NYT Games

As likely many people do, I play the New York Times Games every day. Definitely the Wordle, and rarely Connections and Strands. A few years ago (2022-01-28), my family started our Wordle group chat where we’d post our scores. Connections (2024-03-11) and Strands (2024-05-14) came much later, but I don’t have a streak with those so they have a lower priority, but I am one of the early adopters of Strands, playing since #17. Anyway, with a group chat comes the need to have group icons. For a while, I just had a screenshot of the Wordle logotext set in white on a black background (since I play in dark mode).

Once we had all three chats going, we needed more icons. Connections and Strands didn’t have the word, so the original icons were just screenshots of the game’s logo. This wouldn’t stand, so I designed a set of three and those stayed the icons from 2024-06-17 to 2025-01-05. The icons were good, but they were essentially just the same icon but hand-drawn. Importantly, they also shared the same style.

trio_v1.png

On January 5, 2025, I decided it was time for a refresh. I wanted something that represented the games than merely repackaging. My vision was unfortunately lost on all who saw the new icons, and also received complaints on loss of identifiability. Valid criticisms, but at least it was new.

The Wordle icon (left) represents quotes on a letter guide, the redline underneath is a simplified red squiggly to mean that the word is not correct. The quotes are yellow because they are nearly correct. The Strands icon (middle) is a representation of abstract art, there really isn’t deeper meaning but they shapes are strands (« one of the elements interwoven in a complex whole » — Merriam-Webster, Strand, entry 4, sense 4). Connections (right), my personal favorite, is a simplified version of The Creation of Adam. The categories want to connect, and are reaching for each other, as do Adam and God.

./trio_v2.png

After repeated calls to make new ones, I finally gave in and made a new set. On June 27, 2025, I spent a few hours cooking up designs. I made a return to the playful hand-drawn style from v1, but I wanted them to be less like the actual logos. I borrowed some colors from the palette, but used an even stronger pink for Strands because I’ve never really been a fan of the sad, pale, blue they use. The original process was an extreme reduction of the official logo, but I realized shortly after making the Connections logo that Strands and Wordle that they could all use a slightly abstract version that shared the same design elements. So I now proudly present to you, Version 3:

./trio_v3.png

Equipment:

đź“… Posted 2025-07-21.

đź“ť Updated 2025-07-21.