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Simple Icons or custom Shields logos?

Open PyvesB opened this issue 2 years ago • 19 comments

As you may already be aware, Shields.io supports adding logos to badges by leveraging the Simple-Icons project. However, it still maintains a small set of custom icons, which can be found in this directory. We decided to keep these as they were deemed nicer than the Simple Icons versions at the time (see #2510 for the full history).

In #6208, we've been discussing whether we should get rid of the remaining icons, and fully rely on Simple Icons. Reasons for considering a removal include the following:

  • many Simple Icons have improved. Their 2022 versions arguably look better than the ones that had led us to prefer our custom logos back in 2018.
  • we're keen on simplifying things on the Shields.io side, in terms of the code on the startup path that handles logo loading and in terms of codebase maintenance. My estimate is that we'd be able to shred a few dozen lines of bespoke code.
  • we want to make things easier and reduce confusion for users. In particular, one caveat is that our custom icons do not work in conjunction with the logoColor query parameter. Users occasionally open issues about this (e.g. #6208, #7576).
  • users can still fall back to the old custom logos by using our logo parameter with a base64-encoded image.

However:

  • some of our custom logos still arguably look better than the 2022 Simple Icons ones.
  • retaining the ability to add new custom logos that are different or don't exist in Simple Icons might come in handy at some point in the future.
  • our custom Travis icon is too large and cannot be used as is as a base64-encoded image.

The main point of debate is aesthetics, and it's a highly subjective matter. If you have badges that use one of our custom logos listed below, we're keen on hearing what you think! For each logo that I'll be posting in follow up messages, either add 🎉 if you prefer the custom Shields.io version, a 🚀 if you prefer the Simple Icons version, or 👀 if you're undecided. If you don't use or intend on ever using some of the listed logos, you can simply skip voting on those.

A logo with a majority of votes in favour of the Simple-Icons version will be considered for removal from the Shields.io codebase. If there is a significant drive towards Simple-Icons for several logos, we'll discuss whether visual concerns for the remaining ones outweigh the gains that could be achieved by a full removal. We'll examine the votes carefully to inform our decisions, but the maintainer team will be responsible for making the final call.

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
bitcoin simple-icons bitcoin

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
dependabot simple-icons dependabot

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
gitlab simple-icons gitlab

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
npm simple-icons npm

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
paypal simple-icons paypal

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
serverfault simple-icons serverfault

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
stackexchange simple-icons stackexchange

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
superuser simple-icons superuser

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
telegram simple-icons telegram

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Logo Shields.io 🎉 Simple-Icons 🚀
travis-ci simple-icons travis-ci

PyvesB avatar Mar 05 '22 10:03 PyvesB

Hi, I'm a maintainer of the simple-icons project. Do you have considered to accept an array of colors to fill closed or inferred closed subpaths, just in same the order that are defined them? I'm aware that you probably are not yet faimliarized with the internal of SVG path[d] commands, in that case just let me know.

mondeja avatar Mar 15 '22 13:03 mondeja

"as they were deemed nicer" - while I appreciate that several of them might look nicer however I want to ask are they explicitly brand compliant? If not then are the ones maintained by the simply icons project brand compliant (@mondeja)?

As a contributor to an open source project I know that is generally one of our biggest concerns.

dtaivpp avatar Mar 21 '22 14:03 dtaivpp

Thank you for the question @dtaivpp! It's certainly an important factor, but it's actually off topic for this particular issue which is trying to focus on one specific piece of the overall picture, so I'd ask it be deferred to somewhere else.

The more holistic discussions, which include aspects like brand compliance, are being discussed elsewhere in the issues/discussions that were included in this issue's description (e.g. #6208). In short, brand compliance is part of the reason we have some of these custom logos to begin with (including Travis and Dependabot) as several were directly contributed to us by their respective owners. However, things change over time (Dependabot acquired by GitHub) and as we understand it, Travis employees/designers contributed to the Travis logo in the SI set too.

As such, we're strictly trying to use this issue to get feedback on the user preference piece because if there's an overwhelming response from our users to keep our custom logos then it really nullifies the need for us to have to gauge other aspects like brand compliance with different icons.

