[Complete] RFC - Angular official mascot

[MarkTechson]

Authors: Mark Thompson Minko Gechev

Angular is a framework with a large and diverse community and wide recognition. In the state of JavaScript Angular ranked number one in the awareness category. Unlike many other prominent open-source projects and technologies (e.g., Go's Gopher, Linux's Tux, PHP's ElePHPant, Rust's Ferris the Crab), Angular currently lacks an official mascot.

Over the years we’ve received many requests from people asking for a mascot they can use as a plushy or put on a keychain, so we decided to explore the space!

We got in touch with the people who developed the mascots for Dart and Firebase. We shared with them Angular’s strengths, history, and stories that gave them a grasp of our community’s culture. Incorporating our latest design, they developed a series of mascot proposals that our team members (and their kids) filtered down to three.

A key value of Angular is to be inclusive and make community-driven decisions, so we’d like to kick off a process to create our official mascot! We can use the three initial mascots as a starting point, but we’re open to any variation or community proposal.

Reflecting back to past RFCs, we made a lot of great design choices thanks to community feedback, such as the latest control flow syntax, for example. Let’s do the same with Angular’s future mascot 🙂

Goals

• To select an official mascot that represents the values and characteristics of Angular and its community
• To create a mascot that is visually appealing, versatile, and easily recognizable
• To foster community engagement and excitement around the Angular brand
• To establish clear guidelines for the mascot's usage

Non-Goals

• To replace the existing Angular shield logo. The mascot is intended to be a complementary brand asset
• To rush the process; finding the right mascot requires careful consideration and community consensus
• To create a mascot that is tied to a specific version or feature of Angular, ensuring longevity

Proposal 1️⃣ - Angular shaped character

Variations of shaped characters that pull inspiration from Angular’s logo.

These little sprites are abstract, sharp, and helpful.

Proposal 2️⃣ - Anglerfish

The Anglerfish conjures bright ideas from their luminescent antenna- almost representing a lightbulb!

This sea creature dates back to about 130-100 million years ago making them wise, adaptable, and resilient.

Yes, we know the real life Anglerfish looks horrifying but our twist of it is certainly cute! Don't click on this photo of a real life anglerfish...we warned you.

Proposal 3️⃣ - Anglerfish variation

Open questions

If you’d just want to cast your vote for one of the existing options, add a comment to this post using

1. 1️⃣ for the first proposal
2. 2️⃣ for the second
3. 3️⃣ for the third proposal

Other questions that we’d love to hear from you:

1. What can we improve in the proposal you picked?
2. How would you name the mascot? (We’ve already heard Fishy McFishFace)

We’re pretty excited to create the mascot together! Just a reminder that this RFC, just like any other discussion on GitHub, is under the Angular code of conduct. Please, make sure it’s inclusive and appropriate.

Next steps

After we collect a sufficient amount of feedback, we’ll close the RFC and pass it to our designers. We’ll iterate on the final concept and share an update within a couple of months!

[WouterSpaak]

Well it obviously needs to be a cutesy protractor doesn't it? Kinda like a Clippy but more like a protractor. That's where it all started.

[kcaayush2158]

[vanzsh]

@noahm26 It looks great! The teeth seem slightly off to me, but overall, really solid concept.

[mmalerba]

@kcaayush2158 that's a really neat idea to combine them

[mauriziocescon]

Nice @kcaayush2158! IMHO just a little bit more "rounded" to make it more gender neutral!

[kcaayush2158]

[GreedyA1]

1️⃣ looks more fun

[devversion]

Superhero also matches with the original identity of Angular(JS). "Superheroic ... Framework" (title of the angularjs.org documentation). that's pretty cool IMO. https://github.com/angular/angularjs.org/blob/35daf6d2f690a8ebeb3ada69de2530b987a4eb6b/src/index.html#L14.

[Haze272]

Currently the best imo, represents stability and classical angular style

[spinshock]

Superhero also matches with the original identity of Angular(JS). "Superheroic ... Framework" (title of the angularjs.org documentation). that's pretty cool IMO. https://github.com/angular/angularjs.org/blob/35daf6d2f690a8ebeb3ada69de2530b987a4eb6b/src/index.html#L14.

Angular documentation also had the heroes theme in all of the examples and guides. I also like this relation.

[adrian-constantinescu]

ANGULAR SUPERHERO!!

I also vote for this if that's an option.

