GoKawiilBuilding LogiCola's new design language from what I found reverse-engineering the 2008 original.
By Malik Piara · Sep 8, 2026
Announcements
Two years ago, I set out to design and release an updated version of LogiCola with the goal of preserving Professor Gensler’s work and introducing a more accessible solution that could be used by students carrying any device or operating system. Since the original was built for Windows, many students were not able to use it. Today, many students use Chromebooks or mobile devices. In August, more than 100 devices in Asia visited LogiCola 3 in a single week and 72 of them did at least one exercise. Of those, 66 came from the Philippines. Over half of them were phones and tablets. This is a signal I receive with enthusiasm. The product seems to be delivering on the original promise I made in 2024. Today I’m releasing a new version that answers the feedback you shared through the Hacker News discussion, GitHub issues and email. This release brings back mastery learning through infinite translation drills and embeds some of the playfulness from the original software with my own touch. On soul sucking design The landing page prioritised the wrong goals and put more emphasis on user acquisition through an email subscription form than it did on the logic drills. Other commenters noted the design felt too modern and out of place. My initial redesign made LogiCola 3 feel like enterprise software, a departure from the vibrancy of the old interface: Making the port look modern by using a modern look makes tons of sense. The soul sucking feeling it produces comes from the modern look’s motivations, which is not the author’s fault alone, but instead from the ‘market and sell everything’ era we current live within. The colourful backgrounds that change on every refresh have been one of the defining elements of the original brand. I borrowed the colour treatment from the original, but assigned a unique palette to every set. Syllogistic and propositional logic wear different colours. This way, you’ll always know where you are. The Color dialog found in the 2008 program reveals nine colour schemes, each at three depths: Pastel, Moderate and Deep. Here are six of the schemes, with a background, a panel and a dark band along the foot. Roll the dice to see random ones, and try the three depths:
Depth Pastel Moderate Deep Scheme Named pairs Roll again Aqua/Rose
#CDFFFF · #FFCDCD Rose/Aqua
#FFCDCD · #CDFFFF Blue/Cream
#CDCDFF · #FFFFCD Cream/Blue
#FFFFCD · #CDCDFF Lime/Magenta
#CDFFCD · #FFCDFF Magenta/Lime
... continue reading