Site design for Biology community

Question

EDIT 02:

Here is the updated main illustration including most of your feedback.

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EDIT 01:

Thanks for your great feedback! This is exactly what I needed, it's hard to know some of the details when you're not a biologist.

I will update the design here soon based on most of your suggestions.

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I'm Stéphane, a senior product designer at Stack Exchange. First, I wanted to announce that this site is now starting the process of moving out of beta to become a fully-graduated site! Congratulations!

Graduation and Your Site Design

Graduation comes with a few perks. I have already begun work on your site's design, which will give you your own unique theme that reflects your topic and culture. This will help brand your site as unique, even while you share common elements with other sites that show you are part of a bigger Stack Exchange family.

Once the design goes up, you will receive a link in the footer of other sites in the network, along with the ability to migrate content to and from other sites — and the notoriety of a public launch that says, Congratulations, you finally made it!

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Design Concept

For our Biology's site design and branding, we wanted a design that represents biology without being figurative. The main goal is to convey ideas and known shapes in a unique way. We wanted to create a calm and peaceful place like nature.

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Color Scheme

Green has always been the color of nature, it symbolizes growth and life in all its forms. The powerful red suggest red blood cells, a light beige balances the color palette.

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Logo & Identity

For the logo, as suggested by the community, I was looking for a unique symbol that represents DNA. It might not represent all of biology but it's the most popular symbol though I tried to get as far as possible from the original shape while keeping it recognizable.

Along with the logo, all the illustrations work as a whole to mimic molecules. They grow in a seamless non-geometric pattern to convey an organic feeling.

Here are some examples to illustrate how it can be used elsewhere to strengthen the visual identity.

T-shirt

Stickers

Note book

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Overall site design

Home page

Click on the image below to see it in full resolution

Question page

Click on the image below to see it in full resolution

Sample Site Illustrations (404, error & captcha)

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We believe the design and branding work very well for this community, it’s unique and capture the right mood. We’d love to hear your feedback, and if there are no major design changes, we’ll launch the new site design and graduate the site from Beta soon.

Congrats for being an awesome community!

Answer 1

First of all, whohooo! This is great news! Thanks for the design, it does look good and I'm very much looking forward to it. I do, however, agree with @fileunderwater that most of the icons used are more about chemistry than biology. Specifically, of the various icons used, I would only identify the ones shown below as being "biological" as opposed to "chemical":

Of those two, DNA is, of course, DNA and very biological. The second seems to be a microscope which does indeed bring biology to mind, but it looks more like a test tube held upside down. All of the rest are valid for both chemistry and biology but more evocative of chemistry (test tubes, beakers, organic molecules, laboratory miscellanea), or very much more chemical than biological (an atom (?), what looks like a titration experiment) or just generally and vaguely "scientific" (a pencil, a flame, a briefcase (?), a magnifying glass). I would also rather see some more purely biological or, at least, more biological than chemical images.

For example, here are some that occur to me when searching for things that are evocative of biology (the images below are the result of a quick image search and should be taken as very broad suggestions, I'm sure you can do much, much better):

• A phylogenetic tree;

  

• A sequence alignment;

  

• A sequence logo

  

• A petri dish, perhaps showing growing colonies;

  

• Cells;

  

• Viruses (few things in nature look as naturally cool and badass as viruses);

  

• Classic biological molecules. For example:

  • Sugars

    

  • Nucleotides (perhaps this is what you were going for with the benzene rings):

    

  • Funky molecular motors like the $F_{1}F_{0}$ atpase

    

  • Proteins

    

  • DNA plasmids

    

  • Antibodies

    

  • Ribosomes

    

• Classic model organisms (blue images taken from http://thenotchmeeting.org)

  • mouse

  • C. elegans worm

  • Brewer's yeast
  • Human
  • Xenopus frog
  • Fruit fly

• Embryos

  

• Karyotypes

  

• Gels

  

• Food web

  

• Inheritance chart / mendelian genetics / pedigree

  

Finally, I also agree that the benzene rings for badge images are really not a good choice. There's nothing biological about them. While they do often occur in molecules that are of interest to biologists, they also occur (and more often) in general, organic chemistry. I would instead suggest using small double helices as the badge image. Similar to the logo (which is great, by the way). Something like this ugly mock-up:

Answer 2

Comments to Edit 2:
This is a much better design, and a more accurate representation of biology. Good job! However, I still feel that too much emphasis is placed on the destillation setup(?), since it is repeated, and this space could be used more constructively. Personally, I would also like to see multicellular organisms (plant, animal, fungi etc). Good that you added a multicellular organ though, in the form of a brain (it is a brain, right?). However, I suspect that some might find this illustration unclear (I think one earlier comment mentioned this), and it is unfortunate (and inaccurate) that the most prominent structure of the brain in dorsal view is not shown, namely the longitudinal fissure.

