Logo design
An 8x8 symbol designed to be recursive, programmatic, and mathematically interesting.
I'm bad at math. Computers aren't. So when designing a logo, I wanted something a computer could reason about — reproduce, transform, animate, nest inside itself.
The result is 8 bytes. 64 bits. A pattern that contains itself.
The evolution
Start with the universal power symbol. Rotate it 45° to the bottom-right diagonal — now it points somewhere, has direction. Then bitcrush it into an 8x8 grid. What emerges is a blocky Q.
The Q works for qry.zone. But the shape has properties beyond branding.
The pocket
Look at the bottom-right corner. There's a 2x2 empty space — a pocket where a smaller version of the logo fits perfectly.
████████████████ ██ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ████████████ ██ ██████ ██ ← pocket ██ ██ ██ ← pocket ████████████████
That pocket is deliberate. But here's the math: the pocket is 2x2 pixels in an 8x8 logo. To fit another 8x8 logo in there, you need to scale up 4x — making the parent 32x32 and the pocket 8x8.
So the nesting goes: 8x8 → 32x32 → 128x128 → 512x512... Each level is 4x larger. The recursion is bounded by resolution, not by the design. At any scale where the pocket is at least 8x8 pixels, another logo fits inside.
This isn't just visual cleverness — it's a design constraint that enables programmatic manipulation. Any transformation that preserves the pocket preserves the recursive property.
The data
The logo is fully defined by 8 numbers:
11111111 (0xFF) top border 10000001 (0x81) frame 10111101 (0xBD) inner square 10111101 (0xBD) inner square 10111111 (0xBF) extends right 10111001 (0xB9) pocket begins 10001001 (0x89) pocket continues 11111111 (0xFF) bottom border
Eight bytes. Fits in a tweet. Can be transmitted, stored, generated, mutated. The entire brand identity in 64 bits.[1]
What can you do with 8 numbers? More than you'd think — FFT analysis, symmetry breakdowns, matrix properties.
What can we do with this?
When a logo is just data, it becomes a parameter. Feed it to algorithms. Transform it mathematically. Let it evolve.
Each experiment asks: what happens when you apply [mathematical concept] to [this specific shape]? The answer is usually interesting, because the shape was designed to survive transformation.
Resolution limits
The logo scales infinitely upward — 16x16, 32x32, 128x128, whatever you need. But it has a hard floor: 8x8 pixels.
At 8x8, every pixel matters. The frame is one pixel thick. The inner square is 4x4. The pocket is 2x2. Remove any pixel and the shape breaks.
Below 8x8, you're sampling — and the information loss is catastrophic. At 4x4 it's a blob with a notch. At 2x2 it's just "something in the corner." At 1x1 it's a single pixel. Identity gone.
This is the tradeoff: maximum compressibility (64 bits) versus minimum recognizability (64 pixels). They happen to be the same number. Coincidence? Probably. But a useful one.
Design principles
The logo emerged from three constraints:
- Programmatic reproduction — Must be definable in code, not just as an image file. Enables generation at any scale, in any medium.
- Mathematical interest — Must have properties that interact well with algorithms. Symmetry, recursion, simple geometry.
- Human recognition — Must still read as a symbol. The Q shape, the frame, the visual weight.
The pocket satisfies all three. It's trivially defined (bits 5-6 in rows 5-6 are zero). It creates recursive mathematical structure. And it gives the Q its characteristic notch — the tail that makes it recognizable.
What's next
This page is a seedling. The experiments in fun/ are ongoing. Some directions I want to explore:
- Fourier analysis — what frequencies make up this shape?
- 3D extrusion — the logo as a voxel structure
- Genetic algorithms — evolving variations that preserve the pocket
- QR-code hybrid — embedding data inside the logo structure
- Physical fabrication — CNC, laser cutting, 3D printing at various scales
The point isn't the logo itself. It's demonstrating that constraints breed creativity. Pick your constraints deliberately, and the design space becomes explorable.