Logo for OursLive.com
a logo project by tsailipu

Creative brief

1). What the site is about (snippets from the site):

OursLive exists to make sharing fun and meaningful, while easy and comfortable. It is for us to share our digital life — with people around us and whoever that share similar interest and enjoy similar fun. If you haven't been here, we'd like to say, you haven't known how fun sharing can and should be. ;)

This project starts out as an experiment for friends and family. As such, all features here are here only because we want these — because we don't see such integration, richness and freedom offered elsewhere. Making this system available because we figure if we like these features, you may, too. We find them lots of fun; you may, too!

2). Logo name for company: OursLive

3). Design spirit looking for: We are looking for a simple, clean, modern and distinctive logo. Here are some adjectives for the site's spirit that we hope help.
(a) Fun: playful, lively fun. It conveys the type of fun that when you are bored or tired, seeing it brings a smile to you. It invites you to want to click on it, to check out what's up. It conveys that every moment, there is something happening, something Live, maybe in your circles, maybe out there. That you may want to explore; that there may be something of the moment that could be of interest and a pleasant surprise. This fun maybe "jumps"; maybe "kicks"; may be cute, mischievous, offbeat, even adventurous. It's kinda cool -- has that tidbits of cool factor in it. But it's warm/engaging. Never distant.
(b) Together, sharing, collaborative, social, building, community. It conveys the spirit that this is ours. Hints of always innovative, uprising vitality.

4). Some example logos we like: Apple (why not? as simple as that ;), meebo.com, woot.com, trulia.com, cbnc's submission for KIDS 4 Humanity project here, just an example, is pretty cool, too!

5). Other considerations:
(a) Looks equally good and distinctive in other colors, even grayscale. Scales well, too.
(b) This is really a corollary of an "original, distinctive" design, but instead of saying it later during discussions, here it is: We like logo that lends itself or part of itself to be distinctive and recognizable even when represented in a small icon (like when embedded on other sites). crowdSpring's logo has that (with the jumping human); digg has that; or facebook, stubmbleupon,….

Most important: Really, just go where your inspiration goes. Look at this not as designing for a client, but for a site you love to use, you want to have fun daily yourself, with people you like/love or may like/love later. ;)

6). If the above information suffices for your style of logo designing, please go ahead and skip reading the next paragraph.

Because the working version is not yet ready for public scrutiny, it is protected by password right now. Please read our standard NDA at http://www.ourslive.com/NDA.pdf and private-message me for the specific URL and password if you would like to experience the site and get a taste of what we do, like and are all about. When you do, we take it that you have read and agreed to the NDA: basically, we ask that you not reveal the password and/or mention what this site does to others at all during this upcoming month or so before the alpha-invite is out. We don't mind the crowd see your great designs here at all, as we love the crowd-wisdom part -- that's what OursLive is about, too! -- we just prefer not to get much noise about how cool the site is ;) before the public alpha-invite (you can, however, tell us what you like or dislike about the site and whether we actually suck like elsewhere ;). So thank you for understanding and helping make this an inspired effort.
(We have talked to crowdSpring about this NDA nature, an optional project feature that looks to be in their future plan; for now, this is what we come up with that should work. So please rest assured that this is something honest and good. Besides, it's obsolete in a month or so. ;)

Finally, we will likely host projects on the website design soon. So this can be a long-running engagement (for multiple winners). If you are the kind that works on both logos and website design, you can mention to us how you envision how this logo and overall design can fit, as that could influence our decision as well. If you aren't participating in this round, help us choose one that you would love to see and work with later! ;)

Thanks and hope we all have fun seeing your great work!