Six more ways to draw Dwelio
Round four takes the two directions that led the first report and pushes each one three ways. A, The Threshold, gets a lit room, an open door and a line drawing. D, The Lit Window, gets a glow, loses its frame, and grows a roof. The palettes are held fixed from the first report so only the drawing changes. Each variation shows the lockup and a board so you can judge the system, not just the symbol.
The Threshold, Lit
“Come home.”
The idea
The same circle-and-square D, but the house inside its bowl is filled terracotta instead of cut out. A thin ivory gap keeps the house separate from the letter. You are looking through a doorway at a room with the lights on.
Why it works
The original A read as a house through a door. This one reads as a home, because someone is in. It also gives the mark a natural two-colour state and a one-colour fallback, and the app icon in terracotta with a dark house is the best icon in the whole family.
Watch out for
The gap between the house and the D is what makes the drawing work, and it has to be held at every size. At favicon scale the gap closes up and the house becomes a blob, so the small version needs a wider gap or a plain cutout.
Verdict
Recommended. The best drawing of A so far.
- Ivory
#F4EFE6 - Ink
#1B1A19 - Terracotta
#C4552D - Sage
#8A9A7B
The Threshold, Open
“The door is open.”
The idea
The house cutout breaks through the stem of the D at the bottom, so the negative space runs out to the edge like a door left open. A single terracotta dot marks the doorknob, or a porch light.
Why it works
The most narrative of the three. The break makes the mark feel like an invitation rather than a symbol, and the embossed key tag on the board shows it holds in one colour with no dot at all.
Watch out for
Breaking the stem costs the letter. In the lockup the mark starts to read as a P over an L, and the D only comes back once the wordmark is beside it. The break should be narrower in the redraw, with more of the stem kept below it.
Verdict
Most distinctive, least legible. A good idea that needs a tighter cut.
- Ivory
#F4EFE6 - Ink
#1B1A19 - Terracotta
#C4552D - Sage
#8A9A7B
The Threshold, Line
“Come home.”
The idea
The D and the house are both drawn in one uniform stroke, with the house sitting on the baseline as the counter of the letter. One small terracotta square inside the house is a window.
Why it works
The lightest and most architectural of the family. It looks drawn rather than stamped, sits well in a dark app header, and the window square doubles as a notification dot. The construction panel practically writes the vector spec.
Watch out for
Line marks lose their inner shape at small sizes, so this needs a heavier-stroke variant for the favicon, which the board already shows on the app icon. It is also the least warm of the three, and closer to what a generic architect's mark looks like.
Verdict
The refined option. Pick this if Dwelio wants to feel like a studio rather than an app.
- Ivory
#F4EFE6 - Ink
#1B1A19 - Terracotta
#C4552D - Sage
#8A9A7B
The Lit Window, Glow
“Someone's home.”
The idea
The same four-pane window, but the lit pane now throws a soft glow just past the frame on its own corner. Everything else stays crisp and flat.
Why it works
The glow is what turns a grid icon into a window at night. It is the emotional fix D needed, and on a phone home screen it makes the icon look switched on next to its neighbours.
Watch out for
Glow is not a vector property. Print, embroidery and one-colour uses fall back to the flat mark, so the system carries two versions and the glow becomes a screen-only treatment rather than part of the logo.
Verdict
The warmest D, but the glow is a screen effect, not a mark.
- Slate
#24303F - Lamp
#F6C453 - Chalk
#F2F0EA - Dusk
#5C6B80
The Lit Window, Cross
“Someone's home.”
The idea
The outer frame is removed. What remains is the cross of the mullions and one lamp-yellow pane tucked into its lower right corner. Two shapes.
Why it works
The simplest drawing in the report and the easiest to reproduce. The map application on the board is genuinely good: the cross becomes the marker and the yellow pane the selected state.
Watch out for
Without the frame it stops being a window. A thick rounded cross reads as a medical or pharmacy sign first, and the yellow square does not pull it back. It also lands close to a plus button in any interface it lives in.
Verdict
Not recommended. Shown to prove the frame is load-bearing.
- Slate
#24303F - Lamp
#F6C453 - Chalk
#F2F0EA - Dusk
#5C6B80
The Lit Window, Dormer
“Someone's home.”
The idea
The top edge of the window frame becomes a shallow gable, so the mark is a small house whose body is a four-pane window. The lower right pane is lit.
Why it works
This solves D's biggest problem, which was that a four-pane grid is a common software icon. Add a roof and it can only mean a house. It is the most ownable D, it works engraved on a brass plaque with no colour at all, and the solid yellow version is a ready-made map pin.
Watch out for
The lockup fuses roof and window into one outline, while the board draws the roof as a separate gable over a square window. Both work, but the redraw has to choose one. The fused version is stronger at small sizes.
Verdict
Recommended within the D family. If D is the direction, build this one, fused.
- Slate
#24303F - Lamp
#F6C453 - Chalk
#F2F0EA - Dusk
#5C6B80
What happens after you pick
- Redraw the chosen mark as clean vector, on a grid, with fixed stroke weights and a locked clear space. For A1 that means setting the gap width; for D3 it means choosing fused or gabled.
- Export the family: mark, wordmark, horizontal and stacked lockups, app icon, favicon, one-colour and reversed versions.
- Set the real typeface for the wordmark and a body face for the product, then check the pair against the palette in both light and dark.