John Redfern needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 342 designs submitted by 74 freelance designers.
DIGITAL EARTH – The New “Search” for Energy
A vertical search site for the energy sector but incorporating many Web 2.0 technologies (wiki's, social networks, etc.). Currently in the build stage. At the moment we're focused on some rich opportunities in the Oil and Gas sector, but in the future may want to branch out into alternative energy or other sectors with a geographical search component.
What we need is a bit of a balancing act. On one hand our early customers are companies like Exxon or Shell so we need something with at least a little bit of gravitas / seriousness.
On the other hand we're looking to be a modern disruptive force (a la Google or Zoominfo... but in a narrower niche) so something a little brighter and playful is also called for.
The other themes that can be worked into the logo are anything to do with data, digital, information, as well as search, the earth and maps.
The logo will be used on letterheads, business cards, advertising , websites, etc...
- Something serious looking but fresh. So strong but bold colors would be nice (for example the sample colors on the http://www.Divestco.com website attached - shame about the bland logo).
- In addition to the above one wants to ideally have a logo that still looks reasonable / recognizable when photocopied in black and white.
- Needs to be a logo that can be used with or without the name Digital Earth (in fact the current logo is little more than those words).
- A logo that can also, where appropriate, be used in conjunction with the name Digital Earth and the "tag line" which is "THE NEW SEARCH FOR ENERGY" (where search could refer to the "search for energy" or "search in the Google sense").
- A good example would be the Total Logo (Website also linked.. see http://www.total.com ). I like this logo as it hints at "the earth", but is still abstract enough not to be just another globe... the rest of the website is a little busy though.
- Nothing too complicated- Nothing exclusively identified with Oil and Gas or even energy per se.
- Nothing with a traditional globe or earth in it (there are too many of those already).
- It's an international site so nothing identified with a particular region or country.
- Don't want anything that is to close to our competitors (for example : http://www.ihs.com ).
- NOTE: We seem to be getting a lot of actual globes, as well as leaves, and "de" logos... we don't want any of these. If there is anything Globe-like we'd like it to be very graphic and abstract. I only mention it here since there were some leaf and globe designs early on that seem to be influencing subsequent designs (I'll eliminate these to avoid confusion).
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