In our last blog you met the CADRE Fellows. Now, meet the CADRE Owl!
That’s right, CADRE has a logo. More than a picture, our logo represents who we are.
For Jessie Ma, the UI/UX designer at the Indiana University Network Science Institute, who has taken the lead on designing CADRE’s visuals, an owl aligned perfectly with CADRE’s mission.
Ma says CADRE is a project designed to make valuable and complex large library data resources approachable to any academic researcher, regardless of their skill level in handling such data.
An owl is not just beautiful, it is a symbol of wisdom and a known powerful predator. Ma says this is exactly how CADRE resonates with her: a powerful system filled with complex big data wrapped in a user-friendly interface that allows even non-experienced coders to tame the data.
But to not go too deep, she adds that owls are pretty cute. A friendly mascot like the CADRE Owl helps balance a project that seems very technical and complicated to those who aren’t familiar with it.
Owl Evolution
The CADRE Owl has come a long way. The original version was a complex illustration that included the owl with glasses, hard drives to perch on, and a network backdrop. But after months of brainstorming and refining, Ma’s end product became a sharp, playful owl profile.
Even though she streamlined the logo to make it cleaner and easier to stamp across any outreach materials, Ma included details that would make the CADRE Owl feel a bit more connected to the project, including the owl’s network necklace and her creative take on an owl’s facial disc. All in all, Ma and the rest of the CADRE team are excited to be represented by the CADRE Owl.
July has been a busy month for CADRE—not only have we created our visual identity, but we also selected our first class of CADRE Fellows. We have so much more news to come, including our new website publishing soon.
We’ll also be presenting a webinar about CADRE on Aug. 8 for the OCLC Research Works in Progress Webinar Series. Don’t forget to register.
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