Here is a candidate design by Aaron Newton, provided in two sizes.

Do folks like this?

Once we've agreed on the logo, then I'll propose updates to Hadoop's website that encourages the use of this badge by third parties that incorporate Hadoop in their products.

note that the background (the blue box) is easily changed to suit various needs. I also might spend a little effort on making the lightning bolt more identifiable in the smaller version.

I'm not wild about this. I think using the variant that Cloudera used in their products is in poor taste.

http://www.cloudera.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/logos/jobtracker.png

I think it should use the approved Hadoop elephant and with "Powered by" in text.

> I think using the variant that Cloudera used in their products is in poor taste.

The hardhatted elephant logo you refer to above was removed from HUE's JobTracker GUI some time ago as an improper use of an Apache trademark. So this is not a variant of something in a Cloudera product. Rather it is derived from design work that Cloudera was unable to use and is now donating to Apache.

> I think it should use the approved Hadoop elephant and with "Powered by" in text.

It's useful for a powered-by logo to be graphically distinct from the official logo so they're not easily confused. I don't see an intrinsic problem with using just the elephant's head here. Do you?

For what it's worth, we wanted to donate the hard-hat logo to Apache from the start (for the hadoop job tracker itself). The hive logo I did got picked up (which made me happy).

We have this logo collecting dust. It was in our product for a short period of time but I don't think we ever shipped it to anyone (the timeline is a little fuzzy in my memory). Regardless, I would think that there's no confusion between this and our product.

If it's not a good fit for the "powered by" needs that's cool. Either way, we have no way of using it (per Doug's comment regarding trademark). I'd love to see it find a home; he's pretty darn cute in that hat.

The hardhatted elephant logo you refer to above was removed from HUE's JobTracker GUI some time ago as an improper use of an Apache trademark. So this is not a variant of something in a Cloudera product.

It was shipped as part of what was then called Cloudera Desktop, which absolutely was a Cloudera product, until I complained about it to trademarks@apache. I don't think it is appropriate to use for an official Apache logo.

I'm still confused about why a hardhatted elephant is "in poor taste" and "not appropriate". Your objection does not appear graphical or legal. Is it punitive or political? Please explain.

I don't believe that Cloudera ever sold a copy of Desktop, and, shortly after the initial prototype was demoed it was renamed the HUE open source proje. Early on, an orange hardhatted elephant logo was removed from its interface, since, as you noted, it was an unlicensed use of an Apache mark. How does this forever taint any such graphics?

I'm still confused about why a hardhatted elephant is "in poor taste" and "not appropriate". Your objection does not appear graphical or legal. Is it punitive or political? Please explain.

It is a logo that is associated with Cloudera, because of the way that it was previously used. I understand that you don't see that as a problem. I think that the powered by logo should not be associated with any company.

I think you vastly over-estimate the association of hardhatted yellow elephants with Cloudera in the public mind. I suspect few outside of intense Cloudera watchers would even recognize it as familiar. Some might remember it from MAPREDUCE-484 or http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2009/04/hive-and-jobtracker-needed-logos/, when it was proposed as Hadoop's JobTracker logo. BTW, the link you provide above was from this blog entry, not from any Cloudera product literature or screenshot. In a quick search, I am unable to find any screenshots or product literature that include a hardhatted elephant. So I don't see the case for an association of this graphic with Cloudera in the public mind.

I am not wedded to this image. I think it is well-designed and unencumbered and would make a fine powered-by logo for the project. But if someone wishes to provide a solid alternative I'd be okay with that. We do need a powered by logo, and good designs are not easy to come by.

While I'm happy to confine the Cloudera/Yahoo catfight to things like logos and keeping it out of engineering decisions, could we just evaluate the logo on it's merits? The yellow guy is owned by apache, Cloudera also uses it in a bunch of marketing materials, so what? The main hadoop logo is all over the front of Cloudera's webpage right now, I just checked and it's not cramping my style.

The rectangle probably works better functionally as a "powered by" button - small enough to be out of the way but "Apache Hadoop" still legible. RE: hardhat vs no-hardhat, I could see an argument for using the mainline logo instead of the hardhat, "powered by" logos tend to be the main touchpoint for the brand with things like httpd and probably hadoop, so less confusion about which is the "main" logo might be better.

The rectangle probably works better functionally as a "powered by" button - small enough to be out of the way but "Apache Hadoop" still legible.

