And We Have A New DataPortability Logo

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1. Michael
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:06 am

   indeed very cool !

2. Chris Saad
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:06 am

   Thanks Erick!

   For note - we are also announcing a lot of other things today besides the logo
   - be sure to click through to the “Six Month Strong” report:

   http://wiki.dataportability.or.....ths+Strong

3. Siddharth
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 am

   This is an example of what the big companies can do for the Copyright. I don’t think there is a sense for doing this for Linux, after all how many people you can stop. But they have changed it, I had also voted in that poll, Ok then. Let’s see what Apple do to its Chinese replicas.

4. YDrive
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am

   Fabulous, congrats!

5. Ryan Merket
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:17 am

   I like it, very throw back 80s.

6. laura sweet
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 am

   Congrats to Chris Saad and Alex Pankratov for designing a MUCH BETTER logo for data portibility! Not only did you appease Red Hat, but you blew them away with this far superior design.

   Great job.

   Laura Sweet of If It’s Hip, It’s Here.

7. Michael Arrington
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:23 am

   i really don’t like it.

8. YDrive
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am

   tyranny of the majority.. too bad.

9. Ronald Lewis
   

   April 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am

   I have to say that it’s an honor that the official DP logo is based on one my draft designs:

   http://ronaldlewis.com/2008/02.....submission

   http://www.flickr.com/photos/r.....ortability

   I’m glad to have contributed to this competition. This is definitely something to be proud of.

10. Chris Saad
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:29 am

    Michael you should have blogged your fav design and subverted the system

    There will be 4000 stickers at Web 2.0 Expo this afternoon if anyone wants to grab one.

11. jro
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am

    So what’s the status of data portability?

12. Project
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am

    Agree with Mike. There were a couple of other contenders which I REALLY liked.

    But alas, its just a logo. No worries

13. nick halstead
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am

    Good work guys, well done to Chris + Alex, roll on the dataportability machine

    sent from: fav.or.it [FID328446]

14. vidiot
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Wait, the winner of the contest is the “Co-Founder and Chairperson” of the same organization that holds the contest? Is that kosher?

    A side point: I just noticed the Video Comment with Seesmic (see bottom of the page) — now, that’s a winner!!!

15. Alan Wilensky
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 am

    that is a logo for a contraceptive product; how do I know? One of my ex-wives (I can’t quite recall which one) used to send me out for that device or sponge, or something at least monthly, just prior to immersion in a ritual bath.

    One would not forget a logo like that, in those circumstances.

16. Scott K
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 am

    Yuck.

    Is this like when the top contenders split the vote and Marisa Tomei ended up winning the Oscar?

17. Joel Strellner
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am

    There were others that I thought were slightly better. Why is it all black? I don’t remember that from when I voted…

18. JB
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am

    Are you sure that’s not the logo for the Wankel Rotary Engine?

19. Alan Wilensky
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:43 am

    I think that is the Freedom Engines Logo!!! They make rotary engines.

20. Alan Wilensky
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:44 am

    nope - Freedom is http://www.freedom-motors.com/bnrhome2.html

21. Tim G
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 am

    Logo contests suck.

    How about a rub my feet contest or a kiss my a** contest or a make me a sandwich contest. Yeah everybody make me a sandwich and if I like yours the best I’ll give you a mention on my blog and you can have bragging rights about how you make the best sandwiches. You may get bragging rights in the end but you undermine and devalue your profession as well.

    http://www.imageco.com

22. RBA
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:47 am

    I have the feeling many designers see these logo contests as something that undermines their profession.

    I’d like to launch a “great new idea”, and I’d like to have a contest to see who can develop the best implementation. For free of course, this is a contest! You’lll get nothing but the happiness of being the winner (if you win), earn the recognition of your peers and thank you very much. Any contenders?

23. RBA
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:49 am

    Wow, TimG and I posted about the same thing at the very same minute.
    Yes indeed.

24. Ian McKellar
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:51 am

    The prize for designing a new logo for dataportability.org is a mobile phone that doesn’t support any of the standard data portability protocols like syncml? Was that a joke or just a poor choice?

    Ian

25. Social Media Mutt
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Fix! Mine should have won it for sure: http://tinyurl.com/4fsg2f

26. Fabian Schonholz
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:52 am

    It is a nice logo but it does not say anything to me that is obvious about data portability.

27. matt
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am

    “After being threatened by Red Hat because its original suitcase logo was too close to theirs”

    I think you mean, after stealing redhat’s logo…

28. Scott K
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:01 am

    It’s a mistake to say that the majority liked this logo best. Because of the flawed system of voting (voting for one versus ranking the logos or choosing your top three), the vote was most likely split.

    Example (purely hypothetical):

    This logo: 30% of the vote
    Runner-up #1: 25% of the vote
    Runner-up #2: 20% of the vote

    What if the voters for runner-up logo #2 would have chosen runner-up #1 over this logo if forced to choose between the two? That would have given runner up #1 45% of the vote and it would have won.

    This logo won because there were so many different choices, and voters were only allowed to vote for one.

29. The Hater
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:03 am

    That logo sucks. It looks like it was designed by someone from Google’s design team.

30. Brady Brim-DeForest
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 am

    Scott, actually, you could vote for as many logos as you liked.

31. Raskin
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:06 am

    I’m not sure this logo rocks or sucks … but it does communicate data going in/out different locations from a central circle of data.

32. Faramarz
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 am

    it doesn’t stand out at all! a little colour in there would have been nice. there were much better entries i thought

33. Chuck
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 am

    I agree that logo contests like this only harm the profession, but that is not why I am commenting.

    This logo is pretty bad. It is not pleasing formally, it doesn’t express the powerful ideas in the mission statement, and it is very poorly implemented across their site.

    Too bad.

34. Alex C
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    I think it would be a lot more effective if you rotated it by 90, that way you get a ‘d’ and ‘p’ shape which ties in with the name a little better.

35. Kevin Kris
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    I don’t like this logo at all.. I don’t know how everybody like it..

36. Phil Franks
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    Is there any way to see the runner-up? Or a break down of the voting between the final 15 logos?

37. Andy Gongea
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    How about one of the most rubbish important logos. I don’t see portability or data in that logo. too dark

    thumb down

38. Slappy White
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    I’ve dropped more interesting designs into a commode.

39. Ali Sabet
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm

    I really wish I had entered the contest. In either case if you are going to use this identity, you should think about fixing the kerning on the type. The spacing between the letters are way to spread out in some parts. “P O Rtability” is the way it’s read right now. I would also think about shrinking down the icon so it’s not overpowering who you guys are.
    It’s great that you got a concept from the contest, but every concept needs to be polished before use.
    Good luck chris, let me know if I can help.

40. Elias Bizannes
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    People may not like the logo but I can ensure you, every logo submitted went through a rigorous evaluation, and I posted about the process of my blog if you really care.

    Some alternative versions: http://flickr.com/photos/22026.....ortability

    From the creator:
    “Letters p and d are merged by overlapping their round parts and the result then rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise.

    Note how gaps between the white parts and the main symbol form implicit arrows. When considered together with a circular shape of the central part, they create a sense of convergent, swirl-like movement. Movement reflects the portability aspect and convergence relates to the universality and amalgamation, which is what DP appears to be about.

    Or in plain English — it’s a simple and unique doodle, which is also good looking :)”

41. Rich
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    very vaguely reminiscent of the old Mute Records logo.

42. Ali Sabet
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    Elias, the concept is fine. There are technical issues with the logo. With a little love it could be really effective. Right now, It’s a monster of an icon with bad typesetting. If you go to http://www.dataportability.com you’ll notice that it has taken over most of the homepage. You really can’t focus on much else.

43. Hendra
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 6:59 pm

    WTF, the logo SUX. really, really, really sux. Quite a few decent ones to choose from and they picked a real loser.

44. Alex P
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    #7: Mike, what would’ve been your choice ? Just curious.

45. Steve
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    Yeah, that’s definitely one of the worst logos. What a crappy pick.

46. Uri
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm

    Saying that the logo sucks (or sux) is easy. A person invested his time and worked on something – please critique it with decency.

    Obviously enough people thought it was good or better than all other entries, and these were the rules of this contest.

    Being a designer (and a finalist) myself, I see no problem with design contests for non-profits. Designers have a choice of whether they want to participate. I did it for the fun, since I charge more for a logo than the sum of the prizes.

    However, it becomes a problem when companies use it as a cheap way to get design work – it downgrade the level of design and it hurts professionals’ ability to charge for quality work.

    I would prefer that the choice would be from within all entries (copyright problematic entries excluded), but you can’t always get what you want and it was fun anyway.

    Congrats, Alex P.

47. David
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:37 pm

    HORRIBLE logo, like others I have no idea why anyone would like it, to each their own.

48. David
    

    April 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    Uri said:
    “Saying that the logo sucks (or sux) is easy. A person invested his time and worked on something – please critique it with decency.”

    Good point, let me give it another try.

    1. The logo does not communicate anything in any meaningful way (regardless if that is its intent)

    2. It is neither attractive nor eye catching. It just has no appeal at all.

49. nocabmij
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:10 pm

    “the winner of the contest is the “Co-Founder and Chairperson” of the same organization that holds the contest”

    Is this true?

50. Elias Bizannes
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

    Four-hundred and three logos were submitted. Think about that one. How would you pick just one, with everyone happy and not just on your personal opinion?

