4 ms·

I'm spending some time creating a logo generator tool targeted at idea/early stage products and companies, or for side projects, open source projects, etc. It'

I'm spending some time creating a logo generator tool targeted at idea/early stage products and companies, or for side projects, open source projects, etc. It's called Logocaster - https://logocaster.com https://logocaster.com Logocaster is meant to help you explore a huge universe of logo designs when brainstorming your brand/logo. It makes it quite easy to scan a bunch of style/font/palette options and then "drill down" and see designs which only incorporate the features you like. Right now it's a playground for testing out fonts, colors and a few logo styles. I'm planning on incorporating graphics from the Noun Project and giving a bit more of a rich experience around tweaking a specific design. You can explore the functionality without registering, and save/download your favorites as SVG if you do register (edit: for free, at least until I've incorporated Stripe). I'm looking for any feedback on the direction the project is headed, or interesting use cases where the API that powers this whole thing could be put to use, cheers!

mindcrime 11y ago
Dude, that is perfect timing! We need a logo for NeuralObjects (see my other thread here), so this is great for us. I'd totally pay for this if you had your Stripe integration going. But since you don't, I can offer this: if you plan to use Machine Learning for anything, shoot me an email and I can offer up a discount or something once NeuralObjects is live, or maybe some free consulting or something. Do you have a feel for how the pricing is going to work yet? Will you charge per logo, or will it be a monthly subscription, etc? FWIW, I'd definitely be willing to pay a monthly fee if it came with unlimited (or a large number) of downloadable logos. I say that not because I need zillions of logos, but because I think you'll always want to iterate and experiment with a lot of different permutations until you find the "Just right" fit.
- mikejarema 11y ago
  Thanks! Glad you can put it to use, hope you find something that works for NeuralObjects. Pro tip: all of your saved logos as well as SVG downloads are found on your profile page. Re: pricing. Not quite sure about details yet. But the high level is that 1) the design page and functionality (https://logocaster.com/logo-design/ https://logocaster.com/logo-design/) will always be free to use and explore, 2) I'll sell one-off logos at a price point that is competitive with anything out there, 3) as you mentioned, offer a monthly option for people who want to use the tool regularly and produce logos at some moderate volume and 4) offer up the API for other interesting use cases. Re: (4) it's quite easy to see the API in action, eg. https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=NeuralObjects&font_id=366&palette_id=1473&letter_spacing=-0.05&style=text https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&... Try playing with the style param (text,bubble,outlined), or letter spacing (works only with style=text). Metadata on a logo is tucked away in the HTTP headers for the curious.
geocrasher 11y ago
Thanks for posting this- it's really neat. I'm not much of a designer (or developer for that matter!) I used one of your logos on a site that I put together with wordpress. It's my own little link aggregator. Instead of bookmarking something, I post it on my link site for future reference. http://geekymug.com http://geekymug.com (re-used domain name, not relevant to what it is) if you'd like to see your work on my site :)
- mikejarema 11y ago
  Great, and thanks for the link back. I like the idea of a public personal bookmark site, especially if it serves to help you level up your design and dev skills.
duderific 11y ago
Really nice! Would be cool if there was some sort of categorization of the styles, i.e. "serif", "sans serif" etc.
- mikejarema 11y ago
  Thanks! Hit the blue "Refine Font/Color/Style" button the left :) (edit: wrong left, link) https://twitter.com/logocaster/status/695671140409335808 https://twitter.com/logocaster/status/695671140409335808
jkot 11y ago
Cool app. I found a bug, it ignores '<' character
- mikejarema 11y ago
  Thanks for letting me know, I hadn't tested names with anything beyond alphanumerics. Certainly some of the fonts in the system are lacking those glyphs but this seems more related to the application logic than font issues. It's especially odd that it intermittently discards the text to the right of the bracket (eg. https://logocaster.com/logo-design/less+%3C+more?seed=784036230&compoundIndex= https://logocaster.com/logo-design/less+%3C+more?seed=784036...)
hugodahl 11y ago
Very cool stuff! Was just playing around with it for a while, saw (and saved) some nifty compositions! Better yet, what I noticed is that, not being a designer, it had palette options/varieties with the logos! YAY! Sadly, after saving a few to my profile, the only thing available is the SVG of the logo itself, but none of the details. I was hoping for at least the palette too, so to have some to toy around with. I know this pushes it from a logo generator to more of a brand/identity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing! Ultimately, not an issue, and still very cool stuff!
- mikejarema 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. Keep on playing around. I plan to surface the font, palette, etc info for each logo just as you've described. Specifically so that you can use it to drive design/branding decision further in your product/company/site. For now (and seeing that you're a "code jedi") I'd recommend just scoping out the X-Logo and X-Meta HTTP headers for the logos you've saved, eg: $ curl --head -s "https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=companyco&style=bubble&palette_id=1643&font_id=438&bubble_width=18" | grep "X-" X-Meta-Permalink: https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=companyco&style=bubble&palette_id=1643&font_id=438&bubble_width=18.0 X-Logo-Name: companyco (edit) X-Logo-Style: bubble X-Logo-Palette-Id: 1643 X-Logo-Font-Id: 438 X-Logo-Bubble-Width: 18.0 X-Logo-Drop-Spaces: false X-Logo-Text-Transform: none X-Logo-Font-Category: sans-serif X-Meta-Palette: #72ab1a #2aade4 #9ed4d6 X-Meta-Palette-Background: #fdfcfc X-Meta-Font-Family: Montserrat

