Comments on the Emacs icon discussion

Comments on the Emacs icon discussion

[luis fernandes]

Greetings,

Lennart Borgman invited me to comment on the discussion about a
possible successor to the current Emacs icon.

My early preference would have been for the splash-logo (red gnu with
blue "Emacs") to be also used as the icon. Unfortunately, much of the
detail of the splash-logo is lost when it's scaled down. So we have
to reluctantly look for an alternative.

I agree with RMS that the icon should say "Emacs"; this does not mean
the word has to be spelled-out, it can be an iconic representation. I
remember when I was designing the splash-logo, I had the very same
discussion with RMS; the best I could come up with, was spelling-out
the word "Emacs" cursively, in the same style as the gnu drawing.

Many of the current suggestions, collected by Lennart, are quiet
excellent. I personally like David Ponce's latest submissions (the
last row showing the red gnu head over the word "Emacs"). 

I feel that the gnu-head /should/ appear in the icon so as to
distinguish this Emacs from the many other Emacsen. The gnu-head also
adds a welcome cohesiveness by graphically linking the icon to the
splash-logo.

Andrew Zhilin's submissions are quite slick. I like the smallest,
left-most icon where the top of the horn is chopped-off and it
resembles an "E"; but it doesn't really say "Emacs".

In all the years of Emacs' existence, nothing has been able to
iconically represent it-- the kitchen sink came the closest but it
somehow didn't seem quite appropriate; the icon said "kitchen sink",
not "Emacs".  After all the discussions are archived, we will realize
that nothing quite says Emacs like the word "Emacs", itself.

Re: Comments on the Emacs icon discussion

[David Kastrup]

luis fernandes <elf@ee.ryerson.ca> writes:

> Andrew Zhilin's submissions are quite slick. I like the smallest,
> left-most icon where the top of the horn is chopped-off and it
> resembles an "E"; but it doesn't really say "Emacs".

I think the last ones with the writing pad underneath have the perfect
tilt to make the horns signify _both_ E and M.

I think if the other ones could be tilted a bit more to get the same
sort of duplicity.

However, it seems to be that the niftiness is bought at the prize of
recognition value: the "M-x" GNU head logo seems strongest in that
regard to me.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Comments on the Emacs icon discussion

[Richard M. Stallman]

    I think the last ones with the writing pad underneath have the perfect
    tilt to make the horns signify _both_ E and M.

I must be confused.  What is the "writing pad underneath"?
I do not see it.