the ones left on the cutting room floor...

So far we have had a very positive response to the new logo. We are still eager to hear from more people. So positive, negative, or just curious, please do leave your feedback, concerns, and questions on the comments section below the post with the new logo reveal.

Sample letterhead using new CACR logo, by Santiago Lombeyda, 2011

As a bonus, for those interested, we did want to share with you some of the process of how we ended here. Along with the history of the logos (see two posts before), here are some samples of some different directions we considered:

Collection of CACR logo explorations, by Santiago Lombeyda, 2010-2011

Some of these tended to be too abstract, too busy, too ambiguous, too ambitious, too nerdy, and even too 'retro' (as in, are old school pixel/bitmaps old enough to be classics?). Of course there were many variations of these, as well as many many other variations and small tweaks on the logo that made it in the end.

a new logo for CACR!

New CACR logo, by Santiago Lombeyda, 2011

On October 2010, we embarked on the task of creating a new logo for the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) at Caltech.


The logo exploration attempted to incorporate themes of scientific engineering, collaborations, science, and computing research. It was necessary for the new logo to show scientific engineering as a support to science, enabler to new science, and generator of new research. From modeling real phenomena, to bridging disciplines, the new logo had to say a lot, without pigeon-holing itself.


We have two big (visual) assets to work with: our history, and the brand name that CACR is. From an abstract point of view we could use blobs to represent both sciences and nature along lines representing connections, dynamics, networks (not necessarily just clasic computer networks), algorithms, etc.


As with any logo exploration hundreds of different possibilities were researched. Between us (Santiago Lombeyda, Mark Stalzer, along with Mike McKerns, and other eyes) we narrowed the choice to 6 distinct directions. After several redesigns, one direction started gaining strength and meaning, from which we eventually choose what seemed to be the best visual representation for what we understand CACR to be.


The logo has the following features:

• an abstract structure of connected links (or components). This structure is in of itself composed of stylized versions of the letters 'c', 'a', 'c', and 'r'.
• this structure was grounded (bolted?) at both ends. this is both a throwback at the old logo by Roy Williams, as well as a visual connection (pun not purposely intended, but appropriate) to data diagrams, electrical circuits, etc.
• the 'r' in the structure also forms an arrow pointing upward (i.e. forward research).
• the structure grows up as both a tree or a flame (reference to the Caltech logo.)
• the letters 'cacr' are clean, technical, match the above structure, and serve as a ground
• the color of the logo is a dark blue. It is closest to the blue on the plaques outside all offices at Powell-Booth.  (rgb(41,44,93) or #292c5d).

The tree lends itself to many uses. With the text underneath it makes a strong logo that can stand for a research lab, without being "soft" nor irrelevant, while avoiding looking corporate.

Here is just a sample use of the logo:

Sample use of new CACR logo in three business cards, 2011

We look forward to your comments, ideas, suggestions as we look into transitioning into our new logo!

a brief history of the CACR logo

1995

In 1995, the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) subsumed the activities and staff of the precursory organization, the Caltech Concurrent Supercomputing Facilities. As our Center prepared for the official announcement by Caltech of the formation of the CACR, our new research organization needed an identity. We needed a logo.

CACR staff scientist Roy Williams, known for his creativity as well as his computational research, created this version of the CACR logo.

original CACR logo by Roy Williams, 1995

The design has underlying themes. It is based on a particular graph connectivity: the hypercube spanning tree for 32 nodes. It is a graph defined as follows: The numbers from 0 to 31 are represented in binary, and each number represents a node of the graph. There is an edge from one number to another if one can be transformed to the other by switching off the most significant of the on bits. The nodes may be classified according to the number of bits in their binary: there is one node (0) with no bits, 5 nodes with one bit, 10 nodes with 2 bits, 10 nodes with three bits, 5 nodes with four bits and one node with five bits.

The reasoning for using this graph as the basis of a design:

It is a good algorithm for doing a broadcast or global operation on a network, including mesh and hypercube MIMD machines and more general networks.

It has a center, that is the zero-node to/from which the fan-in/broadcast goes, thus expressing the importance of communication in addition to computation.

It is based on the hypercube, providing a historical echo.

1998

In mid 1998 Santiago Lombeyda recreated Roy's original logo, in vector format.

vectorized version of CACR logo, 1998

1998

In late 1998, Sarah Emery developed a new design for the CACR web pages. The design incorporated the CACR colors--rust and blue, so the new blue and white CACR banner was adopted:

CACR web logo by Sarah Emery, 1998

2000

In 2000 a vector graphics version was created, and the logo was adopted as the official logo for all media.

vectorized version of CACR web, 2000

2005

In 2005, a new logo incarnation by Santiago Lombeyda was created, as a hybrid from the original CACR logo and the 1998 web version.

CACR stamp logo by Santiago Lombeyda, 2005

It more generally stood for: components being brought together to work in unison as well as the natural forking of parallel processing to complete one task.

It was presented a "label for cutting edge research", serveing as a stamp of professional leading thought, creativity, and ingenuity in computational science. It was meant to embody as a sub-brand of everything that Caltech represents, as applied to the ever developing and changing young world of advanced scientific computing.