mindcrime 11y ago

Dude, that is perfect timing! We need a logo for NeuralObjects (see my other thread here), so this is great for us. I'd totally pay for this if you had your Stripe integration going. But since you don't, I can offer this: if you plan to use Machine Learning for anything, shoot me an email and I can offer up a discount or something once NeuralObjects is live, or maybe some free consulting or something. Do you have a feel for how the pricing is going to work yet? Will you charge per logo, or will it be a monthly subscription, etc? FWIW, I'd definitely be willing to pay a monthly fee if it came with unlimited (or a large number) of downloadable logos. I say that not because I need zillions of logos, but because I think you'll always want to iterate and experiment with a lot of different permutations until you find the "Just right" fit.

mikejarema 11y ago
Thanks! Glad you can put it to use, hope you find something that works for NeuralObjects. Pro tip: all of your saved logos as well as SVG downloads are found on your profile page. Re: pricing. Not quite sure about details yet. But the high level is that 1) the design page and functionality (https://logocaster.com/logo-design/ https://logocaster.com/logo-design/) will always be free to use and explore, 2) I'll sell one-off logos at a price point that is competitive with anything out there, 3) as you mentioned, offer a monthly option for people who want to use the tool regularly and produce logos at some moderate volume and 4) offer up the API for other interesting use cases. Re: (4) it's quite easy to see the API in action, eg. https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=NeuralObjects&font_id=366&palette_id=1473&letter_spacing=-0.05&style=text https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&... Try playing with the style param (text,bubble,outlined), or letter spacing (works only with style=text). Metadata on a logo is tucked away in the HTTP headers for the curious.

geocrasher 11y ago

Thanks for posting this- it's really neat. I'm not much of a designer (or developer for that matter!) I used one of your logos on a site that I put together with wordpress. It's my own little link aggregator. Instead of bookmarking something, I post it on my link site for future reference. http://geekymug.com http://geekymug.com (re-used domain name, not relevant to what it is) if you'd like to see your work on my site :)

mikejarema 11y ago
Great, and thanks for the link back. I like the idea of a public personal bookmark site, especially if it serves to help you level up your design and dev skills.

duderific 11y ago

Really nice! Would be cool if there was some sort of categorization of the styles, i.e. "serif", "sans serif" etc.

mikejarema 11y ago
Thanks! Hit the blue "Refine Font/Color/Style" button the left :) (edit: wrong left, link) https://twitter.com/logocaster/status/695671140409335808 https://twitter.com/logocaster/status/695671140409335808

jkot 11y ago

Cool app. I found a bug, it ignores '<' character

mikejarema 11y ago
Thanks for letting me know, I hadn't tested names with anything beyond alphanumerics. Certainly some of the fonts in the system are lacking those glyphs but this seems more related to the application logic than font issues. It's especially odd that it intermittently discards the text to the right of the bracket (eg. https://logocaster.com/logo-design/less+%3C+more?seed=784036230&compoundIndex= https://logocaster.com/logo-design/less+%3C+more?seed=784036...)

hugodahl 11y ago

Very cool stuff! Was just playing around with it for a while, saw (and saved) some nifty compositions! Better yet, what I noticed is that, not being a designer, it had palette options/varieties with the logos! YAY! Sadly, after saving a few to my profile, the only thing available is the SVG of the logo itself, but none of the details. I was hoping for at least the palette too, so to have some to toy around with. I know this pushes it from a logo generator to more of a brand/identity, but that's not necessarily a bad thing! Ultimately, not an issue, and still very cool stuff!

mikejarema 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback. Keep on playing around. I plan to surface the font, palette, etc info for each logo just as you've described. Specifically so that you can use it to drive design/branding decision further in your product/company/site. For now (and seeing that you're a "code jedi") I'd recommend just scoping out the X-Logo and X-Meta HTTP headers for the logos you've saved, eg: $ curl --head -s "https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=companyco&style=bubble&palette_id=1643&font_id=438&bubble_width=18" | grep "X-" X-Meta-Permalink: https://api.logocaster.com/v1/logos/new.png?action=recreate&name=companyco&style=bubble&palette_id=1643&font_id=438&bubble_width=18.0 X-Logo-Name: companyco (edit) X-Logo-Style: bubble X-Logo-Palette-Id: 1643 X-Logo-Font-Id: 438 X-Logo-Bubble-Width: 18.0 X-Logo-Drop-Spaces: false X-Logo-Text-Transform: none X-Logo-Font-Category: sans-serif X-Meta-Palette: #72ab1a #2aade4 #9ed4d6 X-Meta-Palette-Background: #fdfcfc X-Meta-Font-Family: Montserrat