• US$300

• 164 designs

• 58 designers

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Logo Design Brief

Switchyard AI — Logo Direction
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Core idea
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An aerial view of a railroad switchyard: tracks converge, diverge, and re-route. The mark should feel like a minimal, almost hand-drawn schematic—industrial, honest, and a bit imperfect—while conveying AI-driven orchestration (directing data/docs to the right place, right time). Avoid anything overly glossy or corporate.

Symbol (primary mark)
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- Form: A simple hub-and-tracks motif: 1–2 main “rails” enter, 3–5 rails peel off via soft turnouts. Think of a switch (turnout) diagram seen from above.

- Line treatment:

- Double-line rails with occasional, very sparse ties (e.g., a short cross-tick every 3rd–4th gap). Keep it abstract—no heavy detail.

- Hand-drawn feel: slightly irregular line weight and micro-wobble; arcs that aren’t perfectly circular; not all lines straight.

- AI cue (subtle): At the switching node, a small dot or ring can imply a decision point. Avoid brains/neurons/circuit clichés.

- Negative space: Let white space carry the complexity—no filled masses.


Wordmark
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- Name: “Switchyard”

- Tone: Industrial-modern, not sterile. Consider a humanist or workhorse grotesk with a touch of warmth.

- Options (open-source friendly): Space Grotesk, Inter, IBM Plex Sans, General Sans.

- Treatment:

- Slight letterspacing for breath; keep stroke weight moderate.


Style & finish
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- Minimalist, analog texture: Imagine graphite on vellum—clean but human.

- Edge discipline: Crisp vectors, but allow organic line variance (custom stroke profile or roughen by 1–2%).

- No gradients, no gloss. If texture is used, keep it very light grain at brand system level, not baked into the core SVG.


Color
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- Primary: Rail Charcoal (#1F1F1F) or Graphite (#2A2A2A).

- Accent (choose one):

- Colors are undecided. 

- Usage: Mostly mono (black/white); deploy accent sparingly (e.g., the switching node or one outbound track).

- Accessibility: Ensure 4.5:1 contrast for text lockups.


Composition & lockups
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- Primary lockup: Symbol left, wordmark right, aligned midline.

- Stacked: Symbol above, wordmark below for square formats.

- Monogram/Icon: Cropped “S–Y switch” junction or just the switch node + two diverging rails for favicons/app icons.


What to avoid
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- Brains, EKG waves, hearts, stethoscopes, robot heads.

- Corporate gradients, glassy 3D, overly perfect geometry.

- Dense rail detail (sleepers every few pixels) or literal trains.

- The Red Cross or medical cross symbolism.


Deliverables
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- Master vector (SVG) with stroke-based version and outlined fallback.

- 1-color (black), reverse (white), and 1-color + accent variants.

- Horizontal + stacked lockups; 32px and 16px icon tests for legibility.

- Simple pattern tile derived from the track motif for backgrounds.

- PDF mini-spec with clearspace, minimum size, and color values.


Quick sketch brief (for first comps)
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1. Draw a single inbound double-line rail that curves softly into a switch node (small circle).

2. From the node, create three diverging rails: one gentle curve, one near-straight, one subtly irregular—proving “not all lines need to be straight.”

3. Add very sparse ties (tiny cross-ticks) on the inbound and the highlighted outbound only.

4. Set “SWITCHYARD ” to the right in Space Grotesk (slight tracking), with “AI” one weight lighter.

5. Render primary in Graphite on white; make a second version where the node or the chosen route uses some color options.

Target Market(s)

Healthcare systems

Industry/Entity Type

Healthcare

Logo Text

Switchyard AI

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Logo styles of interest

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Colors

Designer to choose only greyscale colors for use in the design.

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Look and feel

Each slider illustrates characteristics of the customer's brand and the style your logo design should communicate.

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Requirements

Nice to have

• Railroad switchyard imagery

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Files