What do you think would be a good mascot to represent Indie Hackers?
GitHub has their Octocat. Product Hunt has a cat wearing Google Glass. Dribbble has a basketball. Reddit has an alien. Twitter has a bird. Twitch has their "Glitch" mascot.
Any ideas for what would do a good job representing Indie Hackers?
A racoon with a hoodie on. I'm not even going to give an explanation for that, it just fits.
I like the raccoon idea. They’re intelligent, resourceful, and scrappy. All the qualities of an indie hacker.
And they work late at night ;)
It's perfect!
trash panda*
Dope af
Microsoft's Developer Advocate team uses a similar mascot - a racoon named bit. See https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/advocates/media/bitda.png
We'll let our racoons fight and ours will win
@csallen I call dibs on naming rights
I thought of this right away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3TtmbIlTvw
He literally is an IndieHacker
I love the racoon, or a pack of racoons, as suggested for wolves below.
I like the general idea of a cartoonish mascot ie ScyllaDB or the Go Lang Gopher.
My suggestion would be the Desert (Fennec) Fox.
It's a social animal just like us.
Has big ears and is a great listener.
It's a night owl just like most of us hackers are.
It's super resourceful just like us.
It's playful just like us.
It survives in the harshest conditions - just like startup deserts :D
Other than that it has some very characteristic lines and facial marks so it would lend itself to some nice facial expressions and general design flair.
Any animal that hunts alone, search from google: felines, foxes, badgers, bears, etc.
I don't think that represents this community tho, I thought this community was about helping fellow indie hackers. So to put that into animal terms, I guess you could hun alonet, but then also give back to the community. Or you can plan and research your hunt together, go hunt alone, and then give back.
What do you think about a pack of wolves?
Agreed, there's a different between independent vs. alone. It's a very important distinction to understand if you're on this path.
You're not North Korea. You're America. You (typically) work closely with other companies and organizations to GTD. You find leverage, you use freelancers, but ultimately you're the framer of your own constitution.
It's not about rejecting the outside world. It's about transcending the matrix to find the levers to write your own narrative.
Badgers, btw, are very cooperative and social. They eat insects, I guess they hunt alone in that sense.
A rusted robot held together with duct-tape.
Uh, excuse me. I just adopted the Yellow Tape framework, that lets me cobble together a rusted robot in just a few hours - with remote control and self destruct and everything. It even comes with React support out of the box!
Ha! So true. This is my second choice, right behind the Honey Badger.
The Mongoose. They are often solitary but can also band together in small packs. They might not get the same recognition as bigger animals like lions and tigers, but they can kill king cobras and are no joke.
They're scrappy too. Just check out this video of a mongoose fighting off four VC-backed lions: https://youtu.be/1TPn1-SJqVM
I love this
honey badger. We do what we want. 😉
I'll definitely think of something better. But for now a wolf as in lone wolf to represent independence but a wolf can also be in a pack too, so it can also represent community.
Wolves are pack animals. They tend to die alone. I wouldn't recommend it.
Ahh I didn't know that
One of those "under construction" signs come alive.
Hamster in an airplane with Goggles and helmet, thusly: https://media.giphy.com/media/xT5LMVFS5rexiFzOrS/giphy.gif
We're adventurers forging into the unknown to write new narratives that take courage, creativity, and resourcefulness.
That or the honeybadger with a crowbar.
I am thinking, a cat, maybe with a name like YOLO. Extroverted introvert, knows how to strategically gather resources, independent but socially domesticated. Like a startup entrepreneur, You Only Live Once, so go for it.
Definitely honeybadger. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg)
Based on the most upvoted suggestion by @dqmonn, here's a potential mascot for IH (P.S: I'm not a designer. Consider this a Minimum Viable Design 😁)
https://twitter.com/adithvictor/status/1017447837318070272
I was thinking a pirate with an eye patch, but a raccoon with an eye patch might be pretty cool.
A coffee cup with arms and legs carrying a laptop
That's how I feel most of the time
bob the builder
A T-rex with a power glove!
🐛Caterpillar- despite small and fragile they have potential to be something magnificent 🦋
I really like it as it is 🙂 IH is clean and simple.
A koala. Since they practically evolved to be able to eat and digest a handful of types of eucalyptus leafs, even though they are low in nutrition, poisonous and quite rare.
That’s comitment and grit, folks.
They also spend 23 hours a day sleeping
Capybara! Because they're awesome
Hipster Lumberjack
A beaver (building his own beaver dam)
Chungkingosaurus Jiangbeiensis playing The Great Stalacpipe Organ.
I think such a name for a mascot and instrument would be very memorable 🤣
Just what I was thinking...
Honey Badger, without a doubt. Honey Badger's tough, will take on any challenge, and just doesn't give a sh*t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
Given the dark theme along with hacker in the name, I'd look at a "hackerish" or burglar silhouette.
I like where you're going with that but maybe that's a little TOO dark. :)
Indie Hackers already sounds dodgy for those who don't know what it is, I don't think a hacker silhouette mascot is going to help!
The first image that pops into my head is a...ninja! https://www.emojirequest.com/r/NinjaEmoji
Let's see the overlapping qualities between an indiehacker and a ninja:
agility (check)
weapon/tools-savvy (check)
zen-like calm (check)
unorthodoxy (check)
ruthlessness in execution (check)
preparedness (check)
Anything else?
My vote is for a lion. I would also like to see a robot.
Maybe try not to copy Reddit so much?
Reddit did not invent the concept of a community mascot. 😇
Scarab.
Beavers and ants are the only things that BUILD something in this list of suggestions. Could add termites, swallows. But my suggestion is a scarab, a dung beetle, because they work hard pushing stuff around, are an under-used mascot, recognizable, and easy to iconify (google scarab icon).
lone wolf hollowing at the moon, lol
Hat and Whip (a la Indiana Jones)
an Egg thats about to crack open. An egg representing the idea and cracking open unleashes the idea. If you get what I mean.
http://gph.is/2cdVjC9
A crow. Not the sexiest of animals but very clever and resourceful. Also just in general birds look cool.
Ravens are like crows but even more badass so that could work too!
Platypus, obviously. It's an endependent creature that is also a mashup of multiple features from different species. 😀
Red Panda.
A black sheep.
A lumber jack with an ax
A tinker robot
An ant
I'm putting some brain FLOPS on this. I'm thinking, what is our spirit animal?
Maybe a Laptop with IH logo. Because a lot of us mostly working on laptop all day.
I love the silly looking mascot from the Golang community. They had to put on their grown up pants though and rebrand (https://blog.golang.org/go-brand).
As for an IH logo, how about something that is known for relentlessly building structures? Maybe a bee or an ant with the same derpy look as the Go gopher. The bee could work well since it has Stripes if you get my drift 😉
How about a beaver? They chew down trees and build lots of dams.
FYI the Go Gopher is still a thing. It is even confirmed in the intro of the article you linked: