The blue part white part (the star) of the avatar should not have synapses crossing it, and only have synapses on the border. The white part (the star)blue part should have synapses across of it. The synapses should be of the colour Fairphone blue.
Who can help with this?
Best, Stefan
Edit: We are very open to suggestions and ideas for improvement of the logo!
The blue part of the avatar should not have synapses crossing it, and only have synapses on the border. The white part (the star) should have synapses across of it. The synapses should be of the colour Fairphone blue.
May I suggest the opposite?
Here’s my reasoning: synapses only on the star would look more like a net covering the star, but synapses growing out from the star into the blue part of the logo would suggest more of a visual “outreach”
I am not a graphic designer either, but my first attempt would be (also to try how it looks like):
Take the fairphone star and convert the white to transparent (in GIMP this can be done in menu colors --> color to transparency)
put the star over the synapses (copy the star, insert in the synapses image; adjust)
crop it accordingly
If you want the star to be blue and the rest of the space outside the star the synapses, you will need to change the colors first then proceed similiarly. Here’s a 2 min. experiment. Probably you may want to take transparency from the blue part. I left it here, since I felt it actually looks more interesting.
btw: do you have the rights to edit & use the synapses picture?
You might also want to get the star image in higher resolution, so it fits the resolution of the synapses image, or just make the logo smaller (here the edges of the star are not sharp).
Edit2: I don’t have much time to play around with it now, I hope this helps as a starting point though. Maybe someone else has better ideas.
Either way, feel free to download/use the project files I created in GIMP, available from here:
Last year I made an oligodendrocyte-generator for an image at Karolinska that somehowended up on a mouse-mat without anyone telling me (lesson learned: using a creative commons attribution license doesn’t mean they have to tell you they used your work - not that I mind, but I could have bragged about it way earlier! :P). I probably can re-use the code and try if I can get something properly “synaptic” out of it
Wow great! I already thought that it would be best if someone with graphical coding skills proposed themselves…
It has been spooking around in my head for over a month, so this weekend really is early enough. Would be great if you could dedicate some of your time on the logo. And of course you would know immediately if it’s being used for the SYNAPSE program.
Having another idea; maybe to be done by some able photoshop artist.
Maybe the synapse-photo could first be made more graphic by eliminating the shadows and the tiny, light grey nerves. For a logo, that might be used in a small version as well, the synapse photo to me seems a bit too detailed and too little grapic.
Then maybe the synapse photo and the FP log could be merged in a way, that the synapses are coloured blue in the area of the white star and white over the blue part.
And finally the synapses-photo could maybe stretched or adjusted in a way, that the major synapses are located at the tips of the star.
This way it would look like the synapses and the Fairphone logo are naturally merged.
I guess if you know how to photoshop this could be doable.
I had that idea, when I saw the pictures from @freibadschwimmer, where the synapses are shining through the blue part.
WOW!
Really impressive and in my opinion way better than a photo for a logo.
Hi! These are all drafts. I can absolutely make changes and refine them. Or do another batch. It’s a tricky blend to do something so complex as a neuron (The most complex thing the universe has made) and a square and a star. (Some of the simplest geometric shapes)
My thinking was that this logo would have to be printed on paper at some point, and pixel based logos with lots of gradients never print well. So I went with graphic shapes in 2 - 3 colours.
I think that I actually like Version 1 the most because of its simplicity. Maybe you can pick up @JobLeonard’s idea:
The blue area could be bigger (leaving the star smaller and putting emphasis on the synapses and the outreach.) The synapses could start from the tips of the white star in the lower right corner.
@iratxe should of course also say what she thinks.
Thank you all,…I’m really impressed by your effort and your work!!
Here my thoughts: the most I like is version 4, although I would look for new ways to show the “synapse connections”. When I see the white “roads” out of the star in the blue part of “version 4”, I don’t see “real connections” but roads that flow,…I would look for “roads that creates something like spark when they meet,…or at least sometimes”…I have no idea how to reflect in drawings what I’m saying. So, I’m sorry not to contribute with more…
Thanks again for your creative work!!
Have a beautiful day!
My thoughts as well.
I guess the “nerves” should reflect a bit more on the reality, differing in width, and the connecting points (the synapses) I would see more like stars instead of roundabouts.
A bit like the “nerves” of version 2.
Not a critique of Jonny - it’s kind of inevitable with the constraints of two-color logo + wobbly synapse look.
Maybe the problem goes away if we ditch that “wobbly tentacle” look?
I just tried something silly to test that: I grabbed some photos of sparklers of the internet, threw them through a treshold filter, then re-arranged them together to create jaggy, angular “networks”. I want to make this clear: this is not a suggested logo, merely an illustration of an idea (also, I didn’t check the copyright of the sparkler picture I grabbed :P)
Well, I would guess that - in this case - it does not matter. You evidently changed the picture quite a lot creating and composing an artwork of your own and of its own kind. What you have done really stands out from the single form you might have used; and even that form was altered by you, if I get it right. So, you got your own coypright now.
Btw. I really like the wave-version of synapses (Wind Waker game). That graphics “flattened” out, turned upright and maybe added some smaller strands ending in the blue would be really fine by me.
Your suggestion looks like shattered glass or like scratched windows of a public transport vehicle. So this logo would generate negative associations in me.
We are open to any suggestions.
Would be great if you could dedicate some of your time on the logo. And of course you would know immediately if it’s being used for the SYNAPSE program. 
