This is a somewhat weird quibble, but that butterfly looks definitely dead.[ref for why] And then it moves! It’s a zombie butterfly!
A bit more seriously, the logo may not quite convey, to all viewers, the emotional tone which the artist probably intended. That butterfly looks like it’s been violently squashed by that box, not as if it is carrying it, which I think was the intent.
“FreedomBox” is also a problematic search term. I’ve been telling friends to search for “Debian FreedomBox”, which reliably gets something related to this project.
Great project, apologies for the superficial criticisms. It’s been Hemiptering me…
If anyone wants the full svg, they are welcome to it. It’s yet not immaculate (could be lower-bandwidth and may not be quite perfectly symmetrical), but this would not be hard to fix.
This image-upload-from-web does not seem to be working.
I’ll be honest: it is extremely unlikely that we will change our logo. Our current logo was designed by @mray and has been in use for years. The butterfly logo has become the core, identifying feature of the FreedomBox brand: that image is now associated with a set of ideas and an entire software system. We wouldn’t want to undo the years of work it took to create that association between image and idea. On top of that, I think everyone on our team is very happy with the logo as it is.
There may be other, more productive ways for you to contribute to our community. If you want to get involved with design matters in particular, then @mray is the best person to talk to.
Lepidopteran, as your nick suggest I think you have a particular interest in our logo.
I was aware that this kind of problem generally exits in many ways, but the problem you point out was new to me! (I think you mentioned it on github some time way earlier). Take a water drop for example: Most people instantly think of an egg-shaped body with a pointy end – but in fact, a falling drop of water is almost perfectly round. Representations of rain often depict small lines, which is even further away from the “truth”. We often have a “wrong” perception about things.
As a logo creator I’m not as much interested in the scientific accuracy of an object that is used as a logo, but about the image inside peoples heads. And as your own examples show, there is lots of people that have certain ideas of butterflies. So even after learning more about butterflies I think our logo works fine. (Maybe that would be different if it was a logo for a biology department of a university… )
Still, thanks for your interest in the logo and for providing interesting information on then topic.
A classic two-cultures conflict; “representations” of truth vs. representations of “truth”. The image of a pinned butterfly inside my head is, as you say, likely atypical.
Better than a “Bullet with butterfly wings” so to speak (pun intended), which is what a frustrated end user might want to do to the box when they are having technical difficulties with said box! This reply is intended for levity only, please don’t take me seriously - I do enough of that on my own! Have a great day, All!
)
The image of a pinned butterfly inside my head is, as you say, likely atypical.
