Bitcoin Unit Logo System

[RealMalatesta]

Hi all,

some few days ago, I opened this threat:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5461973.msg62647372#msg62647372

Actually, there were quite some discussions. The result: my girlfriend started anew and designed the following symbols for the subdivisions of Bitcoin.

If someone likes them, you can download them here:
https://gallikerdesign.ch/btc-signs.html

A documentation on how the symbols are constructed and the reasoning behind it can be found here:
https://gallikerdesign.ch/documentation-btc-signs-v5.pdf

[Nwada001]

I think there has been some discussion regarding which logo or symbol is to be used to represent the smallest unit of Bitcoin, SATs."
But I guess there is still yet to be decided on anyone in particular; maybe, if not for anything official or maybe for just some person's personal research or personal block, someone might pick from any of you and your girlfriend's designed samples.
I will probably choose the "B" with the two strokes at the top, as it represents something smaller than the initial to me.
 

[NotATether]

I like it.

But I can't for the life of me understand what the small "b" in the center image is supposed to represent. I see Bitcoin, millibitcoin (mBTC), satoshis, and millisatoshis (nobody uses that by the way, except maybe in Lightning channels).

Anyway, they look pretty good, although I also think the m should be separated from the B and S, not joined together, to make it more legible to newcomers.

[Plaguedeath]

It's really hard to convince and make people remember about the new logo, actually the mb logo actually looks fine, but yet the BTC logo is already in everyone minds. Maybe there's could be an official logo for Bitcoin, but I wouldn't forget about the old logo where it has been used and created by Satoshi.

But I really like the documentation about each logo you created above.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Could I know idea why most of your logos have the strikes in different directions than the Bitcoin logo?

If I am a designer, I will keep the direction of two strikes like current Bitcoin logo than changing it to nearly horizontal strikes which are used in these logos. I will use vertical strikes for both b and s.

[Mr.right85]

Well, every currency have got some symbol of some sort and that of bitcoin has always been BTC or something of that nature.
One thing I have trouble understanding is, why there has to be a particular symbol for every denomination. Not saying it’s a bad idea though but, I don’t find it to be very necessary. Perhaps someone might explain it to me because, am more satisfied with seeing BTC0.002 rather than seeing 2mBtc, that’s just me though. I feel it makes me want to calculate but then, what ever goes right.

[rat03gopoh]

In general, people only more often use the 2 terms "bitcoin" and "satoshi" and their activities. I don't think having to create symbols at every level of fractional units, it just adds more confusion.
Btw, I like the concept of the satoshi logo, just need to change the letters to something neater.

[dothebeats]

These are actually really good. Kudos to your girlfriend, it is really nice and I'm sure it took a lot of time and effort for them. As far as the design goes I like how simple they are and how you can easily identify what each symbol represents or mean. However, I'm sure there are some points to be adjusted like some comments already stated so I'd rather not repeat those cause I know how annoying that can get. But all in all I like them. Again, good work.

[OgNasty]

As others have stated, the logos are done very well and appear extremely professional. Good work by the graphic artist for sure. However, I have to wonder if so many logos are needed. It seems pretty confusing for me and so I’m sure to most normal people having so many logos for different decimal places is insane. Nice work regardless.

[CryptSafe]

This is a clean touch of excellence. Well designed with the perfect colouration. I think the community would need to decide or choose which would be more suitable for usage as there are lots of others also designed but to be honest, this is unique.

Irrespective of the fact that you already put up the links here for reading I think Putting up the written words and explanatory here would not be an issue so people who find it difficult clicking links can as well read to have knowledge of the design and reasons behind it.

[Doan9269]

As others have stated, the logos are done very well and appear extremely professional. Good work by the graphic artist for sure. However, I have to wonder if so many logos are needed. It seems pretty confusing for me and so I’m sure to most normal people having so many logos for different decimal places is insane. Nice work regardless.

If we are to consider the designs on the logo, they are very attractive to the eye and is a well done job as everyone has already complemented, but however we should consider the reason that having more than one logo to symbolise bitcoin will be making it sounds confusing to people and i believe in most brands we have in the world, each has always maintained a unique symbol or logo to serve as it identification, bitcoin may need no additional logo irrespective of the unit it's appears.

[panganib999]

I like it. If I were to decide I'd choose these in a heartbeat. Simple, recognizable, legible, it's just everything you need for a currency logo. Hope this could be transferred into macro too so we can use it in texts and all that. Although I don't really know how we go about choosing logos in here ever since the last time we decided about what logo to use for bitcoin (and I'm not even much aware of it cause that was a long-long time ago and I wasn't even there, just someone who stumbled upon the post before this one) so deciding on using this as the unit logo for SATs is going to be a little bit tricky. Do we invite a moderator here and have him set up a poll/voting system or something along those lines? What needs to be done?

