I am elated to announce a brand new logo for apis, designed by one of users, Ryan Dowling. apis and esprit have received a much needed facelift, designed around the new palm logo, which is a big step forward, one that I happily endorse as pivotal. Pivotal in that it has reinforces the unique identity which makes apis what it is.
Our logo embodies two characteristics, first, unadorned simplicity – the focus of apnscp 2.0 (1.0 is taken – forgot about that!). apnscp 2 will begin with a new dashboard ushering in its release. The dashboard has been in a conceptualized stage for 3 months with approximately 10 different sketches, each moving closer towards the mantra, “less is more”. Less clutter, less junk, less hoops to jump through to action common tasks.
Second, it connotes an organic tone. apis has been built from the ground-up from 6, soon to be 7 years of innovative research and design. From the order system to the control panel down to the intricate SpamAssassain and Dovecot patches to restore directory root after jailing, everything has been developed and engineered by apis. It provides an enormous competitive edge through limitless freedom. No licensing, no restrictions, no common feature set shared amongst 2 million “hosting providers”, no tiresome waiting on a release from a disjointed office 1200 miles away to fix or implement a new feature. The sky’s the limit and having such freedom produces wonderful, implementable ideas from you, the voice of apis – our customers, and some of which are now in the pipeline.
A redesign was imminent and, in fact, the logo had been sitting dormant on the server, collecting inode fragmentation (lame joke) since October. apis’ new design had been ready since December. My expectation was to release alongside apnscp 2, but something became abundantly clear to me after flipping between designs – it was constricting. Writing replacement applications for esprit limited was like trying to shoehorn leather upholstery into a Kia. It was doable, but the final product clearly didn’t belong. Instead of letting creativity be a guide, I let design be a guide. When you must design within the lines, it’s not as easy, especially for someone who never enjoyed coloring inside the lines… and that resulted in many negative report cards in elementary school.
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I shall leave you with a picture gallery to reminsce over a rather terrible, dated design. Enjoy!
– Matt
