Mona
Part cat, part octopus, Mona is a pioneer of the Octocat species and is our official mascot. Mona supports all of our messaging with an expressive and energetic attitude. To the average person, Mona looks chic and cute. But to the developer community, Mona is an icon, and always shows up when we’re speaking about the open source community.
Mona’s a versatile character, and can adapt to surroundings. By default, Mona will be depicted in her original color palette. A brighter purple variant is used in dark mode, and a pearl textured Mona is reserved exclusively for the AI/Agents theme.
Ducky
Our salute to developers worldwide: rubber Ducky helps you with debugging your code, joining Mona in representing creativity and innovation. We typically use Ducky less than Mona because it’s less well known compared to Mona.
Usage
When using mascots in brand applications, less is more. Overuse or use of mascots as space fillers can be distracting and annoying. Preserve the magic of our beloved mascots by using them sparingly, and only when the context is appropriate. They should always surprise and delight. Below is some general guidance on what is appropriate context. However all public facing usage of mascots must be approved by GitHub’s Brand & Marketing Design team.
Do use mascots with our community. Our mascots are most welcome and understood by our superfans at events, in merch, and in some marketing.
Don’t use mascots as logos. No mascot or octocat should be used as a sub-team, app, product branding, or joint branding with other companies or organizations.
Do use mascots internally. You’ll find them in Slack, emails, swag, apps, stickers, and milestone celebrations.
Don’t use mascots to explain, interrupt, or sell. Mascots shouldn’t interrupt a users user flow. Don’t use mascots in sales, customer support or training.
Do use mascots to inspire and entertain. Mascots can be a powerful engagement tool for students, as long as they aren’t doing the teaching.
Don’t use mascots for serious topics. Money, security, sales, enterprise offerings, apologies, politics or crises should have proper copywriting, illustration, and visuals.Alternate octocat styles
These Octocat and mascot styles represent previous eras of our brand and shouldn’t be used as the default. But they might show up for internal events, social media posts, or content when showing the breadth and history of GitHub’s brand.
The original Octocat — The illustration that started it all. This flat graphic style is outdated now, but still holds special place in our hearts. New work is not produced in this style unless intended to be a throwback. Find more octocats in the Octodex
The Octocat 2.0 style — Our current Octocat model, used internally in illustrations, animations, and stickers. This version of Mona is more emotive and functional in 3D space and the style most common for stickers or narrative illustrations. Build your own at myoctocat.com
Outline style — A style we used in our product empty states and mobile app. Currently being deprecated.
Monamoji — Monamoji are the Octocat custom emoji, used for reactions and as custom emoji. These should be reserved for community engagement — and should not be used when speaking on the voice of GitHub. See animated versions on Giphy