Clean up logo

[georgefst]

I might be the only person who really cares about this, but every time I've seen this logo in the last four years the fact that nothing is aligned properly has irritated me.

I can match the gaps and thicknesses of the old version more closely if people genuinely prefer it, but I've taken the measurements from the actual Haskell logo instead.

[fendor]

Thanks for the PR!
I don't have any particularly strong opinions, both look good to me :)
Pinging @Ailrun as they designed the logo originally, afaict.

[Ailrun]

I am the original designer. I tried the "fully aligned" version when I designed it, but it looked awful for me because the lambda suppressed L and S. Thus, those "misalignments" are somewhat intended in terms of overall balance, like many other logos out there (e.g. Google logo).

However, I'm all ears if others think that aligned version is better as I don't think my arrangement was anywhere near perfect.

[Ailrun]

If we decide to change the logo: I suggest to change L and S to provide more support for the lambda, so that the logo can express that this Language Server (what L and S stand for) provides a stable base for Haskell (what the Haskell logo stands for) development.

[georgefst]

Huh, that is interesting about the Google logo. I'd never noticed that.

Still, I feel strongly that making the angles consistent with the Haskell logo and straightening up the perimeter are clear improvements (leaving the widths of the letters and the heights of the lines within them as the potentially controversial parts). Do you not agree? I'm not certain I know what you mean by "the lambda suppressed L and S" and "change L and S to provide more support for the lambda", without seeing rough sketches, but I'm also reluctant to waste anyone's time bikeshedding this too much...

[Ailrun]

@georgefst By that, basically I mean making the top part of L and S wider enough than the bottom part of lambda. One possibility is that I over-widened the top part to a visually unpleasing level, but I still believe the linearly matching width is not wide enough to visually support the lambda character stably.

[georgefst]

Oh, I think I see. Your issue is that the bottom-left corner of the lambda is not "supported", in the sense that there's nothing underneath it? I think that could only be rectified by dropping the arrow from the logo, i.e. the darker purple part on the left. Then again, that could be cool, because it would bring us down to three glyphs, so we could use one colour for each. I might play around with this, although it's a more radical change than I intended...

EDIT: Re-reading the above comment again, I see I may have missed your point and gotten carried away with my own idea. Anyway, I don't think I agree on the importance of seeing the image as a physical model.

[georgefst]

So roughly like this:

[Ailrun]

@georgefst Not really about the floating leg of lambda. Maybe I should have used "Haskell logo" instead of "lambda character" in the above description.

I don't think it as a physical model (if I did, then I would be against that floating leg). It is more about that there is some visual intuition that affects people's view. When something is smaller, people could think that is less important. Likewise, if something is on a tight base, it seems unstable. If that tight base stands for something, then that something gives an impression of a weak foundation. I think this goes against the actual impression we want to give. We want to say (or at the very least I wanted to say) that HLS is a concrete basis of development on Haskell codebases.

[georgefst]

I'd like to move this discussion along. Is anyone actually against merging this in its current form?

@Ailrun Obviously you get a veto, since it's ultimately your logo! But if you do have serious concerns, it'd be great to see a concrete proposal when you have time, because I'm not sure I'm following everything you're saying. My personal view is that you're overthinking the "weak foundation" thing and I can't imagine widening the L and S looking good on a basic aesthetic level (at least not without making the whole logo more complex), but I may be missing something.

[Ailrun]

As I said, currently as-is, I am against the merging.

[georgefst]

Okay. Sorry if I came across a bit dismissive. I had forgotten some of the thread context when I first posted.

[Bodigrim]

I'm not quite sure that a casual viewer understands that thick strokes of L and S, especially their bottoms, are to symbolise a concrete basis for Haskell development. I'd prefer a more aligned version with the same thickness in all lines.

If we wish to put more emphasis on the foundation, could we add an additional solid line (well, trapezium) under L and S?