Alternative version of the logo

I have a few issues with the current logo:

it is a little small
the fact that the C in "MathCAT" is the cat's tail is lovely, but not very readable
the transparent background does not work very well with dark background.

Here's how I see the logo on a browser with a dark background (left) and with a light background (right):

So, I've created an alternate version of the logo. Full-disclosure, I have used ChatGPT starting from the original logo and arriving to what you see below after a few prompts. I cannot draw that well.

Here's the modifications:

I have simplified the style to make it cleaner and so that it works better in small size
I have moved the cat to the left and have the tail go around the writing "MathCAT" to make it more readable.

I have created two version with different colors, one with a black cat and brown outlines and the other with a brown cat with a black outline. The images are in PNG format.

I've long known the quality of the logo is horrible. You can see why it was a good choice not to become an artist :-)

I tried playing with AI, but never found anything close to good. Your version are better than what I came up with, but they miss the "cute"/clever idea that the cat's tail forms the letter "C". Several people sort of volunteered to do a better logo, but they fizzled. My son's Christmas gift was to get an artist friend of his to do a logo for MathCAT. But after a bunch of back and forth with sketches that I didn't like, it has fizzled out and nothing has happened in four months. I should bug my son again to bug his friend. Here's the last iteration:

I felt that the cat was too flat in color and needed some kind of shading. The tail is kind of weird and whiskers standout too much. Maybe you can feed that into whatever AI you are using. It's been almost a year since I last tried and it keeps getting better.

@NSoiffer

@NSoiffer wrote:

I've long known the quality of the logo is horrible. You can see why it was a good choice not to become an artist :-)

Same here, same here.

I tried playing with AI, but never found anything close to good. Your version are better than what I came up with, but they miss the "cute"/clever idea that the cat's tail forms the letter "C". Several people sort of volunteered to do a better logo, but they fizzled. My son's Christmas gift was to get an artist friend of his to do a logo for MathCAT. But after a bunch of back and forth with sketches that I didn't like, it has fizzled out and nothing has happened in four months. I should bug my son again to bug his friend. Here's the last iteration:

[...]

I felt that the cat was too flat in color and needed some kind of shading. The tail is kind of weird and whiskers standout too much. Maybe you can feed that into whatever AI you are using. It's been almost a year since I last tried and it keeps getting better.

I also find the idea of the cat's tail becoming the "C" cute, but it was making the original logo unreadable and I couldn't come up with a way to make it work, so I decided to move the cat all the way to the left. I have to say that the new version that you posted does it in a clever way that looks nice.

Some unrequested comments:

I think that a logo should be simple, so it should have few details and colors. This would allow it also to scale well for all sizes. For example, I would go for a simpler version of the cat (no whiskers?)
Maybe with a simpler font that matching the style of the cat's tail works better?

I don't want to use AI to take a way an artist's commission, so if you are working with an artist please continue doing so.

I edited Cristian's brown cat with MS Paint so that the cat's tail forms the letter "C".

@ways2read

@ways2read: that's the best yet! I'll see if the artist wants to improve on that.

@CristianCantoro wrote:

I think that a logo should be simple, so it should have few details and colors. This would allow it also to scale well for all sizes. For example, I would go for a simpler version of the cat (no whiskers?)

That's what my son said, but I thought it was boring. With you joining in, I'm getting out-voted...

@ways2read

Sorry, I couldn't resist and take another shot at this. So, first of all, one problem I had with the original logo (and in part with @ways2read's version) is that the C is not very clear. The tail should clearly look like a C.

So, I tried to improve it, here's a version where the cat still has a thick tail:

Then, I took inspiration from the artist's version above, that version has a couple of interesting features that make the C even clearer:

the cat needs to be a bit more to the right with respect to the word
the tail is long and thin

Here's two versions, I liked the idea to have stripes on the tail, but I am not sure it's the best idea (again, simpler is better)

The distance between the cat and the top of the letters needs to be adjusted.

All in all, I think a human hand could make the necessary adjustments and redo the image in a vectorial format, so it scales at any size.

This one is growing on me:

I'll get my son and his artist friend to take a look at it. He's currently writing his PhD applications on top of his regular class work/research and is pretty stressed at the moment, so I'll wait for the Christmas break to push on him to offer up any changes.

Thanks for working on this. It is definitely better than what I came up with!

I too think this is the best yet. The tail fits well with the text and also looks right on the cat. Good job!

I also like this version of the cat. I will to experiment with placing this into the NVDA dialog to see how this scales down.

Back in September I played with some different colorways, and also with text directions/placement. I don't think they worked so well, but I could add them for completeness.

I also like this last one. I think it's clean, but not boring, and the tail fits well with the text :)

@NSoiffer

@NSoiffer showed a new logo at the DAISY conference in Oslo - was it the one in this issue? What are the thoughts on finalizing? A transparent background version would be useful. I can make one with 'remove background' but if there is the master editing file we can avoid this kludge.

The current logo appears in the NVDA addon dialog in the bottom left:

Here is the same dialog with the newer design in the same place:

And for comparison, same logo, different colourway:

Now here are some images each with 16 versions of the newer logo in different colours:

colourful pastel shades:

red, orange, yellow, green:

green, blue, indigo, violet, grey:

some more blue options:

some grey options:

@NSoiffer

I don't like that any better -- it's too dark. Also, the AI I used couldn't get the tail to be right. I asked to use a complimentary color to the daisy logo and it came back with something close to the original orange color:

I like these two the best so far. I prefer the orange to the previous brown because it is more dynamic than a drab brown (opinionated) and the outline contrasts better.

@NSoiffer do you have an original image file (possibly PNG with transparent canvas?) I can match this orange colour, strengthen the border, and show in place in the NVDA dialog and on a slide.

Comment from my colleagues who work with communication: The logo should also work if you use dark mode.

Does that mean we provide a version with the MathCAT text in white (it is currently black)? Or perhaps there should be a white outline of the letters?

Question: Does that mean we provide a version with the MathCAT text in white (it is currently black)? Or perhaps there should be a white outline of the letters?

Answer from my colleague: The most important thing it that the text is visible.

Question: Does that mean we provide a version with the MathCAT text in white (it is currently black)? Or perhaps there should be a white outline of the letters?

Answer from my colleague: The most important thing it that the text is visible.

OK. We can make a dark mode version of the logo. xwPython provides a built-in API to check the system setting via wx.SystemSettings.GetAppearance(). The logo can be chosen when the dialogue loads. It won't switch the logo if the mode is changed when the dialogue is already displayed, but that is acceptable IMHO.

Regular version of logo (more 'realistic', thicker outline, orange) and the same with white text and white outline for dark mode

@ways2read

@ways2read , we showed this new logo in the working group meeting yesterday, and they all liked it. Would it be a job for you to replace the old logo with the new logo in every place the logo is used?

The logo is used:

The MathCAT pages: https://daisy.github.io/MathCAT/
NVDA settings
...?

My 2cents: I think it is ok to have multiple versions of the logo (e.g. for light background, for dark background, etc.).

OK. I increased the resolution and smoothed the lumpy curves. I made three versions.

regular orange cat with black outlines and MathCAT text on transparent background
dark mode orange cat with grey outlines and MathCAT text, black facial features on a transparent background
regular logo on a white square with rounded corners

Here is a slide with the graphic in place:

New logo in place in the NVDA MathCAT preferences dialog. Dark mode detection was not reliable, so if the luminance of the panel background is below 128 the logo is drawn with a slightly dark grey pill behind. This looks better than the dark mode variant of the logo, IMHO.

The logo is live, so closing.

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Alternative version of the logo #406

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NSoiffer commented on Sep 22, 2025

CristianCantoro commented on Sep 22, 2025

ways2read commented on Sep 22, 2025

NSoiffer commented on Sep 22, 2025

CristianCantoro commented on Sep 23, 2025

NSoiffer commented on Nov 14, 2025

ways2read commented on Nov 14, 2025

MartheGjelstad commented on Mar 13, 2026

ways2read commented on Jul 21, 2026

ways2read commented on Aug 6, 2026

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MartheGjelstad commented on Aug 13, 2026

CristianCantoro commented on Aug 15, 2026

ways2read commented on Aug 17, 2026

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NSoiffer commented on Aug 28, 2026

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