Design a logo for gojson

[ChimeraCoder]

Summary

In keeping with the Gopher spirit, it would be great to have a gopher mascot for this project!

The JSON logo is available under a Creative Commons license, so we should combine that with the gopher in some way. One option is to put the logo on the gopher's chest (similar to what vim-go does - see below), but we could also do other things as well - perhaps interpreting the JSON logo like a mobius strip and having the gopher sit on/inside it. Or we could get even more creative!

Outline

• The logo should be in some vector format, such as SVG, for flexibility in reuse.

• Like the original Go gopher, the artwork will need to be licensed CC-BY-licensed, under version 3.0 of the Creative Commons license, to keep the licensing situation simple.

Background

The Go project itself has the original Go gopher, but many Go projects have variants customized to their own project theme. In addition, regional Go conferences often use versions that are on-theme for the region.

Examples include Digby for dep, [vim-go](https://github.com/fatih/vim-go and the many personal profile icons available at Gopherize.me.

Gallery (Example gophers)

vim-go

Wearing the Vim logo!

GothamGo

One of my favorites for how subtle it is - it uses a silhouette of the Gopher as a bat, similar to the Bat Signal. (Gotham is one of the nicknames of New York City).

GopherCon Singapore

The mer-lion (half-fish, half-lion) is the mascot for Singapore, so the mer-Gopher (half-fish, half-gopher) is the mascot for GopherCon Singapore.

Capital Go

Wearing a hat and beard like President Abraham Lincoln, for a conference in the capital city of the US.

Digby (for dep)

Digby is hard at work managing packages!

GopherCon India

GopherCon Dubai

[hyu]

I'd love to help contribute a gopher mascot for gojson!

I'm sketching some variants of this Gopher — one popping out of the center of the mobius strip, and one running upon the continuous side. The latter is a suspiciously hamster-like behavior, but we've seen how versatile this lil' Go gopher can be!

I'll post sketches soon, but this comment is to let others know I'm working on it.

[hyu]

Some sketches!

1. The JSON logo here is a bit mangled, but can probably be drawn more clearly. I could also try a perspective shift where it's less "popping out of a birthday cake" and more "hula hooping":

2. It seems foolhardy to run with such abandon on a mobius strip, but who are we to judge. When I refine this logo for vector format, I could adjust the gopher size and angle so the JSON logo is less visually dominant:
   

@ChimeraCoder, where are some contexts this logo might appear? Something like #1 would probably look better at a smaller size, for example.

[ChimeraCoder]

These are awesome! I like them both, but I think I prefer the first one.

I could also try a perspective shift where it's less "popping out of a birthday cake" and more "hula hooping":

Quoth @rhwlo, "No, it definitely should be 'popping out of a birthday cake'". And I've got to say I agree!

Most immediately, this would appear at the top of the README, but we've got a website as well, so it would appear at the top of that and as a favicon.

[hyu]

Thanks for the feedback, @ChimeraCoder! It's also helpful to know all the places this logo might live.

I'm going to go ahead and post a cleaned-up vector version of this when I get a chance to sit down with my iPad. I'll shoot to upload something this weekend.

[hyu]

Welp, quite a few more weekends than planned have passed, but here is a cleaned-up colorful GoJSON mascot!

This zip file contains SVGs which can be edited as needed. The graphic is a bit transparent so it won't work well on a colored background. Also, the scaled-down version will be a bit blurry as a favicon, but I'll leave it here for now.

Let me know what you think, @ChimeraCoder!