The full design history of Sixgree, with pictures: from Next.js's default favicon to a gold S that reads as a 6, every wordmark we drew, the name change, the tier palettes in each look, and the design rules behind them.
Sixgree maps your LinkedIn network out to six degrees, so every piece of its look tries to say one of two things: degrees and tiers. This is the whole history, with the versions we threw away.
Six Degrees said exactly what the app does, which is why it was hard to own: it's a phrase, not a name, and the domain was sixdegreesapp.com. Sixgree keeps both halves, the six and the degree, in one word nobody else uses. It reads "six-gree", and its tagline does the explaining: Sixgree: six degrees of your LinkedIn. sixgree.com is home; sixdegreesapp.com, sixgree.app and the likely typo sixgrees.com all redirect there. The GitHub repo kept its old name on purpose, so every installed copy keeps updating.
The placeholder explained the app but looked like every network app. Orbits was prettier and still generic. The gold 6 was the first that said six degrees, but its thin line and glow went to mush at 16 pixels.
The candidates tried three ideas: the orbit turning into the 6 (top left), a single curve that draws an S (F1, F3, F5), and lighter, flatter takes. F1 won: one tapered gold curve draws the S, a round gold dot in its lower bowl makes it a 6 and is you, and a small ring at the top closes it as a degree sign. It works by figure and ground: the same stroke is an S, a 6 and a path out to a degree, depending on what you look at. The app icon adds faint tier rings and a glow; the favicon drops them, because detail that disappears at 16 px only makes a small icon muddy.
The first wordmark stacked the tier dots above the i and faded them out. Then came wind, the dots blowing to the right, and from wind a row of straighter lines and comets rising like the icon's curve.
The flat line won the vote: one level row from the i's dot across the whole word, gold, purple, blue, green, grey. Then the last dot became a ring, then an all-gold version was tried and dropped, because a row of one colour loses the tiers.
The final version runs the five tier dots level to a gold ring the same size and height as the i's dot, so the name ends on a degree sign: Sixgree°. On white the word is ink and the colour lives in the dots; on a dark look the word is gold. For single-colour uses there are black and white versions.
Tiers run S, A, B, C, D, and their colours borrow a ladder people already know from games: gold, purple, blue, green, grey. Using a convention people have learned elsewhere means nobody needs a legend to see that gold outranks grey. C used to be a muddy colour too close to D; green made the five read as steps at a glance. Each look tunes the shades to its background (Daylight darkens the gold so it holds up on white; High contrast pushes everything brighter), but a tier is always the same hue family.
The app used to offer six button styles and eight looks. Every option is a decision for the person using it and another thing to keep readable, so we cut to two button styles (frosted glass, or soft) and six looks. Daylight became macOS-style glass: translucent white panels, a strong blur, a hairline edge, a soft shadow. Apple's own secondary grey is only 3.6:1 on white, below the accessibility line for small text, so Sixgree's greys are darker: body text 16.8:1, secondary 7.5:1, the faintest 5.1:1.
The tabs had a colour each and a gradient on one of them. None of it meant anything, and colour that means nothing teaches people to ignore colour that does. Now the open tab is a solid pill and the rest are plain.
The site is light only, with soft white download keys carrying the Apple and Microsoft marks. The header carries the icon and wordmark large enough to read, and each link is a quiet grey pill; the page you're on fills with a tier colour, in the wordmark's order.
The home page opens on a film rather than a screenshot. It plays silently at twice its speed, its four edges fade into the page so it has no frame, and the 1-2-3 underneath lights up the step it's showing. Shared links show the icon and the wordmark, not a screenshot:
The films use the same rules as the app: the real app on invented people, the tier colours, and rings for degrees. The light ones sit on white with a soft gold, purple and blue glow, like the site. The night-sky one draws every person as a point of light, and the tier rings open out from you. Each one keeps "It ranks reachability, not people." in frame wherever a score shows.
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Use Sixgree to inspect possible bridges, then ask a mutual LinkedIn connection for an introduction with clear, respectful messages and a forwardable blurb.
