Yes (although my terms may not be the most accurate).
Unfortunately though I don't have a source to quote on that. But AIUI this is reflected in the tooth metrics of the logo (although I don't know if this necessarily is the case anymore).
Previous discussion on this same topic:
Also, here's info on the origins of Rust's current logo.
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The bike analogy is kinda cool, I never knew that was it. But it's also quite obscure. The original "everyone on our team rides bikes" is no longer relevant, and the symbolics of the sprocket are kinda off. I think more people would associate Rust with heavy machinery than with a bike. That said, the teeth on high-torque gears are also very fine, and often in weird shapes.
I mostly like the design in this post:
Here is how it would look at tiny scale: The gear teeth are much more legible. The letter R isn't, but that's because of its added serifs and a heavier font. The original R would look perfectly legible.
For me, that's the design I myself would make (if I could draw 
), and in fact I'm surprised that it's not already something like that. Despite looking daily at the logo in the header of this site, I never noticed that it's not really a fine-toothed gear, and the design above is more or less what I would reproduce from memory.
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As a cyclist, the current logo is quite obviously a chainring.
But for the Rust logo, the bolt holes don't appear to have much benefit. A simplification keeping the teeth (perhaps fewer teeth) but losing the bolt holes should be viable; this allows a thinner ring and larger letter 'R'.
Possibly Rust should have two logos: the current logo for large sizes and a simplified smaller version. Though, to avoid too much difference between the two, simplifying the larger variant too might be wise.
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I made a less detailed version of the logo for a favicon a while ago, and it is much more legible at tiny resolutions in my opinion, without drastically changing its appearance:
Original:
Also, if you're interested in the logo's history, I wrote about it here.
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I think the current logo is great. I also think "how does it look at tiny sizes?" isn't an important question.
Yet another pointless topic, in my opinion.
TL;DR This will do absolutely nothing for Rust's popularity.
First of all, in line with @shanesveller's comment, logos are totally unimportant and its hard to remember what they look like. The only situation when the logo can be even slightly important is when a 4-year old kid wants to learn a programming language, so it would be natural for them to be impressed by a logo. The caveat is that Rust is definitely not a language for a 4-year old kid. And if a grown adult judges a language by its logo... well, you can guess my opinion on that.
Second, Rust has far more pressing problems than a logo. I can hardly imagine redesigning a logo making even a +1% impact on Rust's popularity. What really matters is the learning curve, and many people smarter than us are working on making Rust easier to grok. And they do a great job, if you ask me. Today's Rust is almost an order of magnitude easier to use than 6 years ago, when I started dabbling in it.
Third, if you really think that we're wrong, go ahead, learn graphic design, redesign the logo yourself and propose the change. Or at least come up with something. Just talking about some abstract better logo is not useful at all.
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Marketing and branding certainly do work on adults. I would even say that it is mostly targered at adults. I don't know how important a logo is for a programming language's brand, but I would wager that you don't either.
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I don't think anyone expects the language designers to design a new logo.
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This point adds nothing to the conversation. It could be said about any change proposal for anything.
If you think a discussion is pointless, joining it to say that is unhelpful and condescending. You can just leave it be.
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Marketing and branding certainly do work on adults
Would be a valid point if we were talking about average adults and consumer products, not engineers and programming languages. A logo is a miniscule part of marketing in programming. Just look what e.g. Microsoft does to popularise their languages, and estimate how much of that effort goes into logos.
I don't know how important a logo is for a programming language's brand, but I would wager that you don't either.
Which is really a veiled version of "you're just wrong".
I don't think anyone expects the language designers to design a new logo.
I did not suggest that.
It could be said about any change proposal for anything.
It could be, but it was said about this particular proposal, and I am starting to notice a rise in number of proposals like that, about things that don't really matter, in my opinion: logos, slogans, out-of-place syntax borrows from lesser languages (that was a joke, just in case), functions like is_not_empty() — all the stuff which absence 99% of developers don't notice 99% of the time (not a scientific statement). I failed to find any justification for the OP's claim that "changing Rust’s logo would have a big benefit". It was just stated without any further explanation.
You can just leave it be.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, my opinion, man. Surely it fits a thread titled "Opinion: ..." ending in "What do you guys think?".
It seems the only part of your criticism, with which I agree, is about of my use of words. Sorry about that. I often have trouble expressing my opinions in a neutral manner, and being on the spectrum doesn't help. In retrospective, my post was a bit harsh. Let me rephrase it without using any emotional language, from which my troubles seem to stem.
"In my opinion, programming language logos don't matter. What matters for users is language design + APIs + docs. Changing a logo will accomplish pretty much nothing. But if you believe it has value, I suggest proposing something concrete, at least a vague idea of what a new logo could look like. That would be much easier to evaluate."
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Is there any particular reason why the logo on github is so dark? I've always thought that looked a bit weird, it's kind of tough to identify when smaller until you look close
I had to put together a slide for something with a bunch of language logos (official and unoffical) at some point, here it is for reference. It's obvious that they are all designed with care. Though Ada still somehow has that DOD look.
"how does it look great at tiny sizes" is always an important question, though that's not to say that the tiny and large logos have to be the same. We see the tiny rust logo all the time (I don't think the dark one makes a great favicon).
Do logos matter? Branding 100% does, and logos are a part of branding. Look at the java collections page and the kotlin collections page. Even as engineers used to reading technical documentation, it's impossible not to be swayed by the latter's far superior graphical design, all things considered.
Opinionated part:
Does the logo need to change? No, definitely not, I don't think it looks old at all and it does a great job representing Rust. I don't think there's any sense at all in making a drastic change, especially not to Ferris (as was briefly mentioned earlier).
Could it change? Sure, it could be cleaned up slightly. I'm a big fan of @Aloso's suggestion and think it should be adopted at least for favicons and other small size usage. More important than just updating the logo are things like the following:
- Preferred colors for the logo itself, when on light and dark backgrounds
- Tri/tetracolor or full color option if allowed (dark wheel with a gradient red-orange R could look cool). There is a definite need for a "bright" version of the logo.
- Preferred background colors for when needed
- Pantone colors for shirts & other merch
- A version of the logo with text "Rust", "Rust Language" (e.g. python, even though their text is in terrible need of some modernization. They're stuck at 1999 Google)
- Maybe a "Powered by Rust" logo like Python's "Python Powered". Imho this might be the best thing for getting the language out there - I find them kind of cheesy, but I'd still totally pick a "Rust Powered" product over something else that's similar
All of this and could pretty easily go into a Rust language "graphical style guide" with minimal effort.
Will any of this grow Rust's popularity? The logo alone probably not much, but it's a definite yes for all of the branding together. Does any of this matter more than things like language functionality or documentation completeness? No, definitely not. But the group of people patching IR generation in the compiler doesn't need to overlap much with the people picking out complementary colors, everyone has their niche. It takes a village.
Side note: Even though I don't find it a great "logo", moment of appreciation for how creative the graphic design for the cargo representation is. Box in Cargo, loaded with cranelift, shipped in crates, and registered by a manifest... I love the thinking of whoever stuck with the shipping analogy.
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Can you add one in rusty red, for example #e69f67 from mdbook's rust theme?
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