask carries none, so the loader draws it in metal and the kernel in
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the theme accent, from the same bytes.
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- **With or without a wordmark.** Set "SchOS" beside it in **Roboto Bold**,
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which is already in the tree (`ports/Roboto`), already Apache-2.0, and already
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in `NOTICE`.
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- Non-human and non-animal, permanently. The character work belongs to
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SchCotie; a logo that starts growing a face has taken the mascot's job.
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## Guru — the icon
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`guru.svg`
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The crash face. Mythic rather than cartoon — closer to a temple carving than a
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character — square or nearly so, with an expression that stays in the
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`:(` / `:|` register.
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**Purple, and only purple, and only here.** `theme.h` states the rule it
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enforces:
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> normal states are calm and dark; only failure is loud. PSOGM keeps the
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> full-bleed purple entirely to itself, which is what makes it mean something.
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That purple is `PSOGM_BG #4B1D9A`, and it is deliberately **not** the accent
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`#7C5CFF`. If Guru ever appears in accent violet on a splash, a sticker or a
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README header, the deep purple stops meaning *the machine stopped* — and it is
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the only colour in the system that means anything at all.
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So: Guru does not leave the crash screen.
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## SchCotie — the mascot
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*Not drawn yet.*
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A daemon: **the process that works while nobody is watching.** The horns are a
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pun on the word; the meaning is the background job that keeps running after you
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have walked away — which is `schinit` supervising, restarting what dies, awake
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at 3am. Patient and watchful rather than mischievous.
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Horns carry **X** — POSIX, Unix, X11 — one substitution reading three ways.
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Two constraints that follow from the section above. A thin X is two diagonal
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strokes and dissolves at small sizes, so it wants to be **solid wedges with the
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X notched out as negative space**: the horn silhouette survives downscaling and
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the X appears as you get closer. And it needs a **turnaround** — front, side,
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three-quarter, matching heights on shared construction lines — because a
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character drawn once at one angle only ever works at that angle.
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### The licensing point, which is not optional here
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**The BSD daemon is copyrighted.** Marshall Kirk McKusick holds it and the terms
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are not a free licence. A character that reads as "Beastie, but purple, with X
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horns" is a derivative-work argument, and this mark would be in every image
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SchOS ships, beside a `NOTICE` file this project has been careful about.
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The concept is not the problem. A daemon is a Greek *daimon* and a Unix
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background process — neither is ownable. What belongs to Beastie is the
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execution: the pitchfork, the sneakers, that red, that face, that pose. Horns, a
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tail and a small imp are generic and thousands of years old.
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**Draw from the idea. Do not have a picture of Beastie open while you do it.**
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---
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## Colour
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From `include/theme.h`, which is the source of truth. Nothing here restates a
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value it does not already define.
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| `SCH_BG` | `#0C0E13` | Ground. Near-black with a blue cast, because pure black reads as "switched off". |
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| `SCH_FG` | `#E6E8EC` | Primary text |
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| `SCH_DIM` | `#707784` | Secondary |
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| `SCH_ACCENT` | `#7C5CFF` | The one accent. Shift, SchCotie, anything calm. |
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| `PSOGM_BG` | `#4B1D9A` | **Failure only.** Guru's ground and nothing else's. |
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## File formats
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**SVG, or PNG at high resolution with no lossy compression.** Nothing else.
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No JPEG anywhere — a mark is flat colour with hard edges, which is the exact
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case JPEG is worst at, and the ringing it leaves around an edge is permanent.
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No screenshots of marks. No re-exports of re-exports: go back to the SVG.
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**SVG is the source of truth for every mark.** A raster is something generated
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from it, never edited.
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## What is in here, and why a raster is committed
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```
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shift.svg the logo, in colour
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shift-mask.svg the same geometry in greys -- see below
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shift-mask.png rasterised from it, committed on purpose
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uberblock.svg SchFS
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guru.svg the crash icon
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superseded-*.png the old wordmark, kept for reference only
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```
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The pipeline is three stages:
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```
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shift-mask.svg --(inkscape)--> shift-mask.png --(make logo)--> include/logo.h
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```
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**Both intermediates are committed, and that is deliberate.** `inkscape` is not
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a build prerequisite — see [../guides/building.md](../guides/building.md) — so a
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build that required a vector rasteriser would stop working on most hosts for the
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sake of a file that changes about once a year. The PNG is regenerated by hand
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when the SVG changes, and `make logo` turns it into the header.
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### Why the mask is a separate file from the logo
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`tools/python/mklogo.py` reads ink as `(255 - luminance) * alpha`, so **tones
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survive as coverage** rather than being flattened — and the relationship
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inverts: *darkest here is brightest on screen*. Copying the violet fills from
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`shift.svg` would light the object from below.
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So `shift-mask.svg` is the same geometry in greys chosen for how the mask reads.
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Two files sharing one geometry is a drift hazard; the `<desc>` in both says so.
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If either is edited, edit both.
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---
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## What this does not cover
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- **No trademark position.** These are marks the project uses, not marks anyone
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has registered or defended.
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- **No usage rules for third parties** — nothing says what someone else may do
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with them. Worth writing before anything is published.
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- **SchCotie does not exist.** Everything above it is a brief, not a
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description.
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- **Guru is drawn but not wired in.** `panic.c` still renders `:(` from
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primitives, and there is a real argument for keeping it — see the note in that
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file about being "legible as a mood without being a picture of anything".
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- **No wordmark lockup is specified.** "Roboto Bold beside it" is not a spacing
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rule, a size ratio or a clear-space margin, and it will want to be.
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