The fledgling DataPortability workgroup, led by Chris Saad, had a bit of a panic attack in February when they received a Cease & Desist letter from RedHat over their alleged use of the Fedora logo.
Instead of fighting it in court, the workgroup decided to ditch the old logo and hold a new logo contest instead. The winner would get a lot of attention, and a number of blogs and startups threw in prizes of their own (including us).
The competition is now in its final stages, and it’s ready for everyone to vote on the logo they like the best. The public voting begins on April 15, at 12pm (PST), and ends on Friday, April 18, at 11:59pm (PST). Get more information about the contest here, and vote here.
We’re hosting the site with Media Temple but have no financial stake in the organization. Special thanks goes to Fred Oliveira and his team over at Webreakstuff for their work on the site.
woooowwww – but not really useful – am I wrong here Michael?
Well I’m glad they moved on from the old logo and didnt make a battle out of it. Now they are getting some good attention and a new logo. Win, win.
I voted for the first one —- in the top left…..
The DataPortability Group spend more time on logos than figuring out how to make data portable
Mike thanks for all your kind support with getting this set up – it has been very much appreciated
@Project – if you want to join in the real work of the group, then you should get involved at wiki.dataportability.org and join the discussion threads
Attention DataPortability group … the logo in the bottom row, second from left (green d, blue p, circle in the middle), looks an awful lot like the WebEx logo. Don’t want you guys to fall into the same trap twice.
P.S. The padlock logo is brilliant. +1 vote.
I like the top right one. The first one reminds me too much of the ShareThis icon.
Take the padlock logo, but don’t leave it as is, work around that concept. Personally, I’m quite tired of the reflections in logos. Not too original.
I’m sorry to say but these logos are quite weak. There are a number of obvious concepts that make this an ideal logo to design (the opposing “P” and “d”, the data transferring concepts etc) , but the treatments are amateurish and fail to telegraph the kind of seriousness and importance underlying the DP concept itself.
My recommendation is to not simply go with the actual vote-winner, but to perhaps evolve the concept further once the vote has closed.
Except for the bottom left. That’s a solid logo.
The voting page seems to be broken, however…
@9, agreed. I couldn’t find the “none of the above” vote option.
As great a concept as the DataPortability group is, I would hope it would be branded effectively. The current contenders leave something to be desired.
@Jason – The treatments are not final – we are just deciding on a logo concept at the moment – we will be sure to re-treat it before locking it in
Mike, Mark, Heather and Henry – thanks so much for all of your assistance and support in getting this up and running. It is truly appreciated.
@ Chris Saad
I have many opinions, not the least of which is that the foregoing options (in their current incarnation) sacrifice credibility in pursuit of creativity. I like some of the concepts – I think more than one can and should be part of the final mark. However, once you’ve found the concept(s) you’d like to incorporate, my advice is that you reel the treatments back in a little to reintroduce the kind of gravitas and formality expected of and required by a standards body.
Also, and I don’t mean to sound picayune, but it’s enough with the reflecting undersurface! You guys are trying to redefine behavior on the web. Let’s do the same with your logo mark, rather than conforming to standards that have already been badly overused and abused by far less noble causes.
When someone responds to a particular user’s post it would be better if said response could get attached to that particular post, as opposed to thrown in at the bottom of a long list. Some may call this cutting in line, but I think, for instance, a variation of that idea that would work here would be that all comments showing opposition to the logos should be grouped together (and same with the pros).
Anyway: These logos are terrible.
Data portability is the name of the game here but all the logos are more appropriate for something fun, mobile, or entertaining (and even these classifications are a stretch because the whole group is so terribly bad).
What’s up with the pastel colors? And the need for symmetry? And the one that looks like the Microsoft Windows logo with circles instead of squares? And the flimsy, floating nature of all the designs? When I see something flimsy and bright I think it has the potential to also be fleeting and weak. I don’t want my data stored anywhere like that. Data Portability needs a commanding, strong logo.
I suggest the Death Star (copyrights notwithstanding). Think about it: A black circle that is also highly mobile (universally, literally). I mean, think about it.
Is it just me, or does the logo in the top-right corner of the image at the top of this post look a LOT like a symbol for gay sex? (Two ‘male’ symbols penetrating each other).
If they’re going to go down that road should they maybe look at:
a) Going all the way – maybe thrown in a rainbow-coloured background framed by a pink triangle; or
b) ‘Straighten it up’ a bit – maybe flank the logo with a couple of pole dancers, a pit pull and a race car.
Just a thought.
Thanks to everyone at TechCrunch for volunteering your help and the visibility of the blog to the logo competition. We had a great turnout of design submissions to dataportability.org. Very good of you!
Hey, I got an idea. Next startup that wants some Ruby on Rails or whatever, hold a coding contest. Then we can try out all the entries attached to this site, and vote our favorite. Best software design gets some nice prizes. All the other entries get our thanks and a subscription to TechCrunch’s email. How’s that?
Imagine this comment:
“Gosh, we had everything going for us, but our logo killed us. If only we’d come up with a logo design instead of spending our time on actually making data portable.”
Yeah, I can’t imagine it either. I’m not sure I understand why a logo for this group is needed for anything beyond the scope of vanity.
knock me down for being brash but i would like to contact some of these designers to commission a new logo for our company. is that possible or are you guys pimping them as well?
@Chris: Why only that small set? On the Flickr pool there were some professional logos. On the small set you have selected there is no a single quality logo.
Programmers have no sense for aesthetics
Why don’t ask a design community like Core 77 to vote on the logos at Flickr.
I think that some of the sites need to be edited so that it looks like a briefcase if you ask me. Just add a handle to any of the square logos.
My day gig is running an ad agency and I must confess, non of these are doing it for me… not even close. Every good logo needs to tell a story, imo. being able to nail a company’s purpose in a graphic is not an easy thing to do, but none of these logos mean portability. From the Flickr pool has some logo that tells what DP is all about. The snail was good, maybe a turtle in the shape of a cube would be cool. The wings by taylor.michael are very cool and say movement. Cenk Oak’s logo of the hand truck was flat out awesome. Also awesome Uri Ar’s message in a bottle logo – my favorite.
Impressive creativity at work… very interesting logos indeed!!
Impressive! Great work. I think the term ‘logo’ is a bit misused in this case, as Storm Bear kinda alluded too, and other comments regarding the lack of importance of the logo.
I think the word you are looking for is ‘icon’ rather than logo, as I can only assume the image will be posted in a method to define an action or capability, rather than promoting the idea or company in particular (but I could be wrong).
Anyway, assuming the icon will also act to define the company, I think the unlocked person (right in the middle, that is a person as the keyhole of the lock), or what somebody described as the symbol for gay sex (top right) work best. The first one is good too. Though I love the look of #2 (shapely green/grey/blue blocks). It is more of a logo than an Icon (personal opinion).
middle-bottom for sure.
entire left column is cheese-ball.
middle top looks like a freakin’ zygote.
also, techcrunch designed that image.. the originals don’t have those reflections…
Middle row, second from the left.
It’s clean, creative, and works well for the DP group.
I thought there were a lot of entries that didn’t make the final cut that were better than the final 15, but maybe there were copyright concerns on those. It would be nice to know what the creative motivation was behind some of these final entries as I don’t see what they have to do with DP.
I agree with pedal, I like #2 as well.
Great way to generate some clipart. Good luck with your clipart, I am sure the winning logo will and last as short as the company itself. The importance of the brand and its visual identity is directly proportional to the companies belief in their product. Based on this contest, we might as well as flip a coin for the company.
Good luck.
Those final 15 designs were chosen by people that know a lot more about branding than just about everyone making comments here. Why do people feel the need post such negative comments? I think it safe to assume that people that have been posting these crap comments have not read the design brief, or even bothered to click the links to read about DP.
At Dave, probably the best post…..period. All these jokers that are posting negative comments on here seem to know something that brand executives don’t. My question is, where were their logo entries? These are some great logo concepts based off the creative brief, especially bottom row middle. All I have to say is mix in a clue, one time, then open your mouth.
As one of the logo entrants, I’m personally a little disappointed by how many of the entries are variations on the symmetry of “d” and “p.” Some of the requirements listed in the creative brief don’t seem to be met by several of the final entries, but I’m not one of the expert judges. And yes, I’m disappointed that my entry didn’t make it, but this isn’t simply about sour grapes.
btw, the voting web site seems to be down at the moment.