Re: RFC: Designing Logo of Pandoc

[Tristano Ajmone <tajmone-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>]

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Just doing a bit of IDEAS BRAINSTORMING here ... maybe it could trigger 
some better ideas.

Pan-Flute

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_flute

I've found this CC-BY 3.0 icon of a Pan flute:

http://icon-icons.com/icon/pan-flute-musical-instrument/60110

<http://icon-icons.com/icons2/661/PNG/256/pan-flute_icon-icons.com_60110.png>


It's not the nicest I've seen, but it renders the idea.


The Pan-flute should be easily reckognized as a symbol of Pan, yet it 
doens't necessary carry the weight mythology — it can be seen as just a 
musical instrument.

This symbol would recall the word "PAN" in pandoc, but not really much 
more. I'm not sure what Pan's (the god) flute was used for, but I gather he 
is usually considered a shepperd-god.


Tying-In With Existing Symbols/Vocabulary

The issue already came up here: it's good the explore the pre-existing 
symbols in the (rather wide) field of documents (under which pandoc falls).

For example: JFC's *Babelmark*. Both its name and logo recall the tower of 
Babel, a symbol which is well associated with the "confusion of languages".
While in its context it refers to the confusion among markdown 
dialects/flavors, it could be taken as a general metaphor for the 
"confusion of standards" which pandoc aims to solve.

https://babelmark.github.io/

The logo is simple, and knowing the name of the tool (Babelmark) the mental 
association is quick (not so immediate if you are unaware of the tool's 
name):

<http://babelmark.github.io/images/babelmark.png>
Magician Hat

Inflated as it might be, the magician's cylinder producing rabbits, card, 
or anything else, is a well know symbol representing quasi-magick 
productions.

Maybe pandoc is a bit like the magician hat: it produces all sort of 
documents, almost auto-magically. 
The idea is to have some documents coming out of the hat — in a way to 
represent multi-formats.

This is an example idea found on Google (can't actually use this):

<https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/f1/fe/f0/f1fef06b6729def0464a5bdbd81de016.png>


Just take the rabbit ears away, and put document icons, and maybe a magick 
wand.

I've found some nice example icons with permissive license:

http://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/magic-hat_108979
http://www.flaticon.com/free-icon/magician-hat-and-magic-wand_53768
http://www.iconarchive.com/show/outline-icons-by-iconsmind/Hat-icon.html

Adopting an Aminal

Another approach would be to arbitrarily adopt an animal as mascotte/symbol 
of pandoc.
There is a long tradition in the computer world along these lines — snakes, 
gnus, squids, etc — so much so that almost every animal is already 
associated to a programming language or package of some sort.

Surely, no one could really dispute this decision any more than one could 
dispute the right of Python language to use a python as its symbol, or Go 
lang using a gopher.

People like animals, no doubt about it — and Python's snake hasn't so far 
scared off (nor bitten) anyone that I'm aware of.

Of course, we should at least consider an animal that has some 
characteristics somehow related to pandoc's functionality.
I can't think of any animal whose specialization is converting from 
markdown to html or PDF though. :-(

But we might be looking for an animal with sort of intermediary role in 
nature, like an animal who is known for his symbiotic interactions with 
other species.

Or like bees, which take pollen and covert it to honey; and they are also 
very industrious, and resemble a swiss-knife when you look at their 
"embedded tools" for collecting pollen.

Links to Images

Here are some links to Google images (black and white) results:


   - translation icon 
   <https://www.google.it/search?q=symbol+universality&rlz=1C1CHFX_itIT498IT498&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=920&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0o9OpsI_RAhXMNFAKHaqBA8MQ_AUIBigB#q=translation+icon&tbm=isch&tbs=ic:gray>
   - pan flute icon 
   <https://www.google.it/search?q=symbol+universality&rlz=1C1CHFX_itIT498IT498&espv=2&biw=1680&bih=920&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0o9OpsI_RAhXMNFAKHaqBA8MQ_AUIBigB#q=pan+flute+icon&tbs=ic:gray,itp:clipart&tbm=isch>

I hope that these ideas might trigger some further thoughts...

Tristano

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