We have over 1,000 Backblaze Storage Pods storing over 150 petabytes of data. Who cares what they look like as long as they work, right? Turns out lots of people care—they care a lot. And it’s not just the folks in the data center, nearly everyone here at Backblaze has an opinion—marketing, engineering, sales, finance, HR, even the janitors. What’s the problem? Simple, as we’ve been updating our Storage Pod design, we also decided it was time to change the faceplate design, the part that everyone sees when they take pictures like the one above. We just couldn’t get agreement on which one to use and that’s where you come in.
A Brief History of Backblaze Faceplates
Since 2009, we’ve had several different faceplate designs, many have gone by the wayside, but you’ll find the three below still on our data center:
| One of the original faceplate designs. No Backblaze, no flame logo. |
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| After building about 20 Storage Pods, we started using a laser to cut Backblaze and the flame logo into the faceplate. |
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| Later, around the time of Storage Pod 3.0, the swirl design as introduced. This is the current design. |
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Choices, Choices, Choices
Our in-house designer, Casey, took the task of designing a new faceplate and ran with it. Really far. He produced 15 different designs before we stopped him. We mulled the 15 designs over for a few days and came away with the six below. Now it’s your turn. We want your thoughts and opinions. Take a look at the designs below and enter your thoughts in the comments section you’ll find after the post. Constructive comments are the most valued and appreciated. You can click on the images of faceplates to see them in a larger size.
| The Laser: Backblaze and the flame logo are laser cut into the faceplate so you can see through. |
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| The Pop: Backblaze and the flame logo are silk screened in bright white, so they pop off the background. |
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| The Pop II: Backblaze and the flame logo are silk screened in bright white on a stretched oval background. |
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| The Oval: Backblaze and the flame logo are silk screened in bright white on an oval background. |
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| The Squeeze: Backblaze and the flame logo are silk screened in bright white while being squeezed in the middle. |
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| The Cloud: Backblaze and the flame logo are silk screened into a cloud. Ironic? Redundant? Brilliant? |
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So, what do you think? Pick your favorite and let us know; just enter your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks.
