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A New, Free, Public Domain Rails Logo

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rails-logo.png Did you know that the Rails 3.0 beta / pre-release went live today? No? You do now! Anyway, I had to do a post about it for Ruby Inside and was sick of not being able to find a logo without a silly license or that's encumbered by trademarks. So I got one of the world's top logo designers to make one that I could release to the public domain.

Two versions are available. A big one and a little one! But you can resize it with an up to date raster image editor like NeoPaint or Deluxe Paint V! Cleverly the world renowned designer changed the "A" of Rails to a heart so it doesn't actually use the trademarked name, and he really knows how to use the bevel feature on Deluxe Paint V, doesn't he?

It's key to note that this logo is not officially sanctioned by the trademark holder and, well, it has no relationship to the trademark at all. Except if you believe it does. That's for your consciousness to figure out for itself. Either way, this ain't official!

Big Version

big-rails-logo.png

Small Version

rails-logo.png

You can use this logo however you like - it's public domain. Claim you made it if you want! In fact, maybe we didn't make it and we're claiming we made it.. who cares!

For the whiners, an alternative:

another-rails-logo.png

Erik O's Actually Pretty Good Logo

302b6f8.jpg.png

Dylan Clendenin's (@deepthawtz) Logo

rails3.png

Andrew Chalkley Chimes In With This..

tumblr_kxe61xIszj1qz6j3do1_500.png

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55 Comment Responses to “A New, Free, Public Domain Rails Logo”

  1. #1
    wat? Says:

    Make me unsee it.

  2. #2
    Vigosan Says:

    I have no words, terrible!

  3. #3
    Somebody Says:

    Holy crap! You pull this logo just out of hell. Awful!

  4. #4
    Rick Says:

    was that created in paintbrush?

  5. #5
    JJ Says:

    I am Sorry, I don´t like the new logo, I like more the old

  6. #6
    Ben Says:

    Ugly and tacky.

  7. #7
    epiphanius Says:

    My goodness...

  8. #8
    joahking Says:

    cool! will use it in my blog :-)
    the good thing is it can scale and never get "pixeled" corners :-P

  9. #9
    Dave Porter Says:

    I think Peter is the "World's Top Logo Designer" and I think this is a joke!

  10. #10
    Hongli Lai Says:

    Is it April 1 already?

  11. #11
    Fannar Says:

    Hahaha :D Nice one!

  12. #12
    Mick Says:

    At first sight I thought it said "Evils", as the love heart looks like a 'v'. Sorry, but not a great logo IMHO.

  13. #13
    JM Says:

    Sorry but I prefere a nice logo with a restrictive licence rather than an ugly logo with a free licence...

  14. #14
    Jim Neath Says:

    No offence, Peter, but that is disgusting.

  15. #15
    Lailson Bandeira Says:

    Hey, I'm sure you can do better!
    _No offense, Peter, but that is disgusting._ [2]

  16. #16
    Sam Nardoni Says:

    It's not April 1st already is it?

  17. #17
    Dennis Says:

    wow, purely awesome!

  18. #18
    Alex MacCaw Says:

    You should get James Adam to design one. Have a look at his handiwork in the LRUG logo competition: http://lrug.org/what-are-we-going-to-do-about-a-logo/

  19. #19
    Lee Smith Says:

    That's fantabulous!

  20. #20
    Jay Godse Says:

    Great idea. The Rails logo is what is associated with the value and quality provided by the Rails framework. Up until release 2, the value provided by Rails was inspired by DHH.

    Rails 3 is much more of a community effort, and shows much more of the brilliance of Yehuda Katz. My take on Rails 3 is that it is Merb in Rails clothing. (Once Rails 3 with Ruby 1.9 becomes more common, it will start approaching the performance ballpark of Java in the minds of its detractors). At that point, it is not just DHH's baby. And with the performance, flexibility and modularity improvements, it represents a very different value proposition to its users. So now is a time for a new logo.

    Having said that, the proposed logo looks terrible to me. It screams, "cheap"...

  21. #21
    Millisami Says:

    No hard feelings but thats a weired logo. The former was good looking.

  22. #22
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Perhaps it'll inspire them to provide an official one we can ACTUALLY FUCKING USE!!!!

  23. #23
    grimen Says:

    Cool logo!

    NOTE:
    I do not agree with the mass about copyrighting the official Rails logo was a "bad move"; I actually think it was genious becuase otherwise it would be ruined by shitty publishers/writers/developers earning money on crapping out bad products with the Rails logo on etc. I'm a true fighter on daily basis for transparency and openeness; I despise how the copyright laws works (especially in music) and patens to some extinct; I'm avoiding close source as much as possible and can't wait for HTML5 to send Flash et. al. to the history books...BUT there are cases when humans become the weak link, and in the case of the Rails logo I'm 110% behind DHH's decision. Stop hating, use Rails and build/write products/hacks/books etc that speak for themselves. It's not the technology behind, it's the final result that counts.

  24. #24
    your_mom Says:

    I don't understand what is wrong with the Creative Commons licensed logo? You can use that one wherever you want.

  25. #25
    Peter Cooper Says:

    grimen: Have the Ruby logos been "ruined" by "shitty publishers/writers/developers" crapping out bad products? Ruby actually encourages you to use its logo.

    On the official logo, they even say: This logo or a modified version may be used by anyone to refer to the programming language Ruby, but does not indicate endorsement by Ruby Association LLC. .. Besides, it's nothing to do with copyrighting the logo. The Ruby Association has the copyright on the official Ruby logo but licenses anyone to use it to refer to Ruby.

    How about the Python logo? Same deal. They say: Projects and companies that use Python are encouraged to incorporate the Python logo on their websites, brochures, packaging, and elsewhere to indicate suitability for use with Python or implementation in Python.

