Planet Arduino

A few months ago we introduced Genuino, Arduino’s sister brand for products sold outside the US. TODO, the design agency that developed the Arduino branding language since its early beginnings, created the new Genuino look & feel and signature elements. This new branding language is going to be applied to all Genuino and Arduino products in the near future.

Giorgio Olivero, one of TODO co-founder, studied at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, where Arduino was conceived. Giorgio and later on his team (among others Vanessa Poli and Alessandro Argenio) have been taking care of Arduino’s brand identity since then. We have asked Giorgio to tell us the reasons behind the original Arduino branding language, and the Arduino/Genuino design language refresh. Here is the story in his own words:

‘When we began developing Arduino’s identity in late 2009 we wanted the project to feature an accessible, pop, and clear communication language for the new community that was growing around DIY electronics. Something that wouldn’t compare to the technical-macho look of the engineer-oriented platforms and products: a testosterone-free positioning that could speak to everyone and not only to experts and hard-core enthusiasts.

Arduino’s original visual language had to stand out and define a yet uncharted market, its goal was to ‘declare, define, simplify’ without scaring people away with overly technical details. Arduino’s identity had to be true to its community values, not too polished but still elegant and accessible. It was basic, technical and playful. The message was: Arduino is a modular system open to anybody and in constant evolution.

As the electronics market keeps evolving at an incredible rate, it’s about time to refresh both the Arduino and the Genuino brand with an updated system. The new design keeps a strong continuity with the previous one, we see it as an evolution rather than a revolution. We want people to recognize that the core values and the ‘personality’ haven’t changed. The new recipe is spicier and less technical though, it has a sort of circus-like feeling: it’s about the joyful interplay of the Arduino ecosystem and community. You could see these colourful squares as different components, circuits, and modules of an electronics system. Or rather as the interlocking building blocks of the maker movement itself, that recipe of openness that makes Arduino so unique.

The new visual language evokes empathy, joy, and playfulness. Collaboration is its core value. It introduces a series of characters based on the electronics components with a playful personality, that will enable new outlets for the visual identity.

We have always enjoyed working with Arduino, our ongoing collaborations (and long friendship) surely requires very fast design iterations, because the Arduino ecosystem keeps evolving, but hopefully we are making the brand stronger and very well equipped for the new challenges ahead.’

Learn more about Todo on Twitter and Facebook.

This is the message Massimo Banzi’s just published on the forum.

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Today is the day of a solar eclipse, some of these are once in a lifetime events.

Arduino is definitely one of the events that will define my life along with many other people’s life.

I’m feeling incredibly blessed to have contributed to create this amazing community which gathered around the idea that we can empower people to master complex technologies and unleash their ability to create with them.

Dear community I’m sorry I didn’t comment earlier, I was keeping quiet to try to find a resolution to our internal issues that would not damage you, the community.

We’ve been so committed to keep the issues internal that for a year we haven’t receiving any royalty from the boards made in Italy, but we continued to work hoping to find a solution. I’ve told the story to Make read it if you want to know more.

Now the other party has abandoned the negotiating table and, after a lot of recent events, the cat is out of the bag. I owe you to be part of what is going on.

We created Arduino based on a set of values that have enabled the community to grow, touch any kind of people and contribute to changing the world a bit.

I am here to say that we will continue to fight so that Arduino stays true to those values. There is only one Arduino and there is only one Arduino community. We’re strong, we’re having a positive impact on so many people’s life.

We have so many news we want to share with you but be patient until Arduino Day, let’s celebrate together the amazing community we are (261 Global events!!!) , and you’ll know more.

I’m sure you have a lot of questions an we’re going to try to answer them in due time, compatibly with the fact that lawyers are involved and I can’t say too much.

An eclipse is just a temporary moment of darkness, but soon after the sun comes back shining.

The sun is about to come out, wear your sunglasses!!

Massimo Banzi with David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe , David Mellis