simple-icons/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to Simple Icons

Simple Icons welcomes contributions and corrections. Before contributing, please make sure you have read the guidelines below. If you decide to contribute anything, please do the following:

1. Fork this repository

2. (Optional) Clone the fork

   # Using SSH
   git clone --filter=tree:0 git@github.com:simple-icons/simple-icons.git
   
   # Using HTTPS
   git clone --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/simple-icons/simple-icons.git
   
   # Using GitHub CLI
   gh repo clone simple-icons/simple-icons -- --filter=tree:0
   

3. Create a new branch from the latest develop (read more here)

4. Start hacking on the new branch

5. Commit and push to the new branch

6. Make a pull request

Table of contents

• Requesting an Icon
• Adding or Updating an Icon
• Building the Website
• Using Docker

Requesting an Icon

We welcome icon requests. Before you submit a new issue please make sure the icon:

• Has not already been requested. If you find an existing issue or pull request for the brand you're looking for then please add a reaction or comment to show your support.
• Is of a popular brand:
  • For websites, the Alexa rank should be less than 500k.
  • For GitHub projects, the amount of "stars" should be above 5k.
  • For anything else, popularity will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
• Doesn't fall into one of the following categories:
  • Illegal service (e.g. piracy, malware, threatening material, spam etc.)
  • Governmental agencies, programs, departments
    • Allowed: International organizations and NGOs with supranational interests
    • Allowed: Space agencies
  • Symbols, including flags and banners
  • Sport clubs
    • Allowed: Sport organizations
  • Yearly releases
  • Universities or other educational institutions
  • Any brands representing individuals rather than an organization, company or product. This includes musicians, bands, and social media personalities.

If you are in doubt, feel free to submit it and we'll have a look.

When submitting a request for a new or updated icon include helpful information such as:

• Issue Title: The brand name. For example:

  • New Icons: Request: GitHub Icon
  • Icon Updates: Update: GitHub Color or Update: GitHub Icon

• Issue Body: Links to official sources for the brand's icon and colors (e.g. media kits, brand guidelines, SVG files etc.)

If you have an affiliation to the brand you are requesting that allows you to speak on their behalf then please disclose that in your issue as it can help speed up our research process.

Adding or Updating an Icon

Note: If you decide to add an icon without requesting it first, the requirements above still apply.

1. Identify Official Logos and Colors

Most of the icons and brand colors on SimpleIcons have been derived from official sources. Using official sources helps ensure that the icons and colors in SimpleIcons accurately match the brand they represent. Thankfully, this is usually a simple process as organizations often provide brand guides and high quality versions of their logo for download.

Official high quality brand logos and brand colors can usually be found in the following locations:

1. About pages, Press pages, Media Kits, and Brand Guidelines.
2. Website headers (you can use svg-grabber for Chrome)
3. Favicons
4. Wikimedia (which should provide a source)
5. GitHub repositories

Icon Guidelines

Working with an SVG version of the logo is best. In the absence of an SVG version, other vector filetypes may work as well (e.g. EPS, AI, PDF). In the absence of vector logos, a vector can be created from a high quality rasterized image, however this is much more labor intensive.

If the icon includes a (registered) trademark icon we follow the guidelines below to decide whether to include the symbol or not:

• If brand guidelines explicitly require including the symbol, it must be included.
• If the symbol is incorporated into the design of the logo (e.g. Intel), it must be included.
• If there is ambiguity about the conditions under which the symbol is required, it must be included if it is a registered trademark symbol (®) but not if is a trademark symbol (™).
• If brand guidelines say it may be removed, usually when the icon is displayed at small sizes, it must not be included.
• If there is no explicit requirement that a symbol must be included, it must not be included.

Color Guidelines

For color, the brand's primary color should be used. The official color of a brand is usually found in their brand guidelines, media kits, or some of the other locations mentioned above. If no official color can be identified, use the brand's primary web color or the most prominent color in the logo itself (please indicate why you choose the particular color in your pull request). Simple Icons stores brand colors in the standard 6 character hexadecimal format.

2. Extract the Icon from the Logo

There are many different tools for editing SVG files, some options include:

Name	Description	Platform	Price
Inkscape	Vector Graphics Editor	Windows, Mac, Linux	Free
Affinity Designer	Vector Graphics Editor	Windows, Mac	$
Adobe Illustrator	Vector Graphics Editor	Windows, Mac	$ - $
IcoMoon	Icon Editing/Management Tool	Online	Free

Using your preferred tool you should:

1. Isolate the icon from any text or extraneous items.
2. Merge any overlapping paths.
3. Compound all paths into one.
4. Change the icon's viewbox/canvas/page size to 24x24.
5. Scale the icon to fit the viewbox, while preserving the icon's original proportions. This means the icon should be touching at least two sides of the viewbox.
6. Center the icon horizontally and vertically.
7. Remove all colors. The icon should be monochromatic.
8. Export the icon as an SVG.

