Pages · Mark It Down

Brand icon — markdown # glyph

The Mark It Down app icon is a stylized markdown heading-syntax glyph (#) embossed on a rounded-square page. The glyph signals "markdown" explicitly (heading syntax), the page silhouette signals "document app", and the warm cream-on-navy palette gives a friendly, app-store-friendly feel that holds up at every size from 16 px to 1024 px.

Files

Path	Purpose
`media/brand/icon.svg`	Primary 1024×1024 source — color, gradient, soft shadow under the glyph for emboss. Slight `-8°` italic skew on the verticals for editorial flair.
`media/brand/icon-mono.svg`	Monochrome silhouette for macOS template images and overlays — pure-black fill, no gradients. macOS recolors based on context.
`build/icons/<n>.png`	Color rasters at 16/32/48/64/128/256/512/1024 + the electron-builder Linux convention `512x512.png`.
`media/brand/icon.icns`	macOS app icon, 10-pair iconset (16×16 → 512×512 @1x and @2x) packed via `iconutil`.
`media/brand/icon.ico`	Windows app icon, 6 sizes (16, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256) packed via ImageMagick.
`media/brand/iconTemplate{,@2x,@3x}.png`	macOS template image set (1×, 2×, 3×) for menu bar / dock badge use.
`media/icon.png`	512 px copy of the color icon, referenced by `package.json#icon` for the VSCode marketplace listing.

Regenerating

Both source SVGs are the source of truth. To regenerate every output:

$ pnpm build:icons

This runs scripts/build-icons.mjs, which requires:

@resvg/resvg-js (npm) — Rust SVG renderer with full gradient/filter/transform support. Cross-platform; auto-installed via npm install.
magick (ImageMagick) on PATH — only used to pack the multi-size .ico for Windows.
iconutil — Apple-supplied, only present on macOS. The .icns step is macOS-only.

Why resvg, not magick, for the SVGs? magick falls back to its internal MSVG renderer when librsvg isn't installed. That fallback drops gradients and filters, producing a grayscale silhouette (see PR for #88). @resvg/resvg-js does the rasterization in-process with full SVG fidelity.

The script overwrites build/icons/ and the platform icon files in media/brand/ deterministically; the SVGs are the only diffable source. Commit the regenerated binaries — they are small (~250 KB total) and prevent CI from needing the same toolchain.

Wiring

package.json#build:

json

For dev (npm run dev:electron), apps/electron/main.ts resolves build/icons/512.png and passes it to BrowserWindow({ icon }) plus app.dock.setIcon() on macOS so the dev dock/taskbar already shows the brand art.

In packaged builds, electron-builder ignores the runtime BrowserWindow.icon on macOS (the .app bundle's icon takes over) — that's why the .icns is mandatory for the packaged dist.

Design notes

The page silhouette is a 200 px-radius rounded square inside a 1024-square viewBox, giving ~22% corner radius — between Apple's "squircle" (~25%) and a softer rectangle. Reads as a document at small sizes, as an app icon at large sizes.
The # glyph is built from four rectangles with 46 px end-radii so each bar terminates with a half-circle. The two vertical bars are skewX(-8°) to suggest forward motion / italic markdown.
The cream→amber gradient on the glyph and the navy→indigo gradient on the page give just enough depth to feel native at any size without going skeuomorphic.