[mutahir-muhammad]

I see we have a winner!! @MarkTechson

[manfredsteyer]

I like 1️⃣ bacause the helmet nicely resembles the Angular logo. Also, more people identify with a human than with an animal.

Idea for the name: The old German(ic) name "Helmut" because it sounds similar to "helmet" in English.

[AnmolreshiIncedo23]

1️⃣ for sure

[ccoenen]

soo… Helmet Kohl and Angular Merkel?

[LMFinney]

I vote 1️⃣, because the others would remind me of what a real anglerfish looks like (you're right, I shouldn't have looked).

[harshaster]

I opened the link thinking how bad can it be. I regretted. 😢

[miszo]

I like the 1️⃣ and I would call it Ange or Angie.

[StNimmerlein]

[buildmotion]

Angalicious

Why not Angularlicious??? :)

[JohannesStroebele]

I laughed for 3 hours. Absolut perfection xD!

[ljrk0]

Lol this is amazing. And honestly, I'd be down for taking this as an inspiration for a logo or sth? Use her hands in her pose? This is perfection.

[tobiasgrossmann]

Perfect! I’ll migrate from any other framework as soon as this happens ! 😃

something like this maybe?

[JeanMeche]

The love the idea of the anglerfish both 2️⃣ and 3️⃣ are great in my opinion

[lsrsilva]

1️⃣ of course.
It reminds me Angular in the first look and, don't ask me why, a robot, and I like robots .
The name I go with Angie or Bumble (because also reminds me Bumblebee haha)

[Manoj-HT]

1 and Angie name seems to be the most common, I already suspect that will be it. But have to wait till the final result.

[christianliebel]

I prefer option 1️⃣ because I wouldn't associate Angular with fish or other maritime (rather blue) things. Since the Angular logo resembles a shield, it might suggest a superhero figure.

[manfredsteyer]

Just saw the picture of the real anglerfish ... it exactly looks like I felt after debugging a timezone issue ...

[everflux]

None of these look like a serious framework suitable for enterprise.
I am completely lost about the focus of the angular team.
This comes at the same time as throwing new concepts at the developers and removing known syntax. Did you consider a tombstone as logo?

[tayambamwanza]

@everflux We can't enjoy things anymore...

[everflux]

AngularJS migration was great, no issues. Except communication. The migration scripts you mention do not solve the cognitive load issues I observe and growing frustration with forced changes by dropping backward compatibility.
It is not about me not willing to learn something, it is about people I care about and whom I recommended Angular to.
The roadmap is insufficient for long term planning.
I did not state that Angular is missing LTS releases. It is about the development model along with a timeline that allows planning for projects that have business needs to attend to and are not about re-learning the framework every 18 months.

[jonyeezs]

I some what agree but also completely disagree!

The drawing seems to be closer to a children storybook drawing. That's my perspective. Can't see that on a poster at a tech conference. Golang gopher is cartoonish but still appropriate? Not sure how to explain...it's the feeling I get from seeing it.

What I disagree is there's nothing lost about Angular's focus. OP definitely pick the weirdest time to highlight his frustration. I get the change but it's not like they've immediately forced everyone into the new pattern. If anything Angular is pushing it's framework in a mindful way.

[johalternate]

Enterprise bros want to suck out the life out of everything.

[Beelzenef]

let people enjoy things, dude

[tsteuwer-accesso]

2️⃣

[Fasteroid]

1️⃣'s helmet implies safety. It's also unique and memorable. Probably the best choice.

...Though if Angular wasn't currently in the middle of replacing Observables with Signals, I would actually prefer the anglerfish variations.  RxJS is an eel.  There would be some really great opportunities to create art of both characters together for blog posts.

[juristr]

1️⃣ :)

[i2joseph]

Vote => Proposal 1️⃣

[DevWedeloper]

2️⃣ 🔥🔥🔥

[vincent-z-li]

1

[jaganthathagari]

1

[xspeedasx]

[biraguha]

1️⃣

[wouterkroes]

1️⃣

[aaltw]

1️⃣, Angie

[Rahexx]

1

[DunjaNesic]

1️⃣

[fosfor15]

3️⃣

[ng-sp7]

1

[tehshin]

2️⃣

[MarkTechson]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your feedback, suggestions and comments on the upcoming Angular mascot. We've gathered your feedback and will be reviewing it as we work with our design team to create something we hope the community will love.

Be on the lookout for updates on Angular's social media channels for our announcement of the official Angular mascot design.

Thank you,
Angular Team