If you guys can specify some ideal sizes to present this as I can whip up some variants. If you decide that the IP issues are tolerable and you like the treatment itself I can spend a bit more time preparing various formats (black and white, high contrast, smaller versions, larger versions, etc).

This discussion is veering into an unproductive mire. Please reign it in. While I also recall the logo from Cloudera products, most users won't get the reference. It's an insensitive suggestion, not an invalid one.

The yellow guy is owned by apache, Cloudera also uses it in a bunch of marketing materials, so what? The main hadoop logo is all over the front of Cloudera's webpage right now, I just checked and it's not cramping my style.

The Hadoop logo is Apache's intellectual property and- from what I understand of trademark law, which is confined mostly to the last clause of this sentence- it cannot allow third parties to use it indiscriminately without losing its enforcement rights to that mark. Hence the necessity of a "powered by" logo that those third parties can use without harming Apache's IP. It's a legal question, not a style question.

If it were to appear, I would prefer a logo that emphasizes that Hadoop comes from Apache over one that only highlights the elephant. The latter trademark has not been handled respectfully. If the "powered by" trademark guidelines are intended to protect Apache's marks, and the Hadoop elephant is not as strongly associated with Apache as it should be, then adopting the hardhat logo would make less progress than one that reasserted Apache's ownership. The Hadoop elephant + Apache feather + "Powered by Apache Hadoop" would be a safe choice. It would address the feedback the project has gotten from trademarks@ and avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

There are a finite number of things I can care about, and unless the logo poses the Hadoop elephant doing something profane, I'm +0 on whatever comes out of this thread.

+1 to the elephant + feather. The feather already has some yellow in it so should match the elephant, right? (Design-impaired here).

We should make the 'Apache' part of the text transparent to match "The Apache Way".

One question to think about is: what is the actual incidence of "informed consumer" association between the hard-hatted elephant head logo with Cloudera? I.e. was it really downloaded by a fair number of users, and was it used in an obvious way on the Cloudera website for a notable period of time?

The fundamental question from the trademarks@ point of view is the likely association in the minds of normal users and consumers of our software, not those of us already familiar with Hadoop.

That being said, a logo also needs to fit with the community, so if its causing this much controversy, then from the community health point of view... just pick something else.

Design choice is clearly up to the PMC. From the trademarks@ point of view, the Powered By logo should certainly echo the Hadoop product logo, but have a clear overlay or change to the logo to also make it clearly distinct from the main logo is important. We don't particularly need to have a feather in the logo, but it's OK to add it if the PMC really wants to.

Personally, I'd suggest style-wise something that features more of the whole Hadoop elephant than just the head: maybe the elephant pushing something, or looking through a frame, or something like that.

Note that coming up with a couple of different formats for use in different styles is highly recommended.

I was confused earlier, and even more confused now JobTracker is not a project/subproject. Why did it need the logo then ?
Also, why does the hard hat have a lightening on it ? (I am not Robert Langdon, but does lightening indicate some kind of "clash of the clouds" ?)
Somehow the orange hat used earlier became two hues (no-pun-intended) of blue now. What's behind that ?

There are some questions here that I'll try and answer. I'll reiterate that I'd be happy to see this work find a home, but ultimately whatever you guys decide to do is of course fine; take it or leave it as they say.

Why did JobTracker need a logo? Well, I was working on some things that linked to it and I wanted an icon for that link. Simple as that. I wanted to put the logo for it and launch it. I didn't know the "Apache Way" for when logos are and aren't called for... I also created a hive logo that got adopted. Here's the original (brief) blog post to that effect: http://www.cloudera.com/blog/2009/04/hive-and-jobtracker-needed-logos/

Why the lightning bolt? Well, I wanted to convey it wasn't a construction hat but a utilities worker hard-hat. I chose blue probably because I live in California and PG&E's colors are blue. It was a play on "powered by." I added the lightening bolt to make that more obvious. Perhaps it's not necessary? Or perhaps there's something more appropriate? I'm totally open to suggestions (assuming the other issues brought up here are ok).

What's up with the two hues? They're just meant to be highlighting (in the same way that the elephant itself has several colors and not just solid yellow).

As for other ideas, I actually had several. I can't find my notes now thought. One was just an image of peanuts in a bag (playing along the lines that elephants like peanuts and are therefor "powered" by them, har har). Another one was turning the elephant into kind of a locomotive but I didn't think it would really look good. I had like, half a dozen or more of these various tangents and ran them past Doug. He liked using the hard-hat work I'd done previously (c'mon, he's too cute in that over-sized helmet) so I posted it here...