[Fiatless]

You are privileged to have a girlfriend that is a talented graphic designer. I desire to have a partner that is creative and innovative. I like most of her designs and having documentation that backs the designs makes it more interesting. I read the document, it was really interesting. I hope one day there will be a need to have these symbols applied to the Bitcoin ecosystem. I will gladly recommend or vote for her design to be considered. Maybe she might go down in history as one of the designers of the future design of some units of Bitcoin.

[aoluain]

I like the designs overall, like the Bitcoin logo any others for Satoshi's need to be simple
and these follow that but like SquirrelJulietGarden why the double strikes are at a different
angle? I think the designs would be simpler if the followed the double strike direction of the
Bitcoin logo.

And like OgNasty I too wonder if those or any other Satoshi logos will ever be used?

Maybe in the future when owning a single Bitcoin will be far outside most peoples
grasp and owning Satoshi's will take precedence and will be the focus.

[RealMalatesta]

Wow, I can tell you that my girlfriend (she's not registered here) was blown away by some of the comments. Thanks (from her, too),

I realize that some do not like to click on links leading away, so I take the liberty to post her comments on the single signs in the following posts...

[RealMalatesta]

Design criteria
I developed the system according to the following criteria:

• Uniqueness
• Recognizability
• Related to the Bitcoin symbol
• Recognizable as currency symbol
• Simple
• Translate well to other fonts (like other currency symbols)
• Functionality with Unicode
• Must work extremely small and extremely large
• Must be expandable

First I designed the glyphs, starting with the small “b”. From this I developed the “n”, from this the “m” and finally the capital “S”. For “millibit” as well as for “milliSat” I constructed ligatures with the “mb” and the “mS”. The “m” and the “b” are lowercase letters, because they do not have a whole proper name, i.e. they are word combinations, whereas Bitcoin and Satoshi are proper nouns. That’s why I chose the capital letter for the “S” for Satoshi.
On the following posts, you see a documentation how I constructed them.



Bitcoin Logo



This is the original Bitcoin-logo. I wasn’t able to find it as a vector file, so I had vectorize it. When I was doing so, I found some design flaws, that really stressed me.

• The slim bow which goes from the serif to the upper and the lower B-bow weren‘t in a line (you can see the corner where the serif meets the first line of the vertical currency line) the line from the serif wasn‘t continuously and
  
• The two short currency lines weren‘t at the same high as the inner line from the inner space of the two empty spaces from the B.
• Also the radius where the serifs and the vertical line of the B meet weren‘t the same. I just corrected this here.

You find the corrected version of the Bitcoin-Sign also available for download.







Millibit Logo



This is how I constructed the ligature for the millibit logo:

• The “b” is the same as for the bit logo. I put the “m” in front of the “b” and connected it to the “b” so that it merges into one glyph.
• The oblique line at the serif, as well as the rounded corners have the same size and radius as for the “b”.
• The inner serifs of the “n” are 4/11 narrower so that the “m” does not appear heavier than the lowercase “b”.
• The upper curves of the “m” are the same height as the upper curve of the belly of the “b”.
• The upper serif has the same length as the outer serifs of the “m”.
• The lower serif, according to the concept that only the lowest left serif has a slanting section and because it is a serif within the letter, has the length of the inner “m” serifs.
• I left the corner of the belly of the “b” so that the white space remains the same and the “b” remains more recognizable. This way, two single letters form a complete ligature.
• In the finished character for the millibit logo, I used the same sizes and lengths for the two currency strokes as for the bit logo. Also here are the currency strokes without the rounded corners, which are used for the serifs, because they are additions and do not belong to the letter in that sense.

bit Logo



The lowercase “b” for the “bit” logo was the first letter, usually in type design you start with the lowercase “n”, but for me the lowercase “b” was somehow easier here.

• I took the slanting stroke at the serif from the capital “B”. The rounded corners at the transition of the serif to the letter are the same size at the top as at the bottom and run through all lowercase letters. They are smaller than in the capital letter “B” because it would have looked strange if the curves had the same size as in the capital “B”.
• The thickness of the lowest part of the belly of the “b” is the same as that of the serif, so that it looks like a line.
• The upper serif is less high, but has the same length as the lower serif (like the capital “B”).
• The baseline. Visually, the arcs must go a bit above it, so that they don’t look too small.
• The small “b” goes to the H-height and forms the upper end of the letter.
• The upper stroke of the currency strokes replaces the upper serif of the “b”. It is longer than the serif of the “b”, so that it is distinguished as a currency bar.

Satoshi Logo



The capital letter “S” was the last letter. It was the most difficult letter for me to construct. On the one hand, so that the “S” fits nicely into the font like the other letters, on the other hand, so that it then also became a nice independent sign as a currency sign and did not somehow fall out of line.

