Stego Coffee · Identity · Round two
The ridge, and the thagomizer
Taking the favicon you liked and giving it 03’s plates — then finding out what the tail spikes can and can’t do.
The finding
why the original felt offSwapping the plate shape turned out not to be the fix. Drawn with 03’s curves and left at two, the mark still read as a cat — because two symmetrical points on a symmetrical dome are ears, whatever their outline.
What actually broke the cat read was count and rhythm: three or four plates, each a different size, stepping down toward the head. Asymmetry is what turns a face into a spine. The crease does the rest — it’s knocked clean through the fill as a true hole, so it holds when the mark is reversed.
The eye is also fixed, if you keep it. The mark is drawn 1.45× larger in the frame and the eye went from 2.2 to 3.2 units — roughly four times the area, and visible at 16px for the first time. A5 argues you should drop it anyway.
The tilt
revision to A1The back is two cubic curves. Each plate now samples the normal of the curve directly beneath it and rotates to match, so the ridge fans instead of standing to attention: −19.6° on the left, −1.4° in the middle, +13.2° on the right.
Two judgement calls sit on top of the geometry. The rotation is 85% of the true normal, not all of it — at full tilt the outer plates read as blown over and the gap between the left and middle plate opens into a V. And every plate base is sunk 8.5 units into the body, deep enough that no corner breaks the dome’s outline once it rotates.
The tilt does something the plate shape alone never managed: it makes the face read impossible. Ears sit parallel. A fanned ridge cannot be mistaken for a pair of anything.
The plates
A1 revised · A2 — A5 as drawnreversed
Set to the curve
Three plates with 03’s swelling sides, each rotated to stand square to the back beneath it. The middle one is near-upright; the outer two lean out with the curve.
Chosen. The tilt is what finally stops it reading as a face — ears do not fan.reversed
Set to the curve, creased
The same drawing with a crease knocked through each plate, rotating with it. The bean half of the pun, if you want it.
Option — the crease is cramped in the two outer plates. Better at bag size than favicon size.reversed
Creased
The same three plates, each with a crease knocked clean through. This is where the bean half of the pun finally lands.
Watch — the creases are the first thing to close up at 16px and in ink.reversed
Graduated ridge
Four plates, sized down toward the head. Nothing is symmetrical any more, so the shape reads as a spine, not a face.
Best small. Survives 16px better than anything else here.reversed
Snouted
The dome pulled out into a muzzle. Now the animal has a direction, and the eye has somewhere to sit that isn’t the middle of its back.
Watch — the snout is 8 units of detail that turns to mush below about 24px.reversed
Snouted, no eye
A4 with the eye deleted. Losing it costs nothing and removes the last thing that read as cartoon.
Best large. The most composed of the five on a bag or a header.The tail spikes
B1 — B3 · where they holdThe thagomizer — the four spikes on a stegosaurus tail — is the most ownable shape the animal has. Nothing else in the category is allowed to use it. It is also, drawn eight different ways, unable to carry a mark by itself: an isolated tapering spike reads as a leaf, and a cluster of them reads as grass.
It works when something else in the frame says what it is. Three places do that.
reversed
The whole animal
Ridge in front, thagomizer behind. In context the spikes read correctly, because the animal tells you what they are.
Works — this is the only place a spike reads as a spike without help.reversed
Spike rule
The spikes as a repeating border. Alternating heights so it reads as a ridge rather than a fence.
Works — the most useful thing to come out of this round. Runs along a bag seam or under a header.reversed
Spiked steam
Spikes standing in for the wisps over a cup. States the category and keeps the vocabulary.
Works, with a caveat — reads as flame about as often as it reads as steam.What it can’t do
shown so the round isn’t repeatedreversed
Club and spikes
A stubby tail with two heavy spikes. The most anatomically honest version drawn.
Reads as — a bird in flight. Every viewer, every size.reversed
Symmetric, from above
The textbook thagomizer diagram: tail up the middle, two spikes each side.
Reads as — a palm tree.Where this lands
a favicon you can ship todayCandidate
A1, in the circle, in your three colors
The tilted ridge inside the ink disc the original already used, body in cream, plates in roast. The plates are drawn behind the body, so only the part that clears the back shows — layer them the other way and the bases bleed across the cream as a band.
Drop-in replacement for favicon.svg:
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64">
<!-- Stego Coffee: bean-plated back ridge, plates set to the curve of the back -->
<circle cx="32" cy="32" r="32" fill="#14120f"/>
<g transform="translate(32 33.5) scale(0.76) translate(-32 -34.5)">
<path fill="#c4562c" d="M14.63 14.76C22.73 19.6 24.8 25.42 24.95 28.07L15.05 31.59C13.49 29.45 11.42 23.63 14.63 14.76ZM30.5 7.02C38.22 16.16 38.42 24.07 37.56 27.35L24.44 27.68C23.42 24.44 23.23 16.53 30.5 7.02ZM45.42 14.2C49.95 22.26 48.63 27.9 47.33 30.05L36.67 27.56C36.46 25.06 37.78 19.42 45.42 14.2Z"/>
<path fill="#fbf8f2" d="M6 42.5C6 28 17.5 19 32 19C46.5 19 58 26.5 58 38C58 45.5 51 50 41 50L12 50C7.5 50 6 47 6 42.5Z"/>
<path fill="#14120f" d="M52.4 35A3.4 3.4 0 1 0 45.6 35A3.4 3.4 0 1 0 52.4 35Z"/>
</g>
</svg>
Next
A1 is the mark. It survives a browser tab, and the tilt gives it a direction the upright version never had. A5 and B1 remain the large-format crops if you want a fuller animal on a bag or an about page — same vocabulary, so they still read as a family.
Take the spike rule (B2) seriously. It came out of this round as a genuine find: a border that is unmistakably yours, costs one line of SVG, and works on a bag seam, a business card edge, or under a page header. It’s running across this page above the spike section.
The same tilt function applies to A2 through A5 whenever you want it — they are left upright here so the round reads as drawn. Still open from the brief: the wordmark, font licensing, and the lockup rules — clear space, minimum size, the one-color and reversed variants written down before they get improvised.