LangChain

BACKGROUND

LangChain, the leading open source framework for building generative AI applications, asked me to explore a variety of logo directions to replace their distinctive parrot and chain logo, currently made up of iOS emojis. This case study explores how the start up could evolve their visual identity while retaining the recognizability, accessibility, and charm of their current logo.

APPROACH

I created three logo explorations for LangChain. Almost all logo directions retain LangChain’s existing logo structure of a separate bird and chain. This decision was made to ensure that LangChain could still be referred to as the iOS emojis, and thus users would still be encouraged to use those emojis to refer to the company across Twitter, Github, etc. For this same reason, the parrot is always colored green and is always standing to the left of the chain.

This logo exploration was inspired by the work of Susan Kare, who designed the first Apple icons in the early 80s. The direction plays into LangChain’s recognizable iOS emojis and harkens to the early beginnings of the tech world with a hint of humor and self-awareness.

This logo exploration uses sharper corners and lines inspired by many of the monospaced typefaces used in coding editors. However, it’s overall effect is warm, humble, and familiar. Certain aspects of the parrot were inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs — in a way, the LangChain logo acts as a hieroglyph, with the parrot representing “Lang” and the chain representing “Chain.”

This final logo strays the furthest from the original LangChain logo. It embodies the existing logo’s charm and humor in a more contemporary, professional tone.