About Zilliz
Zilliz is a young, high-tech startup that is a leading explorer in the field of vector databases. Its technology and products are dedicated to lowering the barrier to developing AI applications and continue to inspire and influence the unstructured data processing industry and the open-source community.
Background
After some strategic adjustments, Zilliz has focused its mission on the vector database area. The company has been facing difficulties reflecting on and explaining what the company does. Since “Zilliz” is a created word, it is difficult for the general audience to understand and remember. Our CEO asked for a new logo to express our unique industry identity.
Vector databases are a kind of infrastructure technology. Our engineers can’t even explain the vector database in one sentence, so expressing it with visuals is an even more significant challenge because we must also consider simplicity. With the launch plan of Zilliz Cloud, Zilliz has officially entered the commercialization exploration phase. We need something entirely different and fresh: an identity that is on par with the association of our stage, technology, services, and personality.
How: Interpreting abstract keywords with figurative symbols
We hear too many words from the field of technology: Vector databases, unstructured data, vector coordinates, high-dimensional spaces, infrastructure, AI applications…Thinking about the logo is essentially a mind map in the designer’s head, transforming all abstract words into SYMBOL that everyone can associate.
Once we have visualized these elements, the next step is filtering and re-organize.
- Which ones have limitations and are not enough to express what we want to do now and in the future？
- Which ones are unique to us？
- Which ones have a more direct brand association? Yes, efficiency always matters.
How to communicate what we did？
Back to the critical question: Why vector database？ A vector database views data as a set of interconnected vectors. You can think of these vectors as a map or data representation. What makes vectors so powerful is that they are multi-dimensional and can add numerous layers to each data point resulting in a rich dataset. The advantage of vector databases is that they are designed for search and data mining.
Everything is about tracing “neighbors” with coordinates in the vector database category. The concept of coordinates stood out; we were all excited about it, and it resonated strongly.
More than coordinates
In technology and data, visual images are always combined with concepts such as the universe, planets, and starbursts because they can reflect the volume, complexity, and mystery of data and bring us a certain feeling of accepting significant challenges and a sense of sacred mission. Inspired by the light of stars and starbursts, we enhanced this coordinate, which consists of 12 lines of different angles and lengths forming a star. It makes it look mathematically complex and dynamic. It radiates the light of the new database era.
- Relevance. A coordinate vector from linear algebra. Multi-dimension. Use different angles of rays to outline the sense of high-dimensional space.
- Complexity. Since the actual vector coordinates would be very complex, our logo needs to reflect this, but we strike a good balance between the simplicity required as a logo.
- Dynamic. Our vibrant logo fits our young identity and passion with lines of varying lengths and variations.
- Non-technical audience-friendly. This logo is easy to remember. Even if you don’t know the vector database, you will be easily impressed by this logo, linking it to familiar symbols: stars, snowflakes, and fireworks. It complements the delightful emotional part.
From all-caps to all-lowercase
We organized interviews about the old brand visual identity, most interviewees preferred the all-lowercase version because of the humble and open qualities of lowercase letters.
One of the interviewees said, “All caps feel like it’s yelling at me.”
At the same time, I was thinking about the readability of the text. There is a symmetry in the letters of the company’s name, which begins with “z” and ends with “z.” I would like to retain that feeling as well. So, in the end, we chose all lowercase, and we moved from yelling at our audience to building communication, from stubbornness to an open and friendly personality.
High-tech, Vitality, Delightful
We aimed to create a fresh, modern, professional visual identity for Zilliz. Rebranding to show the company's real values and product offering was vital. Zilliz’s goal is to help organizations create AI/ML applications stunningly easy and fast, no matter their size. We developed a visual system based on concise symbols and vivid color gradients alongside clean and direct typography. The brand is built around a system of vivid color gradients. We wanted to reflect the dynamics and complexity of the unstructured data world through unpredictable gradients.
In addition, the geometric typography supports the visual identity, providing a harmonic composition with the gradients, generating clearness and legibility throughout the whole communication.
Our new visual identity and new website launched at the same time. We applied this gradient feature to the site's details to deliver a unique, clean, professional, and enjoyable browsing experience.
Here is just the start of our journey with our new look, and we can’t wait to see where it takes us from here.
