This article is more than 2 years old.

November 17, 2016 This article is more than 2 years old.

In the summer of 2015, the developers of an open-source programming language called WebAssembly decided the project needed a logo. So one of the developers, JF Bastien, announced a logo contest in a post on GitHub.

“Reply to this thread with your suggested WebAssembly logo,” he wrote. “We haven’t decided how we’ll pick the final logo, but it’ll definitely be around [minimal viable product] time.”

That time hasn’t quite come yet, and the contest is still ongoing. At first, developers began submitting proposals in earnest, such as this:

And this:

And this one:

The community discussed the logos as they came in.

“I think it may be confusing to use a WA-logo,” one developer suggested, “because Whatsapp is abbreviated as WA too.”

“The full name is WebAssembly, not wasm nor wa, so I am not sure where the confusion would come from,” another argued. “It isn’t like if people would start using wa as the name. It is just some random scribbles on a logo.”

This continued for a while. Logos came in and were continually discussed. About a year after the contest was launched, however, a bit of subtle snark crept in.

“I’ve been thinking this might make a good logo,” a developer wrote in accompaniment of this submission:

The community seemed to enjoy that one, then kept plugging along for another few months. Then, about two weeks ago, a wave of wonderfully sarcastic submissions began pouring in.

“Here is my logo for WebAssembler Incorporated,” wrote developer Erik Harmon, adding this:

(That’s a picture of the sitcom duo “Laverne & Shirley,” characters who worked on a beer-bottling assembly line.)

“Here’s my take on it,” wrote another user, posting this:

And it only got better (worse) from there:

Mario showed up:

As did Comic Sans:

“What if it was just a cute cat,” one user suggested:

“Maybe something simple and minimal that everyone can remember?” suggested another:

Then this spider showed up:

Then they took it back to the ’80s:

The contest isn’t over yet, but JF Bastien, who started the thread in 2015, says the process has been fun.

“I mean just look at what we’ve received!” he said in a Twitter message. “We’ve gotten a few… inappropriate … submissions… but otherwise most have been great / fun. We thoroughly enjoy it!”

Bastien recently tweeted his favorites so far:

Sadly, he doesn’t seem sold on the cute cat.