    High profile judges from Skype, Yahoo, and professional agencies - participated in a shortlisting. It is wrong to place 403 logos in a public vote, as that is not an effective way to vote, because it will bias the logos on the first few pages. Even the 60 odd logos shortlisted by the judges is too many. Heck - even 15 that the public did vote on, is too many.

    When it comes to creativity, everyone has a different perspective because there is no one right answer. Just look at how amazing complex advertising agencies are compared to a legal firm (ad agencies seem to create a new entity for every team of 5 people with their own identity). So we are not ones to challenge a panel of judges with their shortlists - we gave them a job and they exceeded our expectations. They provided individual commentary on the logos, and I would be happy to share some of the aggregate feedback if people think a particular logo was excluded unfairly.

    A very thorough evaluation was done of the judges shortlist, which had the logos evaluated against multiple criteria (like potential for lawsuits, scalability concerns, internationalisation, likeness with other submitted logos).

    And whilst Don Arrington doesn’t like the logo, that his problem because it won by a huge margin (so I’m told). And the vote was by the general public. Go complain to the 4000 people that participated in the vote, if you have an issue.

    The current incarnation of the logo, is ugly as hell. But it’s too highlight the unique look of the logo - visit the DataPortability wiki for alternative versions. As for how the actual logo evolves, this will be based by a special team within the evangelism action group: http://groups.google.com/group.....evangelism

    @Ali #42: exactly, with a little love. We are a volunteer outfit, all with full time jobs and families/lives - the DataPortability Project is working on a ridiculous amount of things lest of all trans-continental discussions about more things to do. We could use people like you to help.

51. Elias Bizannes
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    Four-hundred and three logos were submitted. Think about that one. How would you pick just one, with everyone happy and not just on your personal opinion?

    High profile judges from Skype, Yahoo, and professional agencies - participated in a shortlisting. It is wrong to place 403 logos in a public vote, as that is not an effective way to vote, because it will bias the logos on the first few pages. Even the 60 odd logos shortlisted by the judges is too many. Heck - even 15 that the public did vote on, is too many.

    When it comes to creativity, everyone has a different perspective because there is no one right answer. Just look at how amazing complex advertising agencies are compared to a legal firm (ad agencies seem to create a new entity for every team of 5 people with their own identity). So we are not ones to challenge a panel of judges with their shortlists - we gave them a job and they exceeded our expectations. They provided individual commentary on the logos, and I would be happy to share some of the aggregate feedback if people think a particular logo was excluded unfairly.

    A very thorough evaluation was done of the judges shortlist, which had the logos evaluated against multiple criteria (like potential for lawsuits, scalability concerns, internationalisation, likeness with other submitted logos).

    And whilst Don Arrington doesn’t like the logo, that his problem because it won by a huge margin (so I’m told). And the vote was by the general public. Go complain to the 4000 people that participated in the vote, if you have an issue.

    The current incarnation of the logo, is ugly as hell. But it’s too highlight the unique look of the logo - visit the DataPortability wiki for alternative versions. As for how the actual logo evolves, this will be based by a special team within the evangelism action group: http://groups.google.com/group.....evangelism

    @Ali #42: exactly, with a little love. We are a volunteer outfit, all with full time jobs and families/lives - the DataPortability Project is working on a ridiculous amount of things lest of all trans-continental discussions about more things to do. We could use people like you to help.

52. Ali Sabet
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 1:26 am

    Hey Elias, I would love to help and I told chris that I would anytime when we met at TC/PS.
    For now I cleaned up and uploaded 2 versions of the logo. The version with out the rounded tips..I decided to do away with the round little pieces as I felt they give the identity a juvenile look and feel.
    I did a version with the original version also. Deepened the colors a bit, and I think that’s abou it! Here they are!!

    http://sabet.tv/photo/photo/sh.....ntext=user

    http://sabet.tv/photo/photo/sh.....ntext=user

    Let me know how you need more help on the guidelines. or if these are good solutions.

53. Scott K
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 8:25 am

    Does anyone else find it incredibly inappropriate that the “Co-Founder and Chairperson” of the organization holding the contest also won the contest?

    Chris Saad should have either:

    1) Not have been eligible for the contest;

    or

    2) Not have held a contest in the first place if he wanted his logo considered.

    He might have won the voting contest; I don’t dispute that, but I’m calling shenanigans on the integrity of it all.

    Do over!!!

54. Mary Trigiani
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am

    Scott, the winner is Alex Pantrakov of Canada. Also, all the designs were reviewed by a panel of judges experienced in graphic design. They selected the short list on which anyone was allowed to vote. For more information, just visit http://www.dataportability.org. And: congratulations to Alex!

55. Cyndy Aleo-Carreira
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    I like it, but it looks like the signage at Prana. Now I have white and bad house music on the brain.