Mathematica Logo History
Stephen Wolfram wrote about history of Mathematica logo.
[the story of spikey By Stephen Wolfram. At https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2018/12/the-story-of-spikey/ ]
Here is a history of Mathematica logos thru its versions. All these are designed by Michael Trott.
Version 1 (1988)
Version 2 (1991)
Version 3 (1996)
Version 4 (1999)
Version 5 (2003)
Version 6 (2007)
Version 7 (2008)
Version 8 (2010)
Misc Notes
My favorite is version 2 logo, Second favorite is version 3, then version 1 — the plain stellated icosahedron. The ones i like the least is version 7's logo, and 6's logo. They lost much of the math's beauty of simplicity and structure. In particular, if you look them them closely, they have artifacts of some flower-like arcs inside, and also the gradient coloring. They are caused in part by the complex gaps of the surface patches, possibilty also caused by partial transparency of the surface.
Reference
- Mathematica Quick Revision History At http://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/quick-revision-history.html
- Making the Mathematica 6 Spikey By Michael Trott. At http://blog.wolfram.com/2007/05/22/making-the-mathematica-6-spikey/
- The Cover Image: Making the Mathematica 6 Surface-Textured Hyperbolic Dodecahedron By Michael Trott. At http://library.wolfram.com/infocenter/MathSource/6712/