Some icons can't be easily converted to a monochromatic version due to colour changes, shadows, or other effects. For such cases the addition of gaps is the recommended approach, with a preferred width of 0.5px. In some situations a different gap may be required, but that will be determined on a per-case basis.

3. Optimize the Icon

All icons in Simple Icons have been optimized with the SVGO tool. This can be done in one of two ways:

• The SVGO Command Line Tool
  • Install dependencies
    • With npm: npm install from the root of this repository
  • Run the following command npm run svgo -- icons/file-to-optimize.svg
  • Check if there is a loss of quality in the output, if so increase the precision.
• The SVGOMG Online Tool
  • Click "Open SVG" and select an SVG file.
  • Set the precision to about 3, depending on if there is a loss of quality.
  • Leave the remaining settings untouched (or reset them with the button at the bottom of the settings).
  • Click the download button.
• The SVGO Command Line Tool in Docker
  • If none of the options above work for you, it is possible to build a Docker image for compressing the images.
  • Build: docker build . -t simple-icons
  • Run: docker run --rm -v ${PWD}/icons/file-to-optimize.svg:/image.svg simple-icons

After optimizing the icon, double-check it against your original version to ensure no visual imperfections have crept in. Also make sure that the dimensions of the path have not been changed so that the icon no longer fits exactly within the canvas. We currently check the dimensions up to a precision of 3 decimal points.

4. Annotate the Icon

Each icon in Simple Icons has been annotated with a number of attributes and elements to increase accessibility. These include:

• An svg element with:
  • An img role attribute.
    • role="img"
  • A 24x24 viewbox.
    • viewBox="0 0 24 24"
  • The svg namespace.
    • xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
• A title element (Note the format).
  • <title>Adobe Photoshop icon</title>

Here is part of the svg for the Adobe Photoshop icon as an example:

<svg role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title>Adobe Photoshop icon</title>...</svg>

5. Check the Icon

The final icon should:

• Be properly annotated as discussed above.
• Be monochromatic.
  • Remove all fill colors so that icon defaults to black.
• Be scaled to fit the viewbox, while preserving the icon's original proportions.
  • This means the icon should be touching at least two sides of the viewbox.
• Be vertically and horizontally centered.
• Be minified to a single line with no formatting.
• Contain only a single path element.
• Not contain extraneous elements.
  • This includes: circle, ellipse, rect, polygon, line, g, etc.
• Not contain extraneous attributes.
  • This includes: width, height, fill, stroke, clip, font, etc.

Here is the svg for the Adobe Photoshop icon as an example:

<svg role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title>Adobe Photoshop icon</title><path d="M0 .3v23.4h24V.3H0zm1 1h22v21.4H1V1.3zm4.8 4.48c0-.067.14-.116.224-.116.644-.033 1.588-.05 2.578-.05 2.772 0 3.85 1.52 3.85 3.466 0 2.54-1.842 3.63-4.102 3.63-.38 0-.51-.017-.775-.017v3.842c0 .083-.033.116-.115.116H5.916c-.083 0-.115-.03-.115-.113V5.78zm1.775 5.312c.23.016.412.016.81.016 1.17 0 2.27-.412 2.27-1.996 0-1.27-.786-1.914-2.122-1.914-.396 0-.775.016-.957.033v3.864zm8.607-1.188c-.792 0-1.056.396-1.056.726 0 .363.18.61 1.237 1.155 1.568.76 2.062 1.485 2.062 2.557 0 1.6-1.22 2.46-2.87 2.46-.876 0-1.62-.183-2.05-.43-.065-.033-.08-.082-.08-.165V14.74c0-.1.048-.133.114-.084.624.413 1.352.594 2.012.594.792 0 1.122-.33 1.122-.776 0-.363-.23-.677-1.237-1.205-1.42-.68-2.014-1.37-2.014-2.527 0-1.287 1.006-2.36 2.755-2.36.86 0 1.464.132 1.794.28.082.05.1.132.1.198v1.37c0 .083-.05.133-.15.1-.444-.264-1.1-.43-1.743-.43z"/></svg>

6. Update the JSON Data for SimpleIcons.org

Icon metadata should be added to the _data/simple-icons.json file. Each icon in the array has three required values:

• The title of the new SVG.
• A hex color value that matches the brand's primary color. All uppercase and without the # pound symbol.)
• The source URL of the logo being used. There are more details below.

