The Ruby Belgium logo

[borisrorsvort]

I've been doodling a bit this weekend. What do you think about this one? Constructive feedback very welcome. Try to model your thoughts around some vital logo aspects as I tried to follow and listed below:

• Simple
• Memorable
• Timeless
• Versatile (small version included visualize better for the shrink test)
• Appropriate

More info at http://justcreative.com/2009/07/27/what-makes-a-good-logo

V1.1

Nathan's version:

[apneadiving]

Its beautiful, for sure. But... you told me its linked to the atomium but I wouldnt have guessed and as a frenchie, I didnt know the atomium before arriving in bxl, so the symbol is not that obvious to me

[borisrorsvort]

Eheh true. The real question would be to know if we actually want an obvious reference to it or not. ;) Honestly I'm not sure I'm capable of making it more obvious without it to be too kitch ^^ For sure it got some balls at least :stuck_out_tongue:

[joren]

looks pretty good :+1: I like it!

[otagi]

Balls are a good national symbol actually. Belgium is full of them: atom balls, boulets, smoutebollen, ... :stuck_out_tongue:

I like the connected dots idea. It also symbolizes the connection between people, which goes well with the website's slogan "The association is more about the people than the technology".

The tiny logo version looks a little bit crowded, as the dots are less evenly spaced. How about removing the inner dots for that one?

The ruby red looks great. As an easter-eggy alternative, I used the Belgian flag red for the website.

[otagi]

@apneadiving: I don't think the symbols have to be obvious at first sight. Think about the arrow in the FedEx logo, or the Turing reference in Apple's one.

The bullet points that Boris highlighted are what should be immediately obvious, IMHO. Symbols are important, but come second place in the process.

[borisrorsvort]

I have updated the logo to a new version.

changelog:

• Bigger balls for the big logo
• less balls for the small one to declutter it a bit

[hannesfostie]

Considering how tiny the small one is, it's actually fairly clear. Good job! Did you pixelhint that at all?

[borisrorsvort]

Nope. I'll wait to see if the board decides it's good first.

[borisrorsvort]

@toch any thoughts ?

[hannesfostie]

I like it a lot. A little bit of pixelhinting will make it even better at the small size which is already quite awesome. Good stuff!

[toch]

@borisrorsvort I also like it :) especially the simplicity. Could you try with the red that @otagi has suggested?

How does it look like in bw?

[borisrorsvort]

No so fond of the red of the Belgian flag for large areas, as very vivid background colors make letters and shapes smaller, blurry & vibrating, ...

I've put a bw version

[otagi]

Fair point for the Belgian red. In the website's case, though, I feel its flashiness brings some energy.

The next challenge then: how and where would we use the logo on the website? (having 2 different reds at the same time might weaken the graphic identity)

PS: The B/W version works quite well.

[NathanDeWitte]

Looks cool @borisrorsvort But I can't really see the connection to Belgium in it. The resemblance to the official Ruby logo is a bit big on this one, don't you think?

[borisrorsvort]

I'd say it rather a good thing :)

[NathanDeWitte]

These were my logo ideas (not saying these are better, just throwing them out here)

Also, these are totally not finished (bad type and not satisfied with the result)

[borisrorsvort]

Thanks for adding them. I'll add them to the description

[toch]

thanks @10toNathan for sharing your work

[nicefiction]

Great logo (V1.1) Boris. I like the simplicity and how it suggests 'networking'.

[nicefiction]

Here's a version with warmer colours. I've also made the balls slightly (115%) larger:

Colour guide:

1. Balls: R224 G163 B163
2. Lines: R204 G102 B102
3. text: R233 G210 B210, font: Futura Medium

[nicefiction]

Here's a more playful version with coloured balls and a little wordplay:

Note: Apparently 'rube' is an informal American noun for a 'country bumpkin'. A 'bumpkin' is an 'unsophisticated or socially awkward person from the countryside'. I guess you'd pronounce 'rube' and RuBE' differently? :)

[nicefiction]

<%= I just realised that RuBE is also a play on 'ERB' %>

Personally I am not a fan of the coloured balls, but I think the name does add something. One could also have 'RuBEL', but I prefer 'RuBE'. There's nothing wrong with being from the countryside ;)

[nicefiction]

Warning: The current v1.1 logo does not scale down very well. There's too much detail that gets lost. You will need to simplify the logo to make it work. This is done by reducing the concept of the logo to its bare essentials:

It is okay to have two different types of logo's as long as they share a common visual language with a strong link to the same concept. The small logo could now be applied in the browser address bar.

Colour guide:

4. The Ruby diamond: R144 G30 B30

[toch]

Thanks @nicefiction for the suggestions.

Why not having the full versions with many dots, and the small version with one big dot?

For the name, I don't like RuBE, more over the name of the association is Ruby Belgium.

[nicefiction]

@toch, That's the idea: Have a detailed big version with many dots && a simplified small version with one dot.

No worries about the name. I am okay with Ruby Belgium as well.

[toch]

By the way, I forgot that the play with Belgian colors is a nice idea.

[borisrorsvort]

I don't like rube either (not very appropriate). I'll try again to declutter the small version. I'm thinking about just keeping the dots but removing the line. For the font I've used Montserrat. I don't recommend using Futura as this is a very old font and kind of overused (TImeless aspect). I wouldn't play with belgian color as this is very cliché (TImeless aspect), not versatile enough (bw version?), and I personally dont like dont like the color combinaison on top of the red background

[nicefiction]

@borisrorsvort , I could send you the original Adobe Illustrator files for you to work from.

[nicefiction]

@borisrorsvort , I hope you don't mind me refining your concept. I thought it was a strong starting point.

[nicefiction]

@borisrorsvort , I am not a big fan of Montserrat as it has many hooks and not much distinction between capitals and regulars.

[borisrorsvort]

Honestly, I'd rather let people vote on several solutions rather than making a chimera of all different ideas. This will go much faster. Feedback its still appreciated though. But let's keep the three versions separated.

[nicefiction]

@borisrorsvort , Okay. Anyway, I am in favour of your proposal. With warmer colours.

I agree with your take on the belgian colours, mono works better.

[toch]

@borisrorsvort @10toNathan @nicefiction have you updated versions, or may I consider the current ones as the last?

[borisrorsvort]

There will be some small re-adjustement but thats the last version.

[borisrorsvort]

Final version round