E vs D2' · shootout

Both are strong. They argue different things. This page puts them in the contexts they'll actually live in — favicon tiles, circular avatars, Open Graph social cards, landing header — so the choice can be made on what the mark does in the world, not what it looks like in isolation.

What each mark argues (one sentence each)

E · Contingency

"We make a bet among four possibilities. One specific outcome is where we invest."

The 2×2 McNemar table rendered as four cells. Three graphite, one accent. The geometry IS the product's math. Reads as a window, a pixel, a confusion matrix, a crosshair — distinctly not a tree, a chart, or a neural net. Only mark in the round that couldn't be lifted wholesale into a competitor's identity.

D2' · Gate · Rising

"Evidence crosses a threshold. The rule remains underneath."

A rule-floor, a phase gate, an accent tick that parts the floor and rises through the gate. The mark literally argues the theorem: the floor is not broken but crossed at a measured point, which is exactly what a McNemar rejection does to the null. Architectural, gestural, dynamic.

Favicon tile — 16, 32, 96, 180 px

E · Contingency
Rounded graphite tile
16
32
96
180
D2' · Gate · Rising
Rounded graphite tile
16
32
96
180

Circular avatar — GitHub org / social profile

E · Contingency
Cropped to circle at 180 px
D2' · Gate · Rising
Cropped to circle at 180 px

Open Graph social card — 1200 × 630 (HN, X, LinkedIn previews)

E · Contingency
What people see when Dendra is shared
Dendra E social card
D2' · Gate · Rising
Same at parity
Dendra D2 social card

Landing-header mock

E mark DENDRA Code · Results · Pricing · GitHub
D2 mark DENDRA Code · Results · Pricing · GitHub

More D2' executions · each alongside E

Four additional executions of D2' exploring different dimensions — proportion (taller torii, wider gate), vocabulary-integration (threshold-crossing ring), and gesture-scale (restrained accent). E is shown next to each for reference at the same size.

D2 tall
D2' · tall
E
E · contingency
D2' · Tall. Lintel pulled up to y=160 (from y=200); accent extends correspondingly. More torii, less TV-set. Critic 1 requested this proportion explicitly — "the aperture reads slightly short" in the original D2'. The taller silhouette is more monumental and holds vertical presence at small sizes.
D2 wide
D2' · wide
E
E · contingency
D2' · Wide. Posts move outward from x=172/340 to x=132/380; interior is now 248 px (vs 168 px in D2'). Reads as a passageway rather than a narrow portal. Feels inviting. Trade-off: the accent looks smaller inside a wider aperture, which may weaken the "rising through" gesture at small sizes.
D2 node
D2' · node
E
E · contingency
D2' · Node. A hollow ink ring at the threshold-crossing point (where the accent passes through the lintel). Uses the same 28 r node measurement as the B-Tree Labs origin but renders as a 12-px outline so it marks the moment without covering the accent. This is the only D2' variant that docks explicitly with the parent brand's vocabulary.
D2 restrained
D2' · restrained
E
E · contingency
D2' · Restrained. Accent stops at the lintel (y=200) instead of extending above. Reframes the claim from "evidence has passed completely through" to "evidence has reached the threshold." Present-tense, not past-tense. More contained silhouette — fits within an implicit bounding box from floor to lintel, which reads tighter at favicon sizes but loses some of the drama.

The decision-forcing question

Both marks are defensible. The real question isn't which is better — it's which story do you want Dendra's brand to tell first?

E tells the math story. First read: "we're an AI-innovation company with a specific claim about a specific cell of a specific table." It lands hardest on people who recognize the contingency-table structure — the research audience and ML-literate engineering leaders. Safer against brand-category-cliché, more fragile against first-time viewers who just see "a grid icon."

D2' tells the infrastructure story. First read: "we're the thing that gates ML-advancement safely, with a rule floor underneath." It lands hardest on procurement-desk audiences and anyone primed to think of classification as a safety problem. Safer against first-read confusion, more exposed to the Π-shape's generic risks (gate, goalpost, monument).

Either works. The right call depends on which audience the first 12 months of Dendra's brand needs to reach hardest — researchers + engineering leaders (E), or infrastructure + procurement desks (D2').