Additionally, there are also optional fields that may provided for an icon:

• The guidelines may be used to specify the URL of the brand's guidelines/presskit/etc. This is useful if the SVG file was sourced from a different place.
• The license may be used to record the license under which the icon is available. This is an object with a type and url. The type should be an SPDX License ID or "custom", the url is optional unless the type is "custom".

Here is the object of a fictional brand as an example:

{
    "title": "A Fictional Brand",
    "hex": "123456",
    "source": "https://www.a-fictional-brand.org/logo",
    "guidelines": "https://www.a-fictional-brand.org/brand-guidelines",
    "license": {
      "type": "CC0-1.0",
      "url": "https://www.a-fictional-brand.org/logo/license"
    }
}

Make sure the icon is added in alphabetical order. If you're in doubt, you can always run npm run our-lint - this will tell you if any of the JSON data is in the wrong order.

SVG Filename Convention

The filename of the SVG should correspond to the title used in the JSON file mentioned above, and it should follow the rules below. If you're in doubt, you can always run npm run get-filename -- Brand name to get the correct filename.

1. Use lowercase letters without whitespace, for example:

   title: Adobe Photoshop
   filename: adobephotoshop.svg
   

2. Only use latin letters, for example:

   title: Citroën
   filename: citroen.svg
   

3. Replace the following symbols with their alias depending on their position in the title:

   Symbol	Start	Middle	End
   +	plus	plus	plus
   .	dot-	-dot-	-dot
   &	and-	-and-	-and

   for example:

   title: .Net
   filename: dot-net.svg
   

Source Guidelines

We use the source URL as a reference for the current SVG in our repository and as a jumping-off point to find updates if the logo changes. If you used one of the sources listed below, make sure to follow these guidelines. If you're unsure about the source URL you can open a Pull Request and ask for help from others.

If the SVG is sourced from:

• Branding page: For an SVG from a branding page the source URL should simply link to the branding page.

• Company website: If the SVG is found on the company website (but there is no branding page) the source URL should link to a common page, such as the home page or about page, that includes the source material.

• GitHub: For an SVG from a GitHub (GitLab, BitBucket, etc.) repository the source URL should link to the file that was used as source material. If the color comes from another file in the repository the URL should link to the repository itself.

  In any case the commit hash should be part of the URL. On GitHub, you can get the correct URL by pressing y on the GitHub page you want to link to. You can get help at the getting permanent links to files page.

• Wikipedia: For an SVG from Wikipedia/Wikimedia the source URL should link to the logo file's page on the relevant site, and not the brand's Wikipedia pages. For example, this is the link for AmericanExpress.

In general, make sure the URL does not contain any tracking identifiers.

7. Create a Pull Request

Once you've completed the previous steps, create a pull request to merge your edits into the develop branch. You can run npm run lint to check if there are any issues you still need to address.

If you have an affiliation to the brand you contributing that allows you to speak on their behalf then please disclose that in your pull request as it can help speed up our research and review processes.

Building Website Locally

• Make sure you have Ruby installed.
• Make sure you have Bundler installed (using $ gem install bundler).
• Set your local gems installation location for the simple-icons website using $ bundle config set path 'vendor/bundle'.
• Install dependencies using $ bundle install.
• Build and run the website locally using $ bundle exec jekyll serve.
• Connect to the website in your browser via the "Server address" provided by the output of this command, e.g. http://localhost:4000/

Testing Package Locally

• Make sure you have NodeJS installed. At least version 12.4.0 is required.
• Install the dependencies using $ npm install.
• Build and test the package using $ npm test.
• Run the project linting process using $ npm run lint.

Building in Your Browser

Alternatively, you can build and run the website in a readily configured online workspace:

Using Docker

You can build a Docker image for this project from the Dockerfile by running:

# Build the Docker image for simple-icons (if you haven't yet)
$ docker build . -t simple-icons

# Start a Docker container for simple-icons and attach to it
$ docker run -it --rm --entrypoint "/bin/ash" simple-icons

Jekyll Server using Docker

To use a Docker container to run the Jekyll server for the website, run:

# Start a container running `jekyll serve` in the background
$ docker run -d -p 4000:4000 --rm --volume $PWD:/srv/jekyll --name simple-icons-server jekyll/jekyll jekyll serve

# Inspect the server logs
$ docker logs simple-icons-server

# Stop the server (and delete the container)
$ docker stop simple-icons-server

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Versioning

We use Semantic Versioning in this project. Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH you can expect the following kinds of changes:

Version number	Kinds of changes
Major	Removed icons; Renamed icons; Breaking API changes
Minor	New icons; API changes
Patch	Updated SVGs; Updated metadata