Originally published by Tarus Balog on his company blog.
OpenNMS is an “old school open source project” in many ways. We’ve been around for 20 years, spent most of that time hacking on code, and our community feels like family.
Typical of early open source projects, marketing and branding haven’t always been a top priority at OpenNMS. We’ve always had a logo (a logotype, if you want to get pedantic) and our main color was vaguely kelly green, accented with black and white. Ulf the kiwi bird was our requisite animal mascot. The logo went through various iterations over the years but kept the same basic shape.
Why change? Truthfully, we’ve always wanted to put more thought into our brand. We wanted our visual identity to represent everything we love about OpenNMS:
- Approachable : Has a welcoming culture of helpfulness. OpenNMS is open to everyone.
- Reliable : Designed for large enterprises and service providers, OpenNMS monitors tens of thousands of devices from a single instance.
- Adaptable : The flexible architecture of OpenNMS can be adapted, extended, and easily integrated to meet each organization’s requirements.
- Mature : OpenNMS has been continuously improving and setting the standard for open-source monitoring platforms for over 20 years. It continues to evolve and refine.
With the support of our new parent company, NantHealth, we were able to engage with New Kind, a “focused team of experts in strategy, positioning, messaging, and visual identity for tech brands.” New Kind has done an amazing job guiding us through this process. They asked us all the right questions and worked with us collaboratively – they've got open source roots too, so they “get it.”
Together, we created the Open Gyroscope. Just like OpenNMS, the Open Gyroscope is made of multiple pieces working in harmony to show the way and help users stay the course. We drew inspiration from existing navigational themes in the current OpenNMS brand (Horizon, Meridian, Helm, etc.).
Our new color palettewas inspired by open air and sea to reflect the calm and confidence we want users to feel that comes from knowing they can rely on OpenNMS. The vibrant accent colors add fun and excitement to the palette.
Even though we have a new face, we’re still the same OpenNMS. We’re still open source, still obsessively engineering our platform, and we’re still family.
We’re so excited to continue this journey with you.
-The team at The OpenNMS Group
P.S.
Ulf isn’t going anywhere – he's still in charge!
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