• The serifs on the S are “hidden” but still recognizable. Again, there is the same slanted drop as with the “B”.
• The lower serif is slightly higher than the upper one, so that the upper one doesn’t visually press on the lower one.
• The upper and lower outer curves of the “S” go further outward to accommodate the width of the “B” and create a balance. The upper bow, however, is slightly narrower in thickness.
• The upper serif ends a bit below the “H” height to make the letter look the same size.
• I had to trick a bit and make the upper bow of the “S” a bit higher, so that the bow is still recognizable when using the currency strokes even if the sign is only displayed in 12 pt, for example, and the currency strokes themselves had to hang at the top of the H-height, so that they were not lower than the currency strokes of the lowercase “b”. The outer axes of the “S” are exactly in the center, while the inner axes are each shifted in the other direction, which gives the letter a better balance.
• The length of the currency strokes on the left are at the same height as the outer edge of the lower serif, so that they do not appear optically too long and “pull” the character backwards.
• The height and length of the currency strokes is visually adapted to the Bitcoin character, but they are slightly narrower and smaller, because they would look too bold in exactly the same size. As with the large Bitcoin B, the currency bars do not go through the letter.

MilliSatoshi Logo




The ligature respectively the sign for Millisat was the last sign. Now you may think. Ah, a mistake, she used the capital letter “S” instead of taking a lower case letter, as in “bit” and “millibit”. However, this is not the case. There are two reasons why I used the upper case letter.
1. a smaller unit than Satoshi is not represented in the code.
2. “millibit” and “bit” do not come from the word “Bitcoin” but from the unit “bit”, “millisat” or “millisatoshi” does come from “Satoshi”.

• Again, as with millibit-sign, the “m” retains its serifs including the slanted downstroke and the rounded transition from the serif to the base of the letter. Also the serifs inside the “m”. And as in “millibit”, the “m” keeps the last inner serif, but loses the last serif, because of the connection to the “S”.
• The “S” is exactly the same as the “S” for Satoshi, also the two currency strokes hang from the H-height of the glyph and are exactly the same size as in the Satoshi sign, and as in the Satoshi sign, the currency strokes do not pass through the letter. This also makes the last character a unique, understandable symbol while keeping the recognition value of the Bitcoin symbol.

The full documentation can be downloaded here, as mentioned previously:
https://gallikerdesign.ch/documentation-btc-signs-v5.pdf

The downloadable fonts in several formats can be found here:
https://gallikerdesign.ch/btc-signs.html

Hope that helps

[Fivestar4everMVP]

As others have stated, the logos are done very well and appear extremely professional. Good work by the graphic artist for sure. However, I have to wonder if so many logos are needed. It seems pretty confusing for me and so I’m sure to most normal people having so many logos for different decimal places is insane. Nice work regardless.

yeah, it is a nice work indeed and I also commend it and the effort put into bringing those masterpiece to live, but then, i also share in your opinion, Bitcoin does not actually need any logo for its subdivisions, having different logos for the subdivisions of bitcoin will rather cause more confusion for builders and developers, than it can help..

Imagine yourself being a developer and building a bitcoin wallet, and you have to think of how to program the wallet to change or switch logos depending on how much bitcoins or sub bitcoin the user have in the wallet, this is totally not important and not worth the time the developer must have spent trying to figure out how to make the logo switching work effectively, if at all there is a way in the first place.
Anyways, just my thought though, but I sure appreciate the creativity and professionalism in the logos.

[hugeblack]

I liked the Satoshi logo, it is good and close to the US dollar. Frankly, I do not like the current abbreviations or the logo that is used, so if more people like this logo, it may be approved by more people.
Can you tell her to make more designs, her designs are good and she may turn to gain popularity in social media.

[RealMalatesta]

Imagine yourself being a developer and building a bitcoin wallet, and you have to think of how to program the wallet to change or switch logos depending on how much bitcoins or sub bitcoin the user have in the wallet, this is totally not important and not worth the time the developer must have spent trying to figure out how to make the logo switching work effectively, if at all there is a way in the first place.
Anyways, just my thought though, but I sure appreciate the creativity and professionalism in the logos.

I see your point. But on the other hand, there are use cases I could think of:
- there are a lot of apps where you can transfer or win Satoshis. Many of them use the Bitcoin-logo instead of a Satoshi-logo. This is often misleading, especially for newcomers. Using an established logo could make sense.
- In many wallets, you can chose how you want your assets to be shown. In Bitcoin Core, for example, you can chose between Bitcoin, Sats, bits and millibitcoin. If a wallet dev wants to use a graphic for the units: Here they are.

[blckhawk]

It's really hard to convince and make people remember about the new logo, actually the mb logo actually looks fine, but yet the BTC logo is already in everyone minds. Maybe there's could be an official logo for Bitcoin, but I wouldn't forget about the old logo where it has been used and created by Satoshi.

But I really like the documentation about each logo you created above.

Definitely hard, especially with a decade already of only using the current bitcoin logo as a symbol, I don't think that people are going to be using those proposed logo. Me personally, I find it odd that we're trying to change something that's not broken, I think sticking to the original is the best because it's instantly recognizable and it's not as convoluted for newcomers, imagine seeing that mb logo and wondering what does it mean and then someone says it's connected to bitcoin and then you've got more questions about why is it connected to bitcoin.