May 13, 2015 at 11:51How we came up with the new Acronis logo, and what came of it
About a year ago, Acronis rebranded and changed its logo. I am a direct participant in these transformations, I would like to tell how this all happened.
Our CEO, the legendary Sergey Belousov, decided to change a lot in the company, including the logo. The task was formulated quite simply:
During the consultations, two important requirements became clear: the logo must be such that it can be drawn by hand, and there must be some kind of connection with the friendly Parallels company. Well and, of course, it would be ideal if the sign related to backup and data protection.
It was exciting for me to make a logo for such a large company - dozens of countries, millions of customers. I really wanted to show a decent result. In addition, several designers from the USA, Denmark and Russia got the task for the logo at once.
The first one came up with a simple solution: abandon the icon and leave only the text part. Designers from Denmark proposed an evolutionary approach - to remove all unnecessary from the old logo:
Simple, easy, modern. Easy unobtrusive restyling, while maintaining continuity. But not so simple. Sergey did not like this decision:
I began to strain the tiny brain hard and come up with options. I wanted something light and modern, but not trivial. I tried to combine several meanings:
An attempt to turn to classics is modern heraldry:
Gradually, something less commonplace began to turn out . Here, for example, is a stack of clouds that looks like a building (it looks like a sliced loaf, too, but that was not part of my plans) :
Next came the very avant-garde ideas. For example, the idea is to take ordinary objects and give them super-reliability:
Belousov liked the option with a cloud-loaf, but after a while there was such a reaction:
To be honest, I was relieved. Clouds in the form of icons are not too beautiful and do not always cause the right associations (well, you understand) . In addition, millions of similar logos have already been drawn to verify this, just enter the query “cloud logo” in the search engine.
I and other designers continued to work on the logo. The number of different options grew, but did not lead us to the solution of the problem. Here are just a small part of the proposed logos:
Dates began to run out, but nothing really worthwhile was offered. And then one day, thinking about backup, reliability and the letter A, I had an idea: you can reflect the idea of backup right inside the letter!
I also thought it would be cool if the sign is part of the logo. Thus, it will be possible to get rid of duplication of the first letter and we will not succeed A Acronis.
In support of the idea, a poster was drawn stating that there is never too much security:
I liked this sign myself. Plus, it managed to fulfill almost all the conditions that were put forward to the new logo. With bated breath I was waiting for the reaction of our CEO.
After the idea was approved, it was necessary to choose the appropriate font. Time was running out and it was necessary to act quickly. We decided to “go in the classics” and chose a slightly modified Helvetica with the coquettishly cropped letter r.
It was in this form that the logo was publicly presented. The reaction was very different, but in most cases positive. A lot of work has begun on the introduction of a new logo: guidelines, website, documentation.
Having worked a little with the new logo, we realized that the selected font did not suit us completely. First of all, I would like to make the same thickness of strokes in the letter A. Plus, Sergey wanted the most geometric font. We decided to redo the spelling a bit and turned to a lettering company. Now we had a little more time, and after many iterations we got a result that satisfied everyone.
To attract the attention of colleagues to the new logo, we hung posters around the office that explain the essence of the new company logo.
And at one point, I saw a tweet from Sergey Belousov, who tattooed a new Acronis sign on his shoulder:
It became clear that the new logo, at least for a long time. First, a new sign appeared on the site. Then in the company’s offices, for example, in Singapore: A
photo of such a car was sent from the German office:
A lot of artifacts with Acronis symbols appeared, including some rather strange ones:
After some time, Sergey came up with a new idea:
The font is very difficult. At first, I was skeptical of this idea. But then we turned to our font gurus and they set to work. As a result, we got three luxurious styles of our own font, which blends perfectly with the logo.
This is where the story ends. But I am sure that a lot of interesting things are coming.
Our CEO, the legendary Sergey Belousov, decided to change a lot in the company, including the logo. The task was formulated quite simply:
During the consultations, two important requirements became clear: the logo must be such that it can be drawn by hand, and there must be some kind of connection with the friendly Parallels company. Well and, of course, it would be ideal if the sign related to backup and data protection.
It was exciting for me to make a logo for such a large company - dozens of countries, millions of customers. I really wanted to show a decent result. In addition, several designers from the USA, Denmark and Russia got the task for the logo at once.
The first one came up with a simple solution: abandon the icon and leave only the text part. Designers from Denmark proposed an evolutionary approach - to remove all unnecessary from the old logo:
Simple, easy, modern. Easy unobtrusive restyling, while maintaining continuity. But not so simple. Sergey did not like this decision:
I began to strain the tiny brain hard and come up with options. I wanted something light and modern, but not trivial. I tried to combine several meanings:
An attempt to turn to classics is modern heraldry:
Gradually, something less commonplace began to turn out . Here, for example, is a stack of clouds that looks like a building (it looks like a sliced loaf, too, but that was not part of my plans) :
Next came the very avant-garde ideas. For example, the idea is to take ordinary objects and give them super-reliability:
Belousov liked the option with a cloud-loaf, but after a while there was such a reaction:
To be honest, I was relieved. Clouds in the form of icons are not too beautiful and do not always cause the right associations (well, you understand) . In addition, millions of similar logos have already been drawn to verify this, just enter the query “cloud logo” in the search engine.
I and other designers continued to work on the logo. The number of different options grew, but did not lead us to the solution of the problem. Here are just a small part of the proposed logos:
Dates began to run out, but nothing really worthwhile was offered. And then one day, thinking about backup, reliability and the letter A, I had an idea: you can reflect the idea of backup right inside the letter!
I also thought it would be cool if the sign is part of the logo. Thus, it will be possible to get rid of duplication of the first letter and we will not succeed A Acronis.
In support of the idea, a poster was drawn stating that there is never too much security:
I liked this sign myself. Plus, it managed to fulfill almost all the conditions that were put forward to the new logo. With bated breath I was waiting for the reaction of our CEO.
After the idea was approved, it was necessary to choose the appropriate font. Time was running out and it was necessary to act quickly. We decided to “go in the classics” and chose a slightly modified Helvetica with the coquettishly cropped letter r.
It was in this form that the logo was publicly presented. The reaction was very different, but in most cases positive. A lot of work has begun on the introduction of a new logo: guidelines, website, documentation.
Having worked a little with the new logo, we realized that the selected font did not suit us completely. First of all, I would like to make the same thickness of strokes in the letter A. Plus, Sergey wanted the most geometric font. We decided to redo the spelling a bit and turned to a lettering company. Now we had a little more time, and after many iterations we got a result that satisfied everyone.
To attract the attention of colleagues to the new logo, we hung posters around the office that explain the essence of the new company logo.
And at one point, I saw a tweet from Sergey Belousov, who tattooed a new Acronis sign on his shoulder:
It became clear that the new logo, at least for a long time. First, a new sign appeared on the site. Then in the company’s offices, for example, in Singapore: A
photo of such a car was sent from the German office:
A lot of artifacts with Acronis symbols appeared, including some rather strange ones:
After some time, Sergey came up with a new idea:
The font is very difficult. At first, I was skeptical of this idea. But then we turned to our font gurus and they set to work. As a result, we got three luxurious styles of our own font, which blends perfectly with the logo.
This is where the story ends. But I am sure that a lot of interesting things are coming.
