One of the very nice things about hipsterdom is that it has allowed us, by pretending to be ironic about it, to go back to the graphical language of the past, with roots as far back as heraldry.

This is less hipsterdom and more just postmodernism in general (of which hipsterdom is a manifestation)

I'm not sure of that, because I'm not sure it is possible to generalize about postmodernism. While most postmodern theorists would agree on doing away with the high-modern rejection of any classical, traditional or historical vernacular, there isn't a coherent positive direction they would recommend, and many post-modernisms would be as embarrassed by an earnestly traditional work as a high-modernist.

Perhaps I'm seeing what I'm looking for, but, in hipsterdom, I see an aggressive undercurrent of unabashed classicism and traditionalism, taken forward in meaning, but not necessarily in formalism, underlying a very shallow ironic shield that preserves just enough ambiguity to allow bailing out on full classicism when pressed by modernists and postmodernists.

It's a continuum, of course, but I would expect a postmodernist to make a logo with obviously absurd historical references, juxtaposed in a surprising manner, whereas a hipster would put the cool shit he or she likes today in a straight-forward reference to a historical style, letting the meaning supply the irony, rather than the form.

I used to heavily use http://cooltext.com/ to generate logos over 10 years ago, and amazingly it's still there. The site is a web interface to GIMP (or at least was). It basically converts text into any typeface/effect you want.

HipsterLogoGenerator is the modern day equivalent. Text as an image isn't very Web 2.0 (you're supposed to write an equivalent sized CSS file to create the same effect), but today's logos should be ambiguous in relation to the company or products purpose.

I think SVGs are emerging as the current standard, logos are naturally vector anyway and being able to reuse a cached version is useful.

Hahaha, awesome I think I'll use this one day. The terms of use are pretty interesting. Looking like the PNGs you can download are unrestricted in terms of use. But they may plan to add a payment feature for SVG downloads:

"Hipster Logo Generator does not own, or sell to others any graphic generated by Hipster Logo Generator users. Anything created on Hipster Logo Generator may be used in your own or commercial projects. It is your responsibility to abide by any licensing regulations related to any design elements on this site, many of which are outlined in the "Resources" section. Hipster Logo Generator is not liable for any artwork / graphic created by its users.

All use of the design elements offered on Hipster Logo Generator are AT YOUR OWN RISK. Prior to creating and using any Logo, Hipster Logo Generator encourages you to perform due diligence to determine that the use of all content within your generated logo is free of any adverse claims and is not subject to any third party rights. Hipster Logo Generator and its creator is not liable if this requirement is not met.

SVG Files Users must pay the amount set forth via credit card or other payment method in order to access this file format."

I find these terms strange. I have to pay for the high resolution and SVG but still have to check for right violations. For a payment of 5$ (compare stock photo prices), I expect the right to use it

He's obviously concerned about being sued by, for example, McDonald's because you made and used a logo having golden arches in the shape of an "M" with on a red background with text "McDonald's" at the bottom. There's no way he can detect or prevent every such possibility.

If you pay to use Illustrator, that doesn't automatically ensure that anything you create using Illustrator doesn't infringe on another's trademark. Stock photos are different because they are generally rights cleared (depending on the license you purchase.) This isn't a stock logo repository, this is a construction kit.

A different from a picture, since it may have been trademarked. At least in theory, a picture is free from copyright violation claims if it's been taken independently, but a trademark may be violated even if the logo was independently generated.

At least, that's my understanding of the relevant law (IANAL).

I couldn't see a purchase option was it present? I had the feeling it was in the terms in case he decided to do it later.

The image element resource licenses are listed in the Resources section. Most of them appear to be relatively permissive licenses though some require attribution.

I get the impression it's a nice little side project, and mostly for fun. I guess he didn't what to go to the expense of purchasing licensing rights for stock images or searching out high quality resources which are in the public domain.

Meh - it's not an Artisanal Hipster Logo Generator

I feel like I've just discovered the tool that the makers of all those "ironic t-shirts" use.

Iterate through this based on a random seed and you'd have instant profit by selling to freshmen.

I'm not sure if you're serious, but I agree that random would be a better approach. For example, the page could generate 10 random logos, then you choose the one you prefer. Then, it generates 10 random logos based on that one, and repeat. This way, you literally just click three times, and you decided on the best logo for you out of 1,000 randomly generated ones.

Right now it's kind of clunky, and it takes a little while just to setup one concept. I think the target audience is looking for instant here, not a lot of customization.

I like your approach, even better if you had the option to customize your choice at each iteration.

The Terms of Service link doesn't work. I suppose that means I can do whatever I want with this? Cool!

I used this to make the logo for my kickass ninja rockstar get-the-girls get-the-boys HTTPDY/2 Wangular.js responsive Big Data™ Cloud dirty funky native HTML5 Node.php.rb.haml.sass Web 2.0 .com app! Look: http://imgur.com/1OxBPKD

pretty sure I just wasted 15 minutes http://i.imgur.com/ZZBR1fu.png

Now add a "backend" and sell it for 10 billion

I only pay for cruelty-free SVG images, or possible, for free range PNGs.

Cool but needs a way to go 'back'. Thanks!

This is really fun. Is there a way to go back to the previous section while designing? It would be nice to add it, or make that option more apparent. I also think the word hipster is a bit over-played and a turn-off to a lot of people these days. Besides that, cool toy.

Nice concept and love the styles. Technical speaking, H5/Canvas would be a better solution to provide flexibility for what you want to create comparing with pure jQuery. Check this: http://svg-edit.googlecode.com/svn/branches/stable/editor/sv...

This is actually a pretty cool tool. The only thing I'm not so enamored with is that the loading times on the right panel are very long.

Probably a bit of hn hug, it went fast just now.

Pretty neat, but I wouldn't want to contaminate the integrity of my Handcrafted With Love™ footer banner

Pretty cool. Has anyone created a logo from this website that they are currently using for a side project?

Forget about a side project, this is perfect for the enterprise!

Neat tool. I'd like if there were a way to share the logo via URL or edit it once it was created.

Not bad, quite nifty interface as well. I'd use it for a quick site.

Perhaps the next step in the evolution of this logo would be to add some CSS selectors to the text (shadow, glow) for readability purposes against img. backgrounds.

Reminds me of printshop from 30 years ago.

It's just a matter of time before someone reimplements Office 97 WordArt with JavaScript.

Very fun to play around with, but the UX could be improved upon!

Nice. +1 for puttin together some sample logos in the blog.

Nice, does somebody know another solid logo generator?

Squarespace

I'd love for there to be a hubot plugin for this.

60% of Behance.

Seems buggy!

Yet minimally viable.

SADLY UNCANNY /caps

I can't be the only one who sees this as yet another cue that it's time to stop using these played-out design elements. "Est. 2015", "Purveyors of fine...", etc. And yet, the comments here are full of people who seem to legitimately want to use this? To make real design elements for their real projects?

That said, this is a wonderful project. It'll be great to point this out the next time I need to talk someone out of leaning on this particular design language.

They're doing it ironically.