PKGX INC.
Overview
PKGX is a dev shop founded by Homebrew creator Max Howell. Its flagship products are a package manager (the successor to Homebrew) and a visual package manager (OSSAPP) that enables anyone to easily interact with open source software. PKGX is also a core contributor to the tea Protocol, a web3 initiative that aims to remunerate developers for their open source contributions.
- Brand Design
- Logo Design
- Graphic Design
- Copywriting
- Art Direction
- Creative Direction
- Adobe Illustrator
Background
Max tasked me with developing the branding for PKGX. We had worked together on projects in the past, including tea Protocol, so I was familiar with his tastes and aesthetic sensibilities. Nevertheless, branding the successor to Homebrew—a package manager used by millions of developers worldwide—was still a daunting task. I wasn't given much direction, other than the humble request that it not be an icon of a package.
The Challenge
The initial ideation for PKGX was tricky. It had to be timeless (at least in the eyes of the developer community), it had to draw a stark contrast between itself and its predecessor, and it needed to go beyond the obvious visual solutions. PKGX's tagline, coined by Max, is 'run anything' (referring to open source software). This gave me the idea to incorporate an infinity symbol. In addition to that, I wanted to immediately circumvent the low-hanging fruit of any package or box imagery. Instead, I thought about the process of making a box—the flat piece of card you get from the post office. That resonated well because it also served as a nod to the process of developing software. And then that led me to the idea of Origami—taking something simple (a piece of paper) and making something amazing. Similarly, developers take lines of code and create amazing pieces of software. So I got to sketching, and after several rounds of revisions, the PKGX mark was finalized.