mascot for Dataverse · community

Stream: community

Topic: mascot for Dataverse

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 22 2025 at 12:41):

Can we have squirrels as Dataverse masqots?

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 22 2025 at 13:06):

Sure! We're pretty squirrelly :chipmunk:

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 22 2025 at 13:35):

I very much like the idea of squirrels hiding data and new trees growing from these cores... :tree:

Notification Bot (Jul 22 2025 at 14:16):

3 messages were moved here from #docs > onboarding by Philip Durbin 🚀.

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 22 2025 at 14:18):

If it helps, over at https://chat.dataverse.org we have some critters my daughter drew:

chat-animals.png

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 23 2025 at 11:48):

dataverse-squirrel.png

(Picture source: https://www.midjourney.com/jobs/a771860a-3091-4a07-a27b-162a38a92ca9?index=1)

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 23 2025 at 11:53):

Ha, nice. My daughter is up for giving it a shot but she wants details. What should the squirrel be doing, for example.

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 23 2025 at 11:55):

I stole the idea of a squirrel holding something from here:
image.png
(Source: https://www.fdm.nrw/)

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 23 2025 at 11:55):

I kinda like the "data as precious food" theme

Oliver Bertuch (Jul 23 2025 at 11:57):

Also given the context of how new trees come to live from forgotten nuts. A nice riff on scientists hoarding "their" data.

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 23 2025 at 12:23):

cute

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 27 2025 at 20:37):

My daughter played around with making a squirrel out of the Dataverse logo:
squirrel-logo.jpg

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jul 28 2025 at 14:55):

Another one!

squirrel-logo2.jpg

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 01 2025 at 01:30):

@Oliver Bertuch what do you recommend for a canvas size in Inkscape for this project? If it helps, I'm looking at https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/6226/when-creating-a-vector-file-how-should-i-determine-my-vector-file-canvas-size-g and https://www.reddit.com/r/Inkscape/comments/437iu1/newbie_question_about_saving_inkscape_vector/ . I'm an Inkscape newbie. :sweat_smile:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 01 2025 at 01:51):

Anyway, it's very much a work in progress but this is what I have so far:

squirrel.png

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 01 2025 at 02:00):

I'm basing it on this CC BY-SA photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NorthAmericanSquirrel.jpg

256px-NorthAmericanSquirrel.jpg

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 01 2025 at 02:02):

Here's the Inkscape file: squirrel.svg

Feel free to go crazy with it. :crazy:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 01 2025 at 11:42):

I sent it to a friend and he came back with this:

drawing.png

Here's the source: drawing.svg

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 06 2025 at 02:10):

still hacking on my squirrel :smile:

squirrel.png

Vaida Plankytė 🎨 (Aug 15 2025 at 11:41):

Philip Durbin 🚀 said:

I sent it to a friend and he came back with this:

drawing.png

Here's the source: drawing.svg

oh, this is looking really nice! i love the use of the dataverse shapes for the body of the squirrel. it'd be lovely to have a square logo for dataverse that can be used, when it's a bit clunky to add the full Dataverse text :sunglasses:

Vaida Plankytė 🎨 (Aug 15 2025 at 11:42):

image.png
here's a quick mockup of how the mascot could be used for a new logo!

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 15 2025 at 12:22):

Ha, that's so much fun. :smile:

Vaida Plankytė 🎨 (Aug 15 2025 at 15:02):

@Philip Durbin 🚀 i'd be curious to hear more about the requirement to show all three circles, and if there is a meaning for each circle! would be nice to maybe make that clearer in the circles for the final design, maybe link them together in a clear visual way :sunglasses:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Aug 15 2025 at 15:04):

@Dwayne Liburd help! :smile:

You can see the three circle version here: https://guides.dataverse.org/en/6.7.1/style/foundations.html#logos (just a link, at the very bottom, added in #11515).

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Dec 03 2025 at 15:07):

@Jan Range this is the mascot topic I just mentioned in the pyDataverse meeting. :smile:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Dec 05 2025 at 01:56):

My daughter drew a snowman that's inspired by the Dataverse logo:

snowman.jpg

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Dec 05 2025 at 14:53):

snowman-and-logo.png

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Dec 05 2025 at 21:58):

@Jan Range I'm sorry. I asked for a snake for you but in the end you got a snowman. Here are her snake sketches, at least!

IMG_20251205_165637817.jpg

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 10:20):

Here's another crazy idea: how about using the Dataverse logo upside down as a tail for a squirrel?
This inspired the idea:
image.png

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 28 2026 at 13:25):

She likes the idea!

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 14:03):

Aside from a sketch / drawing / mascot thing: if she is up to it, I'm happy to print things! Orange PETG just arrived this morning :smiley:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 28 2026 at 15:29):

Nice. It's finals week for her though. :grimacing:

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 15:29):

No worries. Plenty of time.

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 15:30):

Maybe you shouldn't have told her before next week :smile:

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 28 2026 at 15:30):

I know we've been talking about squirrels lately but what about an octopus? There's already an emoji that's more or less the right color orange: :octopus:

octopus.png

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 15:31):

Ha then I don't even need to create a new 3d model - plenty of fancy ones going around!

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 28 2026 at 15:32):

I'm also fine with an octopus. At least it won't hide any data. It may spray you with ink though

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 28 2026 at 15:36):

Unfortunately, the orange octopus might be mostly a Zulip thing. On Github :octopus: isn't orange. It's more pinkish/purple:

github-octopus.png

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 30 2026 at 12:04):

I just realized my daughter has an octopus flameworking class coming up. In the past she's made turtles and dinosaurs.

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 30 2026 at 14:57):

Did she already binge watch Netflix "Blown Away"?

Oliver Bertuch (Jan 30 2026 at 14:57):

I envy her for that class! Amazing! Would love to try that myself.

Philip Durbin 🚀 (Jan 30 2026 at 14:58):

Ha, a bit. It's a great show. We took her to the Corning Museum of Glass and they had a Blown Away exhibit, with several pieces from the show on display. You may recall that the prize contestants win is an internship there.