Simple Icons or custom Shields logos?

[PyvesB]

As you may already be aware, Shields.io supports adding logos to badges by leveraging the Simple-Icons project. However, it still maintains a small set of custom icons, which can be found in this directory. We decided to keep these as they were deemed nicer than the Simple Icons versions at the time (see #2510 for the full history).

In #6208, we've been discussing whether we should get rid of the remaining icons, and fully rely on Simple Icons. Reasons for considering a removal include the following:

• many Simple Icons have improved. Their 2022 versions arguably look better than the ones that had led us to prefer our custom logos back in 2018.
• we're keen on simplifying things on the Shields.io side, in terms of the code on the startup path that handles logo loading and in terms of codebase maintenance. My estimate is that we'd be able to shred a few dozen lines of bespoke code.
• we want to make things easier and reduce confusion for users. In particular, one caveat is that our custom icons do not work in conjunction with the logoColor query parameter. Users occasionally open issues about this (e.g. logoColor is ignored for specific icons #6208, 'Telegram' logo does not respect logoColor value #7576).
• users can still fall back to the old custom logos by using our logo parameter with a base64-encoded image.

However:

• some of our custom logos still arguably look better than the 2022 Simple Icons ones.
• retaining the ability to add new custom logos that are different or don't exist in Simple Icons might come in handy at some point in the future.
• our custom Travis icon is too large and cannot be used as is as a base64-encoded image.

The main point of debate is aesthetics, and it's a highly subjective matter. If you have badges that use one of our custom logos listed below, we're keen on hearing what you think! For each logo that I'll be posting in follow up messages, either add 🎉 if you prefer the custom Shields.io version, a 🚀 if you prefer the Simple Icons version, or 👀 if you're undecided. If you don't use or intend on ever using some of the listed logos, you can simply skip voting on those.

A logo with a majority of votes in favour of the Simple-Icons version will be considered for removal from the Shields.io codebase. If there is a significant drive towards Simple-Icons for several logos, we'll discuss whether visual concerns for the remaining ones outweigh the gains that could be achieved by a full removal. We'll examine the votes carefully to inform our decisions, but the maintainer team will be responsible for making the final call.

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
bitcoin

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
dependabot

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
gitlab

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
npm

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
paypal

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
serverfault

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
stackexchange

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
superuser

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
telegram

[PyvesB]

Logo	Shields.io 🎉	Simple-Icons 🚀
travis-ci

[mondeja]

Hi, I'm a maintainer of the simple-icons project. Do you have considered to accept an array of colors to fill closed or inferred closed subpaths, just in same the order that are defined them? I'm aware that you probably are not yet faimliarized with the internal of SVG path[d] commands, in that case just let me know.

[dtaivpp]

"as they were deemed nicer" - while I appreciate that several of them might look nicer however I want to ask are they explicitly brand compliant? If not then are the ones maintained by the simply icons project brand compliant (@mondeja)?

As a contributor to an open source project I know that is generally one of our biggest concerns.

[calebcartwright]

Thank you for the question @dtaivpp! It's certainly an important factor, but it's actually off topic for this particular issue which is trying to focus on one specific piece of the overall picture, so I'd ask it be deferred to somewhere else.

The more holistic discussions, which include aspects like brand compliance, are being discussed elsewhere in the issues/discussions that were included in this issue's description (e.g. #6208). In short, brand compliance is part of the reason we have some of these custom logos to begin with (including Travis and Dependabot) as several were directly contributed to us by their respective owners. However, things change over time (Dependabot acquired by GitHub) and as we understand it, Travis employees/designers contributed to the Travis logo in the SI set too.

As such, we're strictly trying to use this issue to get feedback on the user preference piece because if there's an overwhelming response from our users to keep our custom logos then it really nullifies the need for us to have to gauge other aspects like brand compliance with different icons.

We're not trying gauge why any user might prefer an existing custom logo, nor are we asking anyone to rationalize their opinion. We're simply trying to poll our users to determine if there's a portion of our users that prefer the current experience so that we'll have that data point to feed into the broader discussion and decision.