I'm also wondering what this: is supposed to be? Glasses? That I'm not able to recognize it might be due to my own ignorance though.

Original answer:
Overall, I like the example design. The colour scheme is rather nice (I would maybe prefer somewhat more muted colours) and the general design is peaceful. I also like the examples of how the graphical profile could be used for stickers, t-shirts etc.

To me, the main problem is that the graphical profile (icons, logo, banner etc) is heavily skewed towards low-level biology, such as DNA and molecular biology. Basically, not a single icon/figure implies evolution, species, populations, ecological communities, field biology etc. It is also notable that not a single organism is depicted - not even a single cell - not to mention an stylized animal, fungus or plant. There is also a lack of mid-level processes/features, such as synapses, cellular membranes (with embedded structures) etc. Other possibilities could be depictions of mendelian genetics or food webs. At the moment, many of the pictures in the banner would work just as well at ChemistrySE (molecules, lab equipment, microscope, beakers, an atom?). So in short: too many molecules and too few organisms and higher level processes.

My suggestions would be to modify the "banner" and add some figures of, for instance trees, cells, animals and maybe a phylogenetic tree into the mix (as a comparison, the progression from ape to human is arguably a common depiction of evolution), to better represent the full range of biology. Something that implies interactions between organisms or between organisms and their environment would also be suitable.

I also dislike the badge icons, which to me are too "chemical" (especially taken together with the graphical profile overall). To me, a stylized phylogenetic tree would be just as suitable there.

To some extent, these comments might only be the ecologist in me that is talking. However, I do think that there has to be a better balance, if the design (and in extension, the site) is to welcome the whole range of biology.

A couple of examples that can be used for inspiration are added below, visualizing (in order of appearance) hierarchical organization, food web, inheritance chart, spatial ecology/metapopulation, "tree of life":

Answer 3

Great effort but, I see a few illustrations being repeated. How about we remove the duplicates and put in some chromosomes? Drosophila? A macrophage at work? If you want to draw molecules well then draw an ATP then. That's much more relavant. At that size, the phylogenetic tree is barely recognizable, I'd suggest an increase in its dimensions and decrease in its size (no. of branches). This second version surely is better, but still not as "biological" as it should be.

EDIT: I saw a few other suggestions and came up with this:

A few other things that could be added are an ATP molecule, for lab equipment we can add a couple of falcon tubes(in the bottom left corner), a sperm entering an egg, phagocytosis, maybe a tree of sorts on the right corner and a prehistoric bird flying over the illustration to top it off. What say?

VERSION 2:

Answer 4

This dimethylnapthalene doesn't really occur in biological systems as far as I can tell, it's not a molecule one would associate with biology. There's also a superfluous line near it in the bottom left, this looks a bit like it is meant as a double-bond, which would be an impossible structure.

Molecules should never touch any other parts that aren't molecules. All those lines in those structure drawings have precise meaning, connecting them with a schematic that follows entirely different rules is confusing.

This molecule doesn't really play any role in biology as well. The lines on the left of it also don't make any sense.

I assume this is meant to look a bit like a DNA double helix. But displayin it in this way doesn't really make much sense. If this is supposed to be the error page, I'd go with a more conventional looking DNA with a strand break, that might be an appropriate metaphor.

I don't really recognize what this one means, and there are a few more that I don't know. This might be just me, or those icons are really a bit too obscure.

Answer 5

My Opinion:

I Love the new logo, and have to agree with it, as the DNA is one thing that can be represented in the restrictions by the SE design philosophy very easily.

Not a big fan of the coloured background though.I like my text on a white parchment background with a coloured header for the page, but then again, its just me.

Biology:

We all must realise that OP has a very daunting task ahead of himself. There are multiple scales wherein biologists operate at (ignoring the whole zoology/botany) routine (and yes, that exists too). In short

The first is the molecular level, where we deal in DNA, RNA, proteins, Cellular pathways

The second major level is the tissue and organ level where we deal with well... tissues and organs (muscles, xylem, nervous etc).

After looking at each individual, biologists also look at interactions between individuals in a population, species and environment, including the ecosystem and biospheres as a whole.

This picture represents what I am talking about: http://www.chesterfield.k12.sc.us/cheraw%20intermediate/DaveEvans/BiologyICP/Notes--LevelsOfOrganization.jpg

(for some reason, I am not able to upload it).

Images in the banner:

Keeping in mind with OP's original design concept, of pencil sketches as background and the numerous ideas from the community, I went hunting in google images and found a few sketches, perhaps more in line with Biology ?.

I am not a graphics designer, so I don't know if these are useful, but figured I'll post them anyway.

We can perhaps remove the chemistry elements from here and instead add elements by @rg255, @terdon and @fileunderwater ? I'll keep updating as I find more.

If anyone wants to know what each of the images are, let me know and I'll edit the post an include the names of the organisms/sketches.

Answer 6

Whoohoottt!! Great news!!!!!!!!! I think many people deserve big kudos for their patience and dedication.

The current design is very pretty and I heavily like the calm colors and yes, green is great. However, I have to agree with others that the symbols look more like an organic-chemistry lab, and not as Biology.

I think that, given the relative abundance of molecular-biological questions, DNA and/or proteins should be visible in the design.

^{Source: Forbes}

However, as a neuroscientist I would like to add that everything we see and do on Stack Exchange is mediated by our sensory systems and the nervous system. Moreover, I think the relative abundance of neuroscientific questions also objectively justifies some acknowledgement of neurobiology.

I would like to add a few classical pictures of nerve cells and related items, and I tried to copy the style of the proposed site more or less (i.e., 2D, icon-like images?):

To start with an example of my all-time favorite: a classic silver stain of neurons:
^{Classic silver-stained neurons. Source: Scientific American}

And brain-outlines are also strong representatives of Bio and pretty easily iconized too:

^{Source: various and abundant :)}

Answer 7

RE: EDIT 02

The newer design looks a bit more better, but I personally feel it contains way too many beakers, test tubes and other chemistry stuff. I personally feel it is not organic enough, and hence not "biology", if that makes sense. I am not an artist, but I did a mock up using your base design and added in a few more elements.

The first thing you see is that I ordered the unicellular organisms to the right and multicellular to the left. This is because I wanted to represent the evolution of life here (in truth, I have a bit of an OCD on this, and things for me have to go from small to big). So apologies for ruining your design. But I decided to be a bit random within each group so as to not give a visual clue of a tree.

Speaking of trees, I moved the squarish phylognetic tree out of the way and below the DNA, for essentially two reasons. First, it keeps a hard squarish element in a safe place and doesn't make it clash with the other round elements. Secondly, what I wanted to do was to make one of the strands of the DNA unravel into the phylogenetic tree (As evolution does also have a genetic basis). I also put in a picture of the chromosomes of a drosophila near the DNA.

As for the obvious blank spaces on the unicellular side of things, I really wanted to depict ribosomes convincingly. But I was afraid that it would turn the banner way to molecular. - Thoughts anyone ?

I put the DNA in the middle, because I consider that and evolution, to be biological constants.

Now thats out of the way,

There are many kingdoms in the biological world (archea,eubacteria, protista, fungii, plantae and animalia).

Your revised design had elements of the single celled organisms, but I added in the hideous looking bacteria (e coli; next to the DNA). E coli is used by all molecular biologists and is the backbone for genetic science.

When getting to the multicellular organisms, your revised design did not represent the fungi and plants, and hence I added in the bread mould on the top left corner and a pair of leaves (compound and simple) below the mould.

Then coming to the animals, since this is kingdom is large, I decided on a shallow representation, of invertebrates (fly) and the vertebrates (frog). I chose these two organisms because I also wanted to represent the food chain to a very small extent, and a predator-prey relationship.

Overall I feel these elements give a microcosm of the biological world on a smaller (individual) level. But These elements do not justify the macro level interactions that take place.

The first and foremost is evolution. The ape from man picture is frankly overused. I think, we can use other design ideas regarding evolution. I hope these pictures give you an idea of what I am talking about:

In short, this picture says that the smaller giraffe and he taller giraffe have a competition for food. The taller giraffe gets the food while the smaller one doesn't. The taller giraffe will survive, and pass on its genes to its offspring whereas the smaller giraffe will eventually die off. Thus eventually, all that are remaining are taller giraffes.

Now, what I wanted to do, but couldn't as I lack the graphical skills, was to adapt the zebra picture into the frog and fly equation. Essentially show it something like this..

The reason I wanted to do this, is because I am a bit of a sucker for the whole "many levels of meaning / deep meaning" stuff. Anyway, there are plenty of other examples, and if you want, we can supply more that may fit in with the theme better ?

Again, apologies for ruining your design. I just had some free time today (!), and just decided to muck about in photoshop.

Answer 8

For illustrations:

Classic model organisms (to name a few)

• Drosophila
• Yeast
• Mice
• C. elegans
• Arabidopsis
• Zebra fish

here are some little illustrations I often use in fly talks:

And drosophila chromosomes:

Illustration of Fishers geometric model of adaptation

(and this link for a more proper diagram)

Other ideas:

• The DNA should be "inspired" by the original Watson & Crick Illustration
• Virus
• Egg & Sperm
• Microscope
• Binoculars / Magnifying glass
• Phylogenetic trees
• Human body / organs
• Evolution

Answer 9

Regarding the edited version:

I think (A, B, C, E, G) all feel too chemistry related - one or two of these things is fine, (though the distillation flask [G], condenser [coming out of the distiller], & test tubes [C] feels too far towards chemistry for me). There is a lot of microscopic stuff, biology covers more than molecular and cellular biology.

Is D a pencil?

Is F a lunch box??

Also what is that just below the DNA strand?

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Suggestions:

Animals & plants - especially model organisms (flies, yeast, worms, chickens, zebra finch, zebra fish, guppy, beetles, Arabidopsis, tomato, corn, trees)

Make the DNA a helix, not a spiral.

Answer 10

What I like

The palette is spot on and the double helix logo is, if not a bit obvious, very on point. The biochemistry is well represented artistically and the 404 three eyed fish is very humorous!

What else I would try

Shift the focus from organic chemistry to model organisms like bacteria and flies if they can be made to match the style. The evolution of man could be a good one for evolution, but I can't imagine that fitting in with the minimal theme.

Nitpicking

I noticed some flame icons on the book and 404 page. Bunsen burners are only used for keeping equipment sterile rather than any biological testing; flames and biology don't typically get on so it's a bit odd that these were included...

The badge icons are benzene and this isn't really a biological molecule and is more of an organic chemistry iconic molecule (evolutionary biologists may not have seen this since school, and that would have been in a chemistry class). Glucose is a much more biologically well known molecule and the core structure is similar, albeit harder to summarise as a badge!

As for the gorgeous minimalistic glassware. Our glass blower tends to make those sorts of things for the chemical engineers that work in biology, so I presume they are a chemistry thing too. Most biology lab equipment is either simple glass-ware, pipettes, gels, plates of cells, or big magical boxes.

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EDIT 02 This now looks ideal. If I make any more suggestions I know I will ruin it! The glassware is still there but I think that's not a bad thing. It balances the cellular biology against the old-school biochemistry, which is still an alive and well practice, albeit being carried out by chemical engineers rather than biologists!

Answer 11

RE: EDIT 02: I love the neuron - THANKS!!

But I agree with @Bio_geek24 that the triple-repeated images are still kind of organic chemistry:

Erlenmeyers, heat exchangers and even test tubes are rarely encountered in a Bio Lab. It would be OK when shown once, but they do dominate the scene. Sorry for being nitpicky but I'm just trying to help.

Just to post another nervous system pic that may give you an idea to fill up the gaps (disregard the text, it's about the nerves :-) -

Answer 12

People seem to dislike benzene as a badge icon because it is not common in biology. I guess they haven't heard of tyrosine but, in any event, I do agree that it looks out of place. How about a simple protein model to replace it?

I'm not sure why I used that colour scheme since badges are actually gold, silver and bronze on a black background, but the idea is there. Obviously a touch artistic flare is required. Some may say that it focuses too much on the molecular side of biology and doesn't encompass the entire field, but these people are likely ecologists and will soon be too busy counting deer to give you any problems ;)

Some kind of stylized bacterium may also look nice, or an amoeba as WYSIWYG suggested. Something in the vein of Alberts' Molecular Biology of the Cell (maybe a little simpler):

Or maybe a Haworth projection of the pyranose ring. A lot of people were suggesting glucose, but all of the hydroxyls seem like too much clutter.

Swan neck flasks are pretty iconic:

I don't know, just throwing out ideas.

Answer 13

These are some great news. While I like the overall color scheme, I am not so convinced by the actual design. The site logo (which is also used for the badges) is a pretty "edgy" design, I would prefer something more round and "biological" here.

Others have also mentioned the rather chemical design of the stickers, besides technical stuff like microscopes and tubes, I would love to see trees, flowers and animals.

Having some molecules there is ok, but I would choose something which has more relevance in biology like glucose or ATP. I also like the idea of having pathways depicted (although this might be skewed by my own profession :-) ).

Answer 14

Great design. The color scheme is nice and subtle. I had always liked the pictures from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur. I'm not sure if someone still owns the copyright. Perhaps a line art rendering of one of the illustrations may be a good idea (tribute to Haeckel as well).

                         

A DNA or protein gel (as pointed out before) would be great and is perhaps one of the things that all molecular biologists relate to. People have also made many MEMES out of gel pics; so it is definitely a popular thing.

Another thing that many molecular biologists would relate to, is the micro-pipette; it is like an appendage of a molecular biologist/biochemist :P

I feel that amoeba for badge images would be nice. No sharp edges and looks very biological :P

Answer 15

Here is a trimmed version of the cover from our book (so I imagine it's copyrighted), and I saw it evolve through several versions. Our goal was similar, to use recognizable images of important discoveries etc. in Biology: