Hello unRAID Community!

 

For far too long now we have gone without a proper logo for unRAID.  We have wanted one for some time now, but because none of us at LT are graphic artists, we were afraid we'd end up with something like this:

 

 

So instead of assaulting your eyes with our pathetic attempts at art, we thought we'd throw it out to you, our community, to see if any talented artists out there want to submit their ideas and concepts for consideration.  We will be working with a professional designer to generate the final artwork, but your ideas could shape the look and feel of the logo.  Here's a quick run-down of how we're going to do this:

 

• All proposals must be in before December 3rd, 2017.
• The logo should be 1024 x 1024 pixels in size, and should look good when downsized to 512 x 512 or even 256 x 256.
• Creating a vector-based image (think Adobe Illustrator) is highly recommended.
• No "tagline" is required to be in the logo (e.g. "The Ultimate Home Media Server"), but if you have an interesting one that you want to include, go for it!  Feel free to submit multiple options if you have more than one!
• You must own the copyright to any images/art you use and be willing to transfer said ownership to Lime Technology, Inc.
• Any fonts you use must be royalty-free, otherwise we can't use them. Open source fonts are a big plus.
• To submit a proposal, simply reply to this thread and include your work in the post.
• If you wish to incorporate the use of stock photos/imagery, please provide a link to where it can be purchased along with your submission (original artwork will definitely be looked at more favorably).
• It is possible that we may want to include concepts from multiple designs.

 

NOTE:  If you are a professional designer and wish to be considered for contracting the final work, please indicate as such in your response and be sure to include a link to a portfolio of your work.

 

Thanks in advance for all of your submissions!

Wait, what? finally a thread I can actually participate in! I'm a designer!

 

A quick doodle!

 

Nice...those submitting copyright your work and license it.

...should have 'unRAID' in the logo.  IIRC, something Tom coined back in the days of 7-up, the 'unCola' commercials (with the late Geoffrey Holder).

Nice work! Keep the submissions coming. 

2 hours ago, unevent said:

...should have 'unRAID' in the logo.  IIRC, something Tom coined back in the days of 7-up, the 'unCola' commercials (with the late Geoffrey Holder).

 

The original had 'un' in italics: unRAID

This concept shows how parity works - if there are an odd number of "1" bits then parity is 1, if there are an even number then parity is 0. 

 

The green and white circles were pulled directly from the unRAID interface, so there is a nice tie-in to the product.

 

There is also an Easter egg, the four lines taken together and converted to ascii spell "un"

I also included a potential tagline

Edited November 22, 20178 yr by ljm42

Very nice concepts so far.

 

For those in the US: tomorrow would be a great day, with a belly full of turkey, to ponder the perfect unRAID logo.

 

For those outside the US: tomorrow would also be a great day, being amused at the thought of 300,000,000 people all eating turkey, to ponder the perfect unRAID logo.

This is 3 minute mock up I cooked up in MS Paint while at my in-laws away from my graphic workstation. It's just convey the concept and if it's of interest, then I can take it further with some more concepts. Vector is easy as you can see, and Adobe Illustrator is also easy. 

 

It's the logo build of blocks of different sizes to represent the different hard drive sizes, one of unRAID's long-time core features:

 

 

 

 

 

I got a bit lazy one I got to the 'AID' letters in terms of the blocks

 

Edited November 23, 20178 yr by Lev

OK, this is more slapped together on photohsop to illustrate some concepts rather than anything deliverable - would obviously take more on the rendered elements and tailoring text into something unique - but hey, what do you expect for free !

 

I don't have the skills to contribute but I gotta say I like the stylizing of sane's with the interlinked lowercase "u" and "n"

8 hours ago, praeses said:

I don't have the skills to contribute but I gotta say I like the stylizing of sane's with the interlinked lowercase "u" and "n"

Agreed RAID could use a tweak but like the chain sort of look

On 11/23/2017 at 4:09 PM, sane said:

OK, this is more slapped together on photohsop to illustrate some concepts rather than anything deliverable - would obviously take more on the rendered elements and tailoring text into something unique - but hey, what do you expect for free !

 

Definitely liking this concept.  Not necessarily a huge fan of the font, but the interlocking U and N are really cool!

1 hour ago, jonp said:

Definitely liking this concept.  Not necessarily a huge fan of the font, but the interlocking U and N are really cool!

 

If you want the marketing bull, the U & N are supposed to be reminiscent of interlocking chain, and thus subconsciously remind people of security - and can also be abstract enough to run as a icon in it's own right.

 

Or otherwise, in practical terms, it's something to do with U and the N since otherwise they can unbalance things.

 

As I said this was pretty much slapped together - and the RAID part isn't right. Doesn't want to be too busy, and the idea was to merge serifs to give a 'continuous flow', which could be accentuated. But it could certainly also be very different.

 

From a logo design front the only thing that niggles is  there is no reflection of the containers or VM aspects - couldn't think of any approach that wasn't naff.

Sane, I wonder if some docker logos below RAID would help facilitate that feel with maybe a + at the end to indicate more? Just spitballing. 

Ok, I am not a graphic artist in any sense..  but I had to chime in with this "parody".

 

 

This video may give some inspiration to help differentiate this unRAID solution vs other RAID solutions.  Stretch your mind a bit

 

 

Edited November 30, 20178 yr by unevent

Lol!  Love the play on a can of RAID as a parody!  Pretty funny!

 

Lots of good ideas in here that should help inspire us to craft a final logo.  Really good creative input and brainstorming.  You guys are awesome!  Still a few more days left for submissions, but after the 3rd, we'll be contracting the work out for the final imagery.

On 28 November 2017 at 8:28 AM, jonp said:

Definitely liking this concept.  Not necessarily a huge fan of the font, but the interlocking U and N are really cool!

 

OK, since people were saying nice things, I gave it another half hour. Tweaked the text into an actual path, stylised it, bolted in Lev's box concept for container/disks. Also put the 'un' chain with the U at a slightly jaunty angle which looks a bit better methinks.

Still not right, too busy and quickly lashed up, but might help on the ideas front.

Also tried some B&W, ico, and NAS box example other looks.

 

Here's my rough concept that's a bit overcluttered to show the ideas but I think it could make the basis for a nice logo after some work in refining the elements.

 

 

 

 

I accidentally uploaded a vertically scaled image of the logo.  Here is the original, which is too wide, but it looks a little better in some ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 20178 yr by backuptruck
added image

Looks good - even has the color.  To throw out a comment, the lines in the graphic do make it look like stripes and having these stripes in the word RAID makes one assume it is a typical RAID where data is striped.  However a major feature, if not the most critical one, is that unRAID does not stripe data - unRAID, as Tom puts it.  Don't forget to copyright concepts unless your giving them away freely.

Thanks for the comment.  I was trying to imply a departure from traditional RAID with with the dark/light, yin yang effect, and the coloured disk represents unRAID's parity volume..  This was basically a vector sketch and I didn't bother to render out a nice graphic.

I thought I'd give it a try, though my skills are rusty. The dimensions are not even close to what was specified & I have gone with a minimalist design.

 

 

 

20 hours ago, sane said:

 

OK, since people were saying nice things, I gave it another half hour. Tweaked the text into an actual path, stylised it, bolted in Lev's box concept for container/disks. Also put the 'un' chain with the U at a slightly jaunty angle which looks a bit better methinks.

Still not right, too busy and quickly lashed up, but might help on the ideas front.

Also tried some B&W, ico, and NAS box example other looks.

 

 

The "U" is tilted and gives me impression of lack of precision. I draws the eye, but maybe in the wrong way. 

 

But I do like the linked U and N looking like a chain. The stacked drives on the "I" don't really come across as anything disk oriented. The D looks funky.

 

6 hours ago, backuptruck said:

Here's my rough concept that's a bit overcluttered to show the ideas but I think it could make the basis for a nice logo after some work in refining the elements.

 

 

THe "un" sort of gets lost. Heavy use of stripes - when unRAID does not stripe data. Maybe not a good fit.

 

I do like tagging with Virtualization. With VM pulling as much or more attention than NAS function, a tagline that pulls it all together might be helpful.

 

"The Ultimate NAS/VM/Docker Platform."