This is great. I made a download button a while ago. The Apple and Windows logos scale down, look great, and are easily identifiable. Tux is great, but just doesn't scale down. Tried about 10 variants to get one that is recognizable, but also works at smaller sizes.
Comparing this logo to the original reminds me the whole discussion about skeuomorphism (that's when GUI icons imitate closely things from the real world).
Icons that strongly resemble things from real life are, quite often, problematic at representation, especially in smaller sizes. They take more time to understand and decode, they're prone to confusion.
But anti-skeuomorphic icons also have a problem of their own: they become so abstract that quite often we don't know what they represent. They become cold and soulless, like corporation logos. An example: I look at this new icon and what I see is Darth Vader with an open big mouth.
It is like comparing IKEA furniture and Bauhaus or Scandinavian design against Art-Noveau or Antonio Gaudí's architecture. The first are (as Nietzsche would say) apolinean, elegant, subdued and functional. The second are dionisiac, fun, a feast for the senses.
It's a nice minimalist design, but I think it still doesn't scale down as well as the Apple and Windows logos. The logo needs to be simple yet more expressive somehow, perhaps only focusing on Tux's head?
Meh, not for me. It's like someone saw the iconic Linux logo and said "what if this was done by an overfunded pre-revenue Silicon Valley startup instead".
The small eyes version is freaky for such a logo. With Big eyes it looks friendlier, but still not cute...
For something neutral and scalable, having a side perspective could perhaps work better ? Like this one for instance, with very few lines yet looks good.
Foxes are also overused and I consider myself fortunate in not having come across Tux-the-penguin with a 'trans flag' - follow the link if you wonder what I mean - nor do I rue the absence of any furry-like characteristics in the toy penguin. This furry fox seems to be just that, a generic anime-like furry avatar, one out of thousands and as such not memorable.
On the topic of Linux logos, about 20 years ago there was a popular Ethernet <-> USB storage bridge called an NSLU2 aka the “Slug”. It was of a similar pedigree to the classic WRT54g but instead of routing, this device turned cheap USB disks into a NAS device:
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[ 6.6 ms ] story [ 30.6 ms ] threadMany attempts at this from many people: https://www.svgrepo.com/vectors/linux/
Icons that strongly resemble things from real life are, quite often, problematic at representation, especially in smaller sizes. They take more time to understand and decode, they're prone to confusion.
But anti-skeuomorphic icons also have a problem of their own: they become so abstract that quite often we don't know what they represent. They become cold and soulless, like corporation logos. An example: I look at this new icon and what I see is Darth Vader with an open big mouth.
It is like comparing IKEA furniture and Bauhaus or Scandinavian design against Art-Noveau or Antonio Gaudí's architecture. The first are (as Nietzsche would say) apolinean, elegant, subdued and functional. The second are dionisiac, fun, a feast for the senses.
For something neutral and scalable, having a side perspective could perhaps work better ? Like this one for instance, with very few lines yet looks good.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRMINEP...
Free to use as you please.
It fails to evoke "penguin".
I wouldn't have recognized it as a penguin without context, and I doubt others would without priming.
Kinda wish that one had won, foxes are cooler looking and more marketable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2
There was quite an active group of hackers bringing Linux to the platform. This was their utterly heartwarming and adorable logo:
https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale8x/sites/socallinuxexpo....
(More old Linux logos here: <https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/logos/!INDEX.html>)