New Logo for NetBSD

by Christian von Kleist

In January of 2004, Luke Mewburn of the NetBSD Foundation announced a design competition for a new NetBSD logo. I heard about it on the netbsd-advocacy mailing list.

Here’s an excerpt from Luke’s post in which he identifies some of the shortcomings of the old NetBSD logo and some possibilities for the design of a new one:

The following problems have been identified with the current identity:

• Too complicated.
• Hard to reproduce.
• Has negative cultural, and religious ramifications.

Some suggested themes for the new identity include:

• An animal character such as the Linux ‘Tux’ penguin (4) or Darwin ‘Hexley’ platypus (2).
• An abstract symbol conveying the goals and spirit of open source technology.
• A logo based on the letter-forms of the organization name (NetBSD).

The old logo

The old NetBSD logo was well-known in the BSD world and pretty well-loved. I liked it a lot. The symbolism in the old logo was unmistakable: A bunch of little daemon processes doing something significant on a hodgepodge of old, broken, and diverse hardware. The problems with the logo are obvious too: the pen sketch is hard to reproduce, doesn’t scale well, and its ragged edges don’t look professional; there’s way too much going on at once; and most people assume that d(a)emons are evil.

Designing a new logo

I thought for a long time about what a new logo could say about NetBSD, my favorite OS. It’s surprisingly hard to work subtle symbolism into a design!

Qualities I wanted to portray:

• Stability

  NetBSD is known for its stability (except for -current on my DEC-Alpha PWS500a!), so if possible the logo should imply stability.

• Cross-platform compatibility

  In my opinion, this is NetBSD’s greatest feature. There aren’t many OSes that run on two dozen platforms. This is a hard quality to represent graphically.

• Demon-ness (demonocity?)

  Everyone loves the BSD daemon, so a pointy tail or some horns like the original logo’s would be nice, but would also be very hard to pull off in an politically-correct way. Fortunately, “demonocity” is a less-critical requirement.

• Mascotability

  I seem to be making up a lot of words. What I mean by “mascotability” is that it would be cool if the logo could also function as a mascot like Linux’s Tux. To do this it needs to be a lovable character or some other entity that has personality.

I spent a long time thinking about ways to incorporate those ideas into a logo that was simple, lovable, easily reproducible, and that could also be a mascot.

At first, I liked the idea of a mountain-shaped logo. Mountains are stable, just like NetBSD. They look stable to us because we know they’re really big and because they’re shaped like triangles … or maybe triangles look stable because they’re shaped like mountains? Anyway, a mountain is rock-solid.

The biggest problem with the mountain-themed logo was that I couldn’t figure out a way to relate a mountain to NetBSD. Also, a mountain isn’t cross-platform compatible and it can’t serve as much of a mascot. I decided pretty quickly that a mountain theme wasn’t such a good idea. (Besides, because a lot of companies use mountains in their logos, I was afraid I would infringe accidentally on someone’s trademark.)

After the failed mountain idea I worked on a bunch of others. I sketched lots of designs and I think several were pretty good, but it took me a couple of days to find one I really, really liked.

My entry

The idea I really latched onto is not a new one, but is instead a new face on a well-established concept.

Everyone knows the joke about the toaster that runs NetBSD. “Why not?” asked a famous t-shirt depicting such a toaster. After all, it runs on everything else. NetBSD’s users have created this association lovingly. There’s a NetBSD/Toaster port and someone even built the real thing.

All joking aside, a toaster really does embody some of NetBSD’s most valuable traits:

• It’s dependable
• It’s simple
• It’s portable (okay, this is stretching)
• It’s friendly (definitely not evil), recognizable, and familiar
• Anyone can use it

In light of these reasons and after much thinking, design, and revision, here’s my entry. It’s simple, cleanly designed, and totally evil-free. I hope it’s a symbol that people can love, too.

Users in the know will recognize the BSD daemon’s forked tail, but those who don’t know about the daemon won’t assume NetBSD is evil. To them, it’s just a power-cord that adds a feeling of motion to the design. I hope that the tail also adds enough character to allow the logo double as a mascot when separated from the “NetBSD” text.

The type is in the distinctive Adobe Warnock face, but another classy face would do just as well. I did the kerning by hand to make “Net” roughly the same width as “BSD” for balance, but the lettering would probably have to be readjusted for print production to keep the letters from bleeding together where they’re very close.

I chose the Warnock face partly because I think it looks good and partly because it exists in so many weights (twenty or so). Multiple weights are important when the image must work as well in an icon as it does on a t-shirt. (For what it’s worth, the weight of the tail and its prongs can also be adjusted in the Illustrator document. Those would also require adjustment at very small sizes.)

Conclusion of the design competition

Logo submitters like me were up against numerous tough competitors. Altogether, over two hundred artists submitted more than four hundred logos, so it’s no surprise that it took the NetBSD Foundation over six months to announce a winner.

Finally, on October 30, 2004, the NetBSD Foundation announced the conclusion of the contest. According to the press release, the winning logo was selected on the basis of “simplicity, appealing form and color choice, and identification with the project.” Grant Bisset, a designer from Perth, Australia gave NetBSD an expertly rendered pennant in orange and gray:

Initially there was some disagreement on the netbsd-advocacy mailing list over whether the new logo was the right choice. However, I think that much of the dissension came from disappointed artists whose logos didn't win! It’s hard to fault them. I felt a little disappointed, too.

I’m certain that NetBSD fans will come to love the new logo. It’s not an adorable mascot like Tux or Puffy, but it’s distinctive, and that’s worth a lot. When you see a daemon with a pitchfork you think BSD. In time a streaming orange pennant will make you think NetBSD just as quickly.

For comments or clarification, contact Christian von Kleist.