Are modifications to the Rust logo allowed for special cases?

[Nashenas88]

I recently published a watch face of the Rust logo to facer. I’m pretty sure I’m within accepted use based on what I’ve read in this issue and the fact that the face is freely available.

My issue is that there are more than 12 cogs in the logo, which don’t line up with the normal ticks on a clock (except for 3, 6, 9, and 12). Would it be acceptable usage of the logo to modify it to have just 12 cogs?

Edit: The above link now points to the updated design. The previous design included the original Rust logo with 32 cogs. The current one only contains 12.

[codingcampbell]

This page mentions the logos are CC-BY: https://www.rust-lang.org/en-US/legal.html

From the CC-BY page:

Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

So I don’t think there’s any problem here.

[Nashenas88]

Thank you!

[jethrogb]

@codingcampbell doesn’t mention the trademark guidelines on the same page. The Rust logo is both copyrighted and a trademark. I’m not familiar with facer, but I guess one of these two apply:

Uses that do not require explicit approval

[li]Using the Rust trademarks on t-shirts, hats, and other artwork or merchandise, even in modified form, is allowed for your personal use or for use by a small group of community members, as long as they are not sold.[/li]

Uses that require explicit approval

[li]Selling t-shirts, hats, and other artwork or merchandise requires explicit, written permission from the Rust core team. We will usually allow these uses as long as (1) it is clearly communicated that the merchandise is not in any way an official part of the Rust project and (2) it is clearly communicated whether profits benefit the Rust project.[/li]

[codingcampbell]

Yeah, I was assuming OP isn’t making any money from this (just sharing some free design as a watch wallpaper). I’d agree any money stuff could kick up the legal/trademark issues, though it’s not clear there is any money involved.

[Nashenas88]

Sorry, I thought it was clear with the phrase “the face is freely available”. I’m not making any money on this distribution. If facer ever adds a fee onto this, I’ll promptly remove the design.

[brson]

I’d say do it.

[Nashenas88]

I’ve updated the original link so the watch face only includes 12 cogs. It looks a bit weird, but it’s functional. Any ideas for making this look a little nicer while still being functional? The only thing I did was carefully create a circular selection around the main logo, cut out all the cogs except at 3, 6, 9 and 12, and then rotated 30 degrees twice.

I would also be up for transferring ownership of these to Mozilla if they’d like it. My only goal here was to have a Rust watch face of my very own, and I’ve got one now .

[starblue]

You could try 36 cogs (the multiple of 12 closest to the original 32) or 24.

(Facer doesn’t work for me, so I can’t see your design.)

[Nashenas88]

I had thought about that, but I decided to go with the 12 cogs first since I’m not great at photo editing . If I go with 36 I was also thinking of making the hour cogs larger than the rest of the cogs. I’ll try out one with enlarged hour cogs and one without. I’ll also try to release it for all the other face apps like WatchMaker, PujieBlack and Minimal & Elegant. I’ve also included the current design below:

[Nashenas88]

From left to right: Original Rust Logo, 36 cogs, Hour focus 36 cogs, 12 hour cogs

I plan on updating the existing facer face with the Hour focused 36 cog design.

[jethrogb]

Would 60 cogs just look bad?

[Nashenas88]

Unfortunately I don’t have the editing skills to make 60. To make the 36 I just very carefully outlined a circle with gimp’s ellipse selection tool, cut out the center into a new layer, copied a single cog into a new layer and rotated it 36 times around. This won’t work well for 60 because they’ll overlap too much. I could have edited the svg programmatically, but I didn’t take that route. I tried editing them manually and it just looked so wrong.

On the plus side I’m trying to finish up a version that can be pushed to the Android app store. Looking into all the watch face apps I’ve realized they’re all locked down. It might take some time given there’s a lot of other things I want to focus on, but I’ll try to get it done sooner than later.