As some of you might be aware, I’m the person who handles communications and branding for the Albany local SQL user group. As such, I’m responsible for sending out group announcements, updating the calendar of events, and maintaining whatever social media resources we might have.
Last week, I was preparing the announcements material for our April meeting, and in doing so, I took a long look at our “logo” (seen here on the right). There were many things that I found amiss. First, the logo, which we had had for several years — I’ve lost track of how long — was unwieldy and no longer representative of our group. Second, it used the PASS branding (and the REALLY OLD branding at that), which needed to be removed since PASS ceased operations in January. Finally, it was not dynamic — we were using it universally as a logo and an icon, and it really did not function well as such. I spoke to Greg and Ed, our user group’s co-admins, and got their blessing to come up with a new logo for our group. (Besides, I needed the design practice!)
I sat down and tinkered with some ideas. I tried out some fonts and visual schemes. Ideally, I wanted to incorporate some specific design elements: New York State, something representative of the Albany Capital Region where we’re located, a technical-looking font, and the universally-recognized (at least to data professionals) database icon. I wasn’t sure what kind of color scheme I wanted to use, but as it turned out, I started out using blue and gold for the fonts (which, unofficially, are considered to be New York State’s colors), decided that I liked them, and stuck with them.
My initial idea was to superimpose the user group acronym (CASSUG) over the outline of New York State; those are the designs you see here to the right. I tried a couple of different fonts, including one (which you see in the second image) that included NASA in the font name. (I decided that I liked the other font better.) I positioned the database icon over where Albany is located, which would satisfy my requirement of representing the Capital Region.
While I was generally happy with the results, I also wanted to take another approach. I downloaded a line drawing image of the Albany skyline and placed the CASSUG text logo underneath it. I liked the idea and decided to run with it; however, I needed to find another image, as the skyline image I used could potentially have violated copyright restrictions (I did not post it here for exactly that reason). I had to find another image, but I was unable to find one that I liked. I decided that the only way I could come up with a suitable skyline outline image was for me to create my own.
I opened MS Paint and hand-drew a simple representation of the skyline. I decided to represent four local landmark structures in the drawing (and anyone local to the Capital District knows that one of those structures had to be The Egg — it is the one landmark building that instantly identifies the Albany skyline, just as much as The Pyramid identifies Memphis, the Carrier Dome identifies Syracuse, or the Space Needle identifies Seattle).
I thought the outline came out fairly well, but I had to make sure that I did it justice, so I posted it to my Facebook and asked local friends if they could identify the buildings. (If you’re looking at the logo at the top of the page, the buildings represent, from left to right, the Corning Tower, the Egg, the State Capitol, and the Smith building.) The outline was not to scale and it wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be; it just needed to be recognizable. Everyone correctly identified The Egg, and most people were able to correctly identify at least two of the four structures. That people recognized the skyline told me that I had done my job.
I placed the CASSUG acronym and accompanying text underneath the skyline outline. I wanted to make sure the acronym was spelled out for the benefit of those who wanted to know the acronym’s meaning. As a final design idea, I took the New York State outline, placed it to the right of the acronym, and superimposed the database icon on top of it.
The end result is the image that you see at the very top of this article.
I ran my ideas past the user group members, and people overwhelmingly said they liked the Albany skyline image.
I like how the image came out. I intentionally created a relatively large image (2830 x 1250px); you can create smaller images from a big one, but you can’t create big images from a small one. The image is versatile; for example, if we need a banner, we can use the acronym and text without the skyline; if we need a thumbnail, we can use the icon over NYS, and so on. I started updating our Meetup page with the new design, and I’ll incorporate it into other materials as well.
What do you think about my rebranding effort? Like it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments below.
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