What should our site's header graphic be?

Question

Based on Joe Friend's feedback on the site's recent theme change, there's a possibility of replacing the current site header image:

What should we replace it with, if anything? The image is currently in a 385 x 101 space, though it appears to me that there'd be more horizontal space available.

Answer 1

My personal preference would be to make it blank or non-existent all together.

Answer 2

I like dave559's suggestion of bees. Bees perform a vital function in nature, they're industrious and they all work together as a complicated society.

I'd like to go a little further and request an image with multiple bees of different species, to symbolize the diversity of the Unix ecosystem. I don't mind the style of the drawing (or photo) as long as it's detailed enough to see that the bees are different species.

I admit that this is more work than a simple abstract shape, but this is the first time I've heard a design idea that really evokes Unix to me.

(My second choice, if it's not bees, is no image. I hate the current image and wish it had never been put up.)

Answer 3

I like the user394’s idea to present the shell prompt.

In fact, the shell is what connects all Unix & Linux kinds, starting from BusyBox used in embedded devices, across Macs (with all their dissimilarities), to huge Linux servers. A shell works on all of them and behaves much same way. Even if you see it on Windows (using Cygwin, WSL etc.), you know: Now it behaves the Unix way.

I’d like to present a full featured prompt, showing additional Unix features:

• a Bash prompt which is likely the most common one
• the root user as a universal administrator of any Unix instance
• a hostname meaning you can work with several computers from a single terminal (using SSH, for example)
  • I’d choose stackexchange
  • it was unix in the original version but I want to not be redundant with the command, see below
• the slash representing the single-root directory structure making it so easy to mount and clone anything you like (and creating a hard time for newcomers from Windows :-) )
• a command representing getting help on Unix
  • man is the standard one
  • the unix manpage speaks about sockets but I find this an easter egg rather than a problem, the important thing is that it indeed works!

This is the text appearance of the result:

stackexchange:/# man unix█

(If you know a good command that could be written in the shell and extend the presented idea, please tell me! Preferred option incorporated.)

Answer 4

What about a banner logo featuring an O'Reilly-style animal image, perhaps?

Hmm, this site is part of a network of sites, a hive mind, even: a swarm of monochrome bumble bees, perhaps?

Busy, focussed on carrying out tasks, elegant in their own (but often under-appreciated) way, and sometimes liable to sting if upset? I can see a few parallels there… ;-)

Answer 5

I would like to see a graphic of a classic shell prompt.

$> _

Perhaps not the above prompt exactly, but a shell prompt nonetheless.

Answer 6

The idea behind the current graphic, at least what I understand of it, is nice: connection. There's a beauty and elegance to a shell pipeline - a connection of commands - data flowing from one to another, transforming again and again, that's simply mesmerizing. If the graphic could be fixed to be less convoluted and more elegant ...

Answer 7

I'm a fan of this header graphic, right in the center:

Answer 8

I would prefer no graphic at all. I am all for simpler web designs.

Failing that, how about putting an option like we have in our profile for the left option, for not having that Unix&Linux bar area at all, on the top?

I blocked it with adblocking and it looks so much less clutered. It is after all valuable space.

PS. I also add-blocked the Hot network questions area while in the Unix questions. Visual clutter is not welcome.

Obviously at the touch of an icon in the browser I can easily see it all if I want to see it.

Answer 9

I’ll throw a radical idea out there: what about adding text and/or links to help introduce and/or guide users on the site?

Ideas include:

• pointers to popular tag Info pages
• links to “how to ask smart questions”, such as https://jdebp.eu/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html or http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html or http://sscce.org/
• question guidance ala https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/369682/ask-a-question-wizard-prototype

Answer 10

Possibly a stylized version of a pdp-7 or pdp-11 since those are the original machines unix ran on? Just a single cabinet, perhaps black and white, with white circles for the tapes, or comic-like.

The other thing I thought of was an idealized screenshot of space travel, the game that Ken Thompson supposedly developed unix to play.

update:

Here's a quick stab at a stylized pdp-7

Answer 11

3 weeks in, the votes as of today lean toward "no graphic at all":

• +10 blank/non-existent
• +7 for bees, second choice none
• +5 for a "full featured prompt" shell prompt
• +4 for a classic shell prompt
• +4 for an O'Reilly-style animal (bees)
• +3 for a centered "Unix & Linux"
• +3 current image, but less convoluted and more elegant
• +2 a stylized pdp-7
• +2 no image or no top bar at all
• +1 introductory links
• -2 keep existing, add bee & penguin
• -4 keep existing

... which is (now) the current situation, the image having been removed as of Aug 17 at 20:55.

Answer 12

How about keeping the existing logo but add an O’Reilly bee image, an ampersand and an O'Reilly-style penguin to the right? (and that would allow us to make endless puns about bees, penguins, penguins getting stung by bees, penguins eating bees, refer to the site as Bees&Penguins, ...)

Answer 13

No change / "none of the above". That is, keep the current image presented in the Q.