OBSOLETE

Current Name Candidates

At this point we have 3 leading name candidates.  We still need to do trademark searching on all of these, so no decision is final.

Honeycomb

+ Social, collective behavior of bees

+ Busy as a bee

+ Who doesn't like honey

+ Suggests design elements of interlocking hexagons which could convey notions of extensibility and openness.  Reflects the Sage logo while still allowing evolution away from it. 

+/- Google using Honeycomb as code name for Android 3.0.  Probably won't be public enough to matter but might have to watch it.

- Somewhat static

Symphony

+ Music made by people working together

+ Music theme connects with Bioconductor community and analysis tools

+ Nice alliteration with "Sage Symphony"

+ Music conveys forward progress

- Classical music might be a little stuffy / elitist for the under 35 target market.

Spark

+ Spark of an idea

+ Spark jumping between two nodes in network / two people

+ Nice alliteration with "Sage Symphony", very short simple 1-syllable name

+ Conveys something getting started (will that be good in 5 years?)

- Openness and community aspects more of a stretch

Skin Concepts

We had a variety of skin concepts mostly differing in color pallets as shown above.  Currently we are focusing on using the first Spark design (yellows / oranges with white background) as the warm colors / yellows seem to work well will all name choices.  

Regardless of the name, I think the page designs will mostly be the same.  We are looking for clean, functional designs that help scientists get right to their data and get to work.  There should not be a lot of distractions on the pages.

The one place we could push a little more on unique branding would be the title bar.  This is where we need a final name to make progress.  Honeycomb could use some sort of hex pattern and bees, spark might use some sort of jagged light, symphony might pull in notes or other design elements a little.