I would be concerned that the provided hard hat looks a bit large on the elephant, and does not allow for a proper field vision – necessary when operating a large piece of machinery like a Job Tracker.

HA!

I apologize that the logo I proposed offended some. Let's please avoid bikeshedding (http://bikeshed.com/) this. I encourage others who have graphically-capable friends to invite them to contribute alternative powered by logo designs for Hadoop so that we can identify one that's acceptable to all.

powered by hadoop would be well served by a logo of an elephant carrying or pulling something. just an idea.

Here is a potential powered by logo that was created using the standard small elephant logo.

It would be very helpful for people trying to comply with the trademark guidelines to have an approved powered-by logo. This would make the powered-by/includes/is distinction much easier to make.

The logo I just put up as a candidate uses a rastered version of the elephant. I can get a higher quality, scalable version make if this logo is accepted.

I think that looks reasonable. I would have preferred "Powered by Apache Hadoop," but this looks reasonable.

How about just the elephant with "Powered by Apache Hadoop"... something like hadooop-elephant-pb.jpeg but with a nicer font?

I like how the Apache PB logo is similar to the main logo: http://www.apache.org/images/apache_pb.gif

I think it is important that the two logos be easily distinguishable from each other. I like the silver circle.

Silver circle is very classy. I like it as well.

Based on the OOM and KB feedback, I think we will be moving forward with the circle logo.

We recognize that this is not yet an official logo, but we really need to be able to make the distinction. We can update if there is consensus on another option.

Silver circle logo is very nice. Would love to have it as laptop sticker or t-shirt logo

Is the artistic intent to suggest a mouse/gerbil/small rodent wheel?

Here is a version with "Powered by Apache Hadoop". That fits surprisingly well.

Again, it would be good to get some clarity here.

Allen,

I think that the artistic intent was just tie the words and elephant together.

Here's a draft from Alison Wong who designed the Apache Whirr logo. It needs to be updated to say "Apache Hadoop" and perhaps make the elephant yellow. If people like the overall look she'll iterate on the design.

File is powered_by_hadoop.jpg

Eli,

That is certainly a powerful looking powered-by logo.

It doesn't fit the stylistic heritage of a playful logo based on a children's toy, though. My own feeling is that it would be good to have the option of maintaining the continuity to make clear that software that is powered by Hadoop owes its patrinomy to Hadoop.

Here's a proposal I'd like to put forth. I tried to incorporate as much as possible of the feedback people have thus far provided. Specifically, it is somewhat visually distinct from the project logo while retaining obvious association, and incorporates the Apache feather.

I also think it works well with the tradition of wearing different hats at Apache. If there were such a thing as an actual "Apache hat" I imagine it would be a headband with a single feather.

Also, does anyone know what font is used for the word "hadoop" in the project logo? I haven't found a good way to figure that out.

I prefer the hadoop-elephant-pb image, though of course you need a tm marker on apache and hadoop. The alternative I think might be good is powered-by-hadoop.png, because it clearly differentiates Hadoop itself from things powered by apache hadoop.

I still prefer the silver circle variant PoweredByApacheHadoop.png.

Alison's one is very artistic, but looks like a logo for a different project powered_by_hadoop.jpg.

It looks like we are developing quite the range of options. I propose that we vote with single transferable vote. If you have any more candidates, upload them here by tomorrow 14 June at 5pm PST. I'll start a thread on general then calling for votes between the options.

Here's a proposal for consideration kindly contributed by Stephanie Davidson. I like it because it's quite visually distinct from the project logo, but obviously sticks with the yellow elephant and cartoony theme. I also like this one since it sticks with the color theme of the logos so far associated with the project.

It's also the only logo so far proposed in which the elephant is clearly powering something.

Just got a few minutes to look at these. I must say that I'm very disappointed. Some of these are very nice clip art but none of them are appropriate powered-by logos, as they are completely illegible at typical logo size: <= 64 pixels in height.

My gimpfu is weak, but here is an idea, IMHO, is better than the existing attempts at a "powered by apache logo" in several aspects:

1. Good continuity with existing Apache and Hadoop logos
2. Perfectly legible at logo size (64 pixel height)
3. Theme friendly (looks good on black background as well).

A larger png for people to play with.