Clever Cloud identity, reloaded

Clément Nivolle — Mon, 27 May 2019 14:11:00 +0000

Early this year, we felt a deep need for visual changes in our brand, reflecting on what all our core team went through these past two years, opening space for building up and growing as a team from there, and aligning better with a wider range of services. It was also time for something easier, faster to use, everywhere (you know, those pesky small and square areas). We just started our rebranding, digging deeper into our identity and what you and us together do. First step: a brand new logo. We are in the cloud still, also on-premise for heavy corporate needs; we keep doing greater, clever and new things, with you, your code, your apps and your databases. We haz New Logo, among many other things; be prepared for seeing it everywhere.

The first iteration of sketches.

We were first introduced to Jord Riekwel by Clément Sauvage. Check his dribble out: we did, got impressed, then started a deep iteration process with him. Your patience and sharp attention to details deserve some shout-outs here, Jord!

The first common ground was quickly established around our shared will “to steer away from cloud-related symbols, as there are plenty out there” now. Being “a cloud” is not the unique thing characterizing Clever Cloud anymore: we deliver way more than raw computing material, which is what cloud services from the big ones has become. All our services can also run on (your) premise(s), and are running daily in 35 countries, where we offer uptime and application sustainability. We started out from a single, cloud-based product giving back joy to devs about deploying apps on the web. We’re adding up to what is now a full platform for IT-automation, PaaS & DBaaS, baby (Platform- and DataBase-as-a-Service)!

The third iteration of sketches.

From early C-shaped logos to the ruby/hexagon shape we finally refined together, we do hope that our "Easy-to-Use-as-a-Service platform powered by many technical facets" now stands out better. We hope it will intrigue you enough to get to know us better. We think this new image will better accompany us into our new range of products and services, and state that we keep growing: Monthly-Recurring-Revenue-wise as we always had, AND also adding talented people to the team on a faster pace than ever. You tell us if it works! If it does, let’s quickly summarize our mission and our services, while we’re at it (you came here to do biz, right?).

Clever Cloud: mission statement

We’re a Europe-based PaaS company, and we intend to stay one. We help developers deploy and run their apps with bulletproof infrastructure, automatic scaling, fair pricing and other cool features. We deliver an easy-to-use service, without any vendor lock-in and able to grow with your needs.

Clever Cloud: our services

We provide runtime on various languages such as Ruby, Java, Python, PHP and so on.. We’re also providing managed services, like PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, ElasticSearch and other tools like CI and object storage.

And voila: our new logo

Check out our brand assets for all the variations.

Fun fact: about stickers

We managed to very rarely print our old logo on our world famous stickers. I guess we can thus assume we respected that vanilla logo of ours in a way the RATP rabbit and Austin Powers would have badly loved to be treated. Send your weirdest design requests to stickerz@clever-cloud.com, and let’s soon deliver some dev love through laptop swag, in a great meetup near you.

Many warm thanks to Kaya Thommy for all the (silly) things we did during the past 8 years with the vanilla, previous (still feels a bit weird to write this) Clever Cloud logo she designed for us back in the days. It served us pretty well! <3

The old logo made by Kaya Thommy in 2009.

// tl;dr
$ git mv logo_v1 new_logo_finalfinal (WAIT WHAT?)
$ git commit -m "We haz New Clever Cloud Logo (and more)"

Customer Testimonial – Guillaume Chollier from Utocat

Clément Nivolle — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 16:54:00 +0000

Blockchain technology is a much discussed subject these days, but when you ask someone what it allows them to do regardless of the interaction they have with crypto-currencies, the answer is rather vague. Guillaume Chollier - Utocat CTO has agreed to talk with me about this technology, the perspective and how the Utocat team is using Clever Cloud. Let’s take a look at the world of the Blockchain, with the help of those who are using it on a daily basis.

Hey, Economy, do you know Blockchain?

To briefly introduce Utocat, Guillaume Chollier has a simple answer: “We are a Blockchain software editor for the financial sector”. It’s been 4 years that we exist and use Blockchain technology. We have therefore witnessed the emergence of many solutions using it in recent years. Most of them are focused on the use of cryptocurrencies, whereas we prefer to offer our customers a range of software for securing and timestamping data but also simplifying their procedures by making them all digital. Today, our main solutions are Catalizr and Blockchainiz. Catalizr is a digital investment solution