Hey guys,

I've been working on those design updates to Gilli's concept.

I've tried making it geometrically perfect using a hexagon as a base - attaching it below.

@5apps is willing to sponsor an overhaul of the current logo, so remoteStorage looks the best it possibly can, especially when we launch multi-backend support and an improved widget/connect dialog. We already found a good designer who's interested.

Let's use this issue as public briefing room. If anyone has ideas and comments they want to add before Dalius begins working on the first new version, please chime in as soon as possible! I will then update the brief accordingly, if necessary.

Project brief

Background

remoteStorage in a nutshell: users can tell Web apps to sync data where they want it, without the app developer ever hosting or touching their data.

Given the developer is using the official client library, users can choose between Google Drive, Dropbox or RemoteStorage. The latter is an open-source protocol that can be used by anyone to create data storage/sync servers. App developers can use this library to easily integrate support for data sync via these options into their apps.

remoteStorage is an open protocol, as opposed to being an open-source software package. It is similar to email in that regard. As long as your server speaks the remoteStorage protocol, any app that supports it can sync app data on your server. It doesn't matter what technology the app or the server are built with, as long as everything speaks the same language in form of the protocol.

If you want to see how it works for yourself, you can get a storage account at 5apps and try e.g. sharing a file with Sharesome.

Objective

The main objective is to improve the existing official remoteStorage icon/logo. It should be modern, professional and distinctive.

Requirements

• The icon needs to be recognizable as the remoteStorage icon, as existing apps and websites already use it. That is it should be an orange box thingy with the same diamond shape somehow.
• It needs to look good in both small and large sizes. (If necessary, we could probably create a responsive SVG and add more details for bigger versions.)

Desirable qualities

• Convey the project's openness. (Currently it does that with the open-box metaphor. Personally my brain oftentimes doesn't see the box, though.)
• Convey the idea of interconnectedness (sync among any devices or apps)

Assets

Existing assets of the current logo can be found in the logo/initial directory in this repository: https://github.com/remotestorage/design/tree/master/logo/initial

Questions?

If you have questions or any other comments regarding this brief, please add them as comments to this issue. Thanks!

The license statement in this repository currently says:

remoteStorage logo: Jan-Christoph Borchardt, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike

Now it appears that this applies to the original logo, not to the current one which wasn't created by @jancborchardt but by @DaliusStuoka from what I can tell.

Regardless, is it really necessary to require attribution for this image? This makes it considerably harder to use it - even if it's only a "choose your storage provider" screen, you have to add a visible attribution statement somewhere. In fact, I'm not even sure that the logo usage on https://remotestorage.io/ isn't currently violating license terms. So why not CC0?

Seeing the discussion in #2, this is completely unrelated to acceptable use of the remoteStorage brand. I could create my own SVG with the same visuals and CC-BY-SA would no longer apply. The terms by which you allow your brand to be used should be specified independently of the image license.

Just FYI: I asked @jancborchardt on IRC about licensing of our design assets and he said his own things are CC-BY-SA 4.0 and that's what he recommends for new stuff as well.