    There are project maintainers who get it and those who don't. Different strokes, etc.

  26. #26
    Peter Cooper Says:

    @your_mom: No, you can't. It says it has to be "unchanged".. so if you add a 3.0 to it, for a Rails 3.0 post, for example, then you're breaking the license! Further, it has to be attributed each time. You don't have to attribute the Ruby, Python, or WordPress logos whenever you want to use them.

    Oh, and while most of you are awesome - others seem as dumb as rocks. If you could read that post with a straight face and think it was serious, you need to get a brain scan!

  27. #27
    grimen Says:

    @Peter:

    Not yet, and... Ruby is to young yet to be parasitized as a language and *most importantly* it's not a higher-level abstraction platform (like "Facebook apps", "Joomla", etc - they are associated with "crap" nowadays, literally). Rails is a bigger - more risky - target for such jus because it's a platform. With platforms it's easier to BS. PHP is a language and a platform (sort of, I never got how the PHP core was thinking), that's why it's a bigger target than say Ruby or Python if we talking languages. But now we where talking platforms: Ruby and Python are not platforms.

  28. #28
    Peter Cooper Says:

    WordPress is a platform - much bigger than Rails - and they are all over sharing their logo (though they're more restrictive on having "wordpress" in domain names). And if Ruby is young, I'd say Rails is a bit younger ;-)

  29. #29
    your_mom Says:

    The 2nd logo disappeared.

  30. #30
    Peter Cooper Says:

    @your_mom: I've added it here instead! :-)

  31. #31
    grimen Says:

    @Peter: Wordpress is crap in compare to Rails (if I may say it myself), so yes I woulds say the Wordpress logo of much lower rang branding-wise than Rails (I think it's like comparing bees with birds too). In the last statement you compared a language with a platform again. ;) I'm not trying to get you over to the darkside, I'm just bringin my view of it to add some balance to the global opinion about this.

  32. #32
    Lee Smith Says:

    The only thing funnier than the "new logo" are all the SERIOUS posts!

    Good grief people, remove your head from your ass once and a while...

  33. #33
    Patrick Says:

    Is that 2nd logo a goatse parody?

  34. #34
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Well noticed!

  35. #35
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Please send in your own MS Paint, Deluxe Paint, or otherwise crappy Rails logos, BTW. I'll put them ALL up here. Unless they're really rude, of course.

  36. #36
    Erik O Says:

    I'll give it a spin... not sure how to contribute but maybe Peter can fix it if I did it wrong.

    http://i47.tinypic.com/302b6f8.jpg

  37. #37
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Erik O: Whoa, that's actually a good one! I didn't know it'd be taken seriously, lol. I've added it though - very nice. I'm tempted to use that one in future.

  38. #38
    grimen Says:

    Cartman: - Say what you want, but Lee Smith is a good (internet blog comments) cop.

  39. #39
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Cartman?

  40. #40
    Doug Putnam Says:

    My vote goes to Erik O's logo---it's catchy. Now that we finally have a decent Rails logo, it's about time to get a better name for Rails itself. Srsly, DHH, if you're reading this, rails were big a big deal in the 19th century, but we're living like 2 centuries later, dude. How about "reworking" the name a little, to move it into the 21st Century? I'll start with my suggestion: Ruby on Running Shoes. Sweet.

  41. #41
    Peter Cooper Says:

    At least you know Why wouldn't be back to sue you for trademark infringement with his own Shoes.. :-)

    But, yeah, good idea. Let's get Rails renamed. My ideas: Monsterbuns, Axelrod, Powerslash, Turbotron, or SpaceElevator.

  42. #42
    Lee Smith Says:

    Erik O...nice work!

  43. #43
    Erik O Says:

    feel free to use it... I really don't care.

    I can sign off on it officially if anyone wants.

    I appreciate eveyone's interest.

  44. #44
    Erik O Says:

    wait... actually pretty good logo Peter?

  45. #45
    Rails 3.0 Beta - 36 Links e artigos para você começar Says:

    [...] New Rails Logos - Quer usar um logotipo do Rails sem qualquer problema de uso indevido da marca? Veja o concurso/repositório de logotipos de domínio público que o Rails Inside internacional está fazendo! [...]

  46. #46
    Mick Says:

    Oops. I'm embarrassed to say I wrote one of the serious responses to this post. I'm also the kinda guy who gets sucked in by April fools jokes each year. :-(

  47. #47
    Peter Cooper Says:

    Don't worry, Mick - that's what makes it all a bit of fun :-)

  48. #48
    gordo Says:

    i think the current rails logo rocks :)

  49. #49
    Peter Cooper Says:

    It does. Just don't use it anywhere you don't have permission to :-)

  50. #50
    your_mom Says:

    For some reason, the second logo gives me the urge to poop.

  51. #51
    grimen Says:

    PeterCooper: You need to watch more South Park to get that slightly altered Cartman quote...or an average hollywood flick revolving "good cops"; say Deadly Weapon 1-3.

  52. #52
    Xaviour Maxwell Says:

    Erik Os kills it! But I am going to put one together too to crush em all!

  53. #53
    Rails 3.0 Beta: 36 Links and Resources To Get You Going « Особое программирование Says:

    [...] New Rails Logos - Wanna use a Rails logo somewhere without obvious licensing or trademark issues? Check out our little contest/brewing pot of public domain logos over at Rails Inside! [...]

  54. #54
    logotipos Says:

    Don't listen to the hate. Sure, they're not professional logos but at least people tried and actually made something they thought somebody else cared about.

    By the way I'm digging Erik O's logo, I think it's pretty cool.

  55. #55
    Justin Baker Says:

    Those logos are the ugliest piece of shit ever.

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