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Another one of the The 7 Essential Questions of Every Beta. Quoting the blog post:

.5. What should our logo and site design look like?

This one is pretty straightforward. Solicit contributions, throw out ideas, post preliminary (or finished) designs, and be supportive and respectful of other people’s ideas and creativity.

We have designers on staff who will actively help come up with site designs but, if an idea stemming from the community stands out as exceptional, we are happy to use it.

So, go ahead, post your ideas and let us comment and vote on them.

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5 Answers 5

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Here's my (doubtless controversial) offering

Colour scheme

It may be worth paying attention to some of the information provided in this Colour Assignment article.

The following combination has the following apparent properties:

  • light blue - associated with trust, reliability, technology and finance
  • gold - associated with wealth and prosperity
  • black - associated with quality, authority and technology

Interestingly, the shade of orange used by the standard Bitcoin logo is considered by many to be their least favourite colour.

Logo

A gold Bitcoin with just 0s and 1s around the border based on this:

Bitcoin image

I'm undecided about having the currency symbol in the middle. I think we could easily do without it, but it may affect recognition.

Strapline considerations

Some of it distilled from this forum discussion

  • No Latin since it comes across as being pompous
  • No "In X we trust" since it comes across being US centric

Offerings:

  • "Strength in numbers" - my personal favourite
  • "A new type of money"
  • "Money grows on Merkle trees" - joke!
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Well, if we look at the official site and StackOverflow side-by-side it almost seems as if they were built by the same designer. StackExchange sites seem to be fairly minimalist and clean, which reflects a certain image - mainly that the content is more important than the choice of background image. There is a professional and educated elegance to white/light backgrounds and mostly monochrome interfaces and this also allows splashes of color to truly stand out so long as they are sparingly used.

In fact, it seems that most of the various StackExchange sites are essentially StackOverflow clones with slight changes to the color scheme, which helps tie the disparate sites together as a community and I for one think we would do well to continue this trend.

For color scheme I recommend we continue the use of pastel blues typically seen on the various official Bitcoin sites and our "color shocks" should be the bright orange of the official logo. Links and other elements deemed important but not worthy of "bright orange status" can use a darkened gold color which ties in quite nicely to certain features of the client and other common Bitcoin icons and logos - the color of the links on the "sketchy" theme we're currently using would work quite nicely actually.

Another important consideration is the logo. The default Bitcoin logo might work well enough, though it doesn't seem to "fit in" with many of the other StackExchange site logos. Glancing down the list, though, I do see a few logos that we could say the same of so perhaps that's not as big an issue as I first thought.

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    Yeah, I think that the default Bitcoin logo will work just fine.
    – D.H.
    Aug 31, 2011 at 17:43
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    We may want to have a modified logo anyway. People tend to complain when Bitcoin sites just use the "default", as it becomes hard to tell browser tabs apart. Aug 31, 2011 at 23:48
  • Yeah the favicon should be different, so I suppose if we want the favicon to match the logo then we need a custom logo. Aug 31, 2011 at 23:49
  • I would definitely try to stick with blue where appropriate since it is associated with trust.
    – Gary
    Sep 3, 2011 at 8:11
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David Perry's answer suggests that we stick to general StackExchange design with minor changes, while it's certainly the path of least resistance there is also good examples of custom design, eg apple.stackexchange.com . We can start bounty and people like Eli, developer of Safebit Bitcoin Client, would be able to make the site look great.

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    +1 for designers to be involved in this. The Gaming SE design is also very cool.
    – nmat
    Aug 31, 2011 at 23:50
  • My only argument is that in both cases presented, there is already a well-known aesthetic which is being mimicked in the site design. Bitcoin has no well-known aesthetic aside from a few well-known icons which we probably shouldn't use because everyone complains about their overuse. Sep 1, 2011 at 18:51
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How about a logo that is composed of a Bitcoin and a question mark?

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  • Could work. Someone with graphics skills, post a suggestion!
    – D.H.
    Sep 3, 2011 at 14:48
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    I disagree. That immediately made me think that Bitcoin wasn't viable for some reason.
    – Gary
    Sep 3, 2011 at 18:48
  • Now that you say it, I think I agree.
    – D.H.
    Sep 4, 2011 at 11:25
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How about a logo consisting of bitcoin symbol and some symbology that implies exchange.

I was thinking something like bitcoin incom surrounded by circular arrows similar to recycling symbol.

Recycling Symbol: international recycling symbol

But maybe something more like this: alternate multi-arrow symbol similar to recycling symbol

or this (the one in upper right) three quarters circular arrow

Maybe a modified version similar to arrwo in he bottom example but two "half arrows" each making their way halfway around the bitcoin icon.

These are just examples I found searching google images just kinda brainstorming ideas at this point. The concept of using imagery to imply "exchange" both Bitcoin as a medium of exchange and the exchange of ideas.

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