Chris, looking at logo-01-options.html: the Guide-cover render in §01 is the
striking one, the proportions are nicer, and the app's mark is overpowering "Money Ledger"
because the box is bigger and white. This is that fix, on a Dashboard rather than a sidebar
strip, because a lockup can only be judged next to the thing it competes with.
Toggle
Theme
What actually changes
Current
Proposed
Tile
38px
34px — the guide's
Rule
18×9
16×8
Gap
11px
13px
Fill
cream, uniform
--side-mark-bg, per theme
Rule color
green, uniform
--side-mark-ink
Edge
1px dark hairline
none — unnecessary once the tile is chosen to sit on its own sidebar
The proportion is the real fix. The guide sets a 34px tile against a 13pt wordmark — a
ratio of 1.96. The app shipped 38px against 17px, which is 2.24, so the tile is
14% larger relative to the text than the design it was taken from. Cream on a dark sidebar
then makes it the brightest object on the screen. Shrinking it and letting it take the theme's
own color returns the wordmark to being the thing you read first.
Does themed hold up?
Measured, tile against its own sidebar, all twelve:
matrix
15.38:1
landscape
11.76:1
wings
11.54:1
terminal
10.42:1
bumblebee
10.10:1
ledger
9.71:1
ocean
8.08:1
clouds
6.54:1
route
5.41:1
city
5.18:1
riviera
2.33:1
gulf
1.03:1
Gulf is the one weak case — an orange tile on a light-blue sidebar, 1.03:1, so the plate
nearly vanishes. Switch to Gulf and look. Worth knowing it is not a regression: the old
₪ used the same token and had the same problem. The = inside still reads
at 7.54:1 against the tile, so the mark survives as a shape even where the plate does not pop. If
it bothers you, Gulf alone can keep a hairline.
What this gives up. Uniform meant one mark in every screenshot — a real argument for a
portfolio. Themed means the mark takes each theme's color, which is what the app did before
today and what I originally recommended. The shape carries the recognition either way; only
the fill moves.