Show HN: Brandseen - A logo coloring game built in 24h

I really love this idea, but I have a big problem with colour selectors. I'm not sure if it's unique to me or a common problem, but I can visualise the right colour (and could pick it out of a line up) but when playing with a colour selector all colours blur into one and it becomes very difficult for me to differentiate colours effectively.

I could look at 100 different Coca Cola logos and point out which has the right red, but trying to colour it myself is an impossible task. Even now I played the Coca Cola logo 3 times, even after seeing exactly the right colour I can't get it right on the selector (my score every time was between 73 and 77).

Anyway, actual feedback: For some reason some of the logos don't load, although checking the console I see the following errors so I assume it's server issues:

Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 500 (INTERNAL SERVER ERROR) http://brandseenapp.com/success?score=0&game=Basic&l... Uncaught TypeError: Property 'width' of object #<HTMLImageElement> is not a function

I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one here who had no idea Yahoo's logo is now purple. How the mighty have fallen.

This is a cool idea but I don't think it works quite right, matching RGB color is a perceptual thing, there's no absolute "starbucks green" that you could display on a monitor. Even a calibrated monitor in controlled lighting conditions is still calibrated to something (like a film stock or a certain printer profile).

I think a better way to present this would be to show a photograph which incorporated the logo (e.g. a Coca-Cola billboard in a city on a sunny day) with the grey logo, and then have the user color-correct the logo until it matched the perceptual reference of the context that it was in. The "coca cola red" in RGB values would not be pure red but I think the user would probably have a better chance of making it "look correct" in the photo (thus matching the color values in the original photograph) than trying to match it without any context. Would make a neat experiment, too.

Fun! I left Apple where it was in the middle because it looked about right to me (silver) and got a 0. Other than that, I was between 75-98 every time.

Seems like moving the brightness slider up and down should also change the color wheel. As it is, you have to pick a full intensity color then adjust it to a lighter one that may not be very similar at all.

I did this all by memory. First and only try.

Here are my results (and my very brief feedback follows):

coca-cola: 96 batman: 100 Yahoo!: 85 Dropbox: 83 McDonald's: 82 Starbucks: 85 IBM: 94 Shell: 89 Apple: 100

Avg Score: 90%

The only one I seemed to really have a problem with is Shell. The red seemed way too vibrant/bright. The Apple one I think can throw people off because of Apple's love with a glossy, "transparent" look. My intuition told me it was a lot lighter, but then on second thought, I decided to go way darker, thinking of the logo as separate from what Apple puts on their actual products.

I'm using a cheap CRT monitor, by the way.

Tried it with Chrome on Windows. About half of the logos were not visible at all.

Minor quibble, but having lived in Atlanta for a decade I feel like I need to mention that the Coca-Cola logo is more typically white text with red background. (for example, at the world of coca-cola: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/Wc_spectacular...)

Cool project! But I must say, the algorithm that computes the percentage score seems rather poor, at least if the goal is to score the percent visual difference between the selected color and the actual. It gave me 100% on Coca-Cola (and I replicated the 100% with a slightly different shade in a different browser tab), yet I got only 3.14% for leaving Apple the default color, which looks almost the same as the correct color. Some of my other answers were similarly penalized heavily for brightness being a little off even if the hue was almost exact. The visual difference between those colors and the correct colors was far less than the visual difference between some of my higher scoring answers and the correct color.

Pretty neat, I did surprisingly well. Would be nice if you could see just how far you were off besides the color changing after you hit the button. A different circle on the color wheel, for example, showing where you picked and where the color actually is.

I like this game. Here are some suggestions. I would prefer to only have to select the hue (the angle in the circle). That is, the game would prepare the correct saturation (distance from the center) and brightness (the vertical bar) for me. My score would be the difference in degrees between my answer and the correct answer. It would make the game more enjoyable to a wide audience. It would also make the score easier to understand than a percentage (the percentage means nothing to me). Finally, I would like to have the name of the company written in text under the logo for cases where I want to know who it belongs to.

Was pretty fun. I was totally wrong on Coke, though. And I somehow got a 3.14 for Apple? :P Would be cool if the answers were given at the end as well, perhaps side by side with your guesses?

I'm color deficient --- failed the tests at school where you pick out the letters/numbers from the bubbles --- and I got a 100% on apple and a 0% on Batman...:(

Super fun, thanks for building this! Had an issue where my Dropbox logo was only showing up at 50% opacity or so, so my final color was off by a lot more than I was expecting. My Shell logo was also just slightly darker red and I got a 58. There was a weird transition of the color I chose and the actual logo, so not sure if that had anything to do with it.

Pretty fun. It'd be neat to be able to see your choice next to the correct version so you can visually see how "far" you were off.

1) I had the same problem that citricsquid mentions below. I would say provide the user with a select option from like 5-7 colors. 2) Add game mechanics to show a leaderboard to see where you stand 3) This idea could be pretty attractive to brands -- helps in brand engagement and brand building without the negative connotation of advertising

My only complaint is about the mermaid one. I didn't recognize it at all.

Maybe cause starbucks is that that popular in Europe?

It'd be interesting if the statistics on this are being kept. You could answer questions like which brands don't have strong color identities, whether people tend to err on the side of lightness/darkness with certain logos, etc. You never know what unexpected things you might discover.

Bit scary how well I actually did for brands that I don't know that well (in my case, Starbucks and Batman). Surprisingly internet companies like Yahoo and Dropbox got me worst scores, although I don't use either which may explain that as they don't do as much advertising.

Great and surprisingly addictive game!

I don't have much of a memory for color names, so was surprised at how well the human brain can remember colors even without a vocabulary to describe them. It really goes to show you that a good logo really does help sear the brand into your mind.

Thanks everyone for all the support, comments, and letting me know about some bugs! One of the biggest challenges I had was finding an algorithm to determine the "difference" between two hex codes. Anyone have any tips on that?

Very cool, although I have some issues (latest Chrome on Win7) : http://i.imgur.com/KYWjk.png It doesn't do this on every logo though...

PS: nice cats. And is Pi here on purpose ?

Really addictive game. It can easily be extended to include cartoon characters or comic book superheroes! One suggestion, please add a nice 404 page so users don't see the raw message.

I like this, hope to see more examples. I was surprised to find I was quite wrong on brands I thought I knew well (e.g. Yahoo). Fun little game.

Lots of fun! Occasionally, whatever color I guess, it gives me a 0. Happened twice, on Dropbox and on Apple. I tried the game 3 times.

A very fun game, indeed. Like "drharris" said, it would be neat to see more examples! It's a really awesome game, regardless, though!

Very cool idea and well implemented! While I'm sure people will criticize the matching logic and such, it was definitely fun.

Very nicely made!

I seem to misremember a lot of logos as having red in them, when they don't. Anyone else have this problem?

I thought the coca cola logo was white lettering on a red field. Batman logo coloring is dubious at best

Awesome game, get rid of the cats tho

Lawsuit!

Cool stuff, mate, but seriously, you could get in trouble for that, especially if you're in America!

A lot of trademarks have rules and regulations about what can be done to them, that includes changing their color, using them without consent from the owner, etc...

I just thought I should warn you, I don't want fellow hackers to go to jail because of stupid laws.

Great game, was amazingly close in a few, horribly far off on others. Thanks!

What's the accuracy needed to obtain 100%? Matching color codes or what?

Great little game! 81% on average, how sad.

Nice! Got two 100s and an average of 78%

It was developed at Greylock Hackfest.

Great. 16%. Yes, I'm colorblind.

Interesting. I got 69%.

This was cool!