We're not trying gauge why any user might prefer an existing custom logo, nor are we asking anyone to rationalize their opinion. We're simply trying to poll our users to determine if there's a portion of our users that prefer the current experience so that we'll have that data point to feed into the broader discussion and decision.

calebcartwright avatar Mar 21 '22 15:03 calebcartwright

@calebcartwright as I see it the only reason that people want to keep the ones here is because the other ones aren't brand compliant, so it is part of the issue. Maybe people really do have a preference on which is hosted where but from what you have described the issue seems to be that people want the correct icons which simple icons doesn't have all of at the moment.

dtaivpp avatar Mar 21 '22 16:03 dtaivpp

@calebcartwright as I see it the only reason that people want to keep the ones here is because the other ones aren't brand compliant, so it is part of the issue

Appreciate your willingness to share your opinion, but it's not so I'm going to minimize these last comments as off topic. If you'd like to comment on brand compliance or categorically paint why people would want one icon or another there are better places to share that perspective, but it's not this issue.

calebcartwright avatar Mar 21 '22 16:03 calebcartwright

Hi,

I came to this thread cause the issue linked just above. So these are my 5 cents, for me was useful the fact that all icons would look consistently, same theme so to speak, I wanted to avoid a colourful table full of badges of different colours.

Hope it helps, Cheers and thanks, David

davidmpaz avatar Jun 29 '22 19:06 davidmpaz

I propose this rules which should satisfy everyone:

  • without logoColor query parameter: display custom Shields logo multiple colors;
  • with logoColor query parameter: display Simple Icon by changing the color.

If you want:

  • multiple custom Shields logo multiple colors: https://img.shields.io/badge/shields-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab
  • orange Simple Icon with the default color (you must specify color): https://img.shields.io/badge/shields-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab&logoColor=FC6D26
  • white Simple Icon with specific color: https://img.shields.io/badge/shields-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab&logoColor=white

regseb avatar Jun 30 '22 11:06 regseb

I open a pull request #8263 to my previous message:

  • without logoColor query parameter: display custom Shields logo multiple colors;
  • with logoColor query parameter: display Simple Icon by changing the color.

regseb avatar Jul 29 '22 20:07 regseb

I appreciate everyone's willingness to share their feedback! However, I want to gently remind everyone that this issue is simply a poll with one specific question.

This is just one, small part of a broader set of discussions (the links to which can be found above), and here we're really trying to get a pulse on our users' binary subjective sentiment/preference between the respective icon pairs. We pulled out this one particular part of the broader discussion into a dedicated issue to make it easier to have a focused poll on that one topic.

However, we'd really like to avoid bifurcating discussions or repeating/diving into those other topics and data points here in this poll. Anyone and everyone is always free to join participate in conversations in our community, but if you'd like to address something beyond the "I personally prefer the custom logo" or "I personally prefer the SimpleIcons logo" question of this poll, then that feedback would be best directed elsewhere, such as #6208

edit: typo fixes

calebcartwright avatar Jul 29 '22 23:07 calebcartwright

We've just merged and deployed #8263 which implements a compromise for this:

In cases where we hold a custom (multi-coloured) logo, that one will be used in preference to SimpleIcons. If the logoColor param is passed, the SimpleIcons logo will be used and the logoColor applied. For example:

  • multiple custom Shields logo multiple colors: https://img.shields.io/badge/logo-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab
  • orange Simple Icon with the default color (you must specify color): https://img.shields.io/badge/logo-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab&logoColor=FC6D26
  • white Simple Icon with specific color: https://img.shields.io/badge/logo-gitlab-blue?logo=gitlab&logoColor=white

This does represent a behaviour change for any existing badges using a custom logo with logoColor specified (previously this was ignored), but we think this represents the best compromise. Thanks to @regseb for this solution.

chris48s avatar Nov 26 '22 14:11 chris48s

In light of the above compromise and given the survey results, I'll go ahead and close this for the time being.

PyvesB avatar Jun 18 '23 10:06 PyvesB