Tale of a Logo
For the release of TextExpander we wanted to update the product logo to be more in keeping with our existing product logos. We also wanted to keep familiarity with the previous logo, so we kept its clean, simple geometry. Ultimately we wanted a smooth-shaded 3D look. Since the design is fairly simple I decided to render it myself. I’ve been interested in 3D for many years, and this provided a great opportunity to learn and get up to date.
The first step was selecting a modeling product. In my web research I came across this really incredible tool: Cheetah3D. I used it both to model and render the product logo. To my amazement it can also save a rendering as a Mac OS X icon!
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The model is influenced by the look of an old-fashioned typewriter key. It’s rendered using radiosity and reflection, so that the outer edge looks something like reflective metal.
Getting the lighting and color just so for a scene is never easy. One of Cheetah3D’s advantages is, being a Universal Binary, it performs very well on my MacBook Pro. Tweaks and repeated renderings are rapid. |
We’ve had some feedback on the new logo, most of it about the TextExpander menu icon in the menubar. Some people are passionately attached to the old menubar icon, so we could make that an option in the future.
June 24th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Now I understand why you guys are so against reverting back to the original TextExpander menu bar icon ;(
July 10th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
I would love an option to use the old icon. I love that the old one was Spotlight-like. It matched so well with the other nemu items that lived up there.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
3D. Wow. By the way, I did the original menu bar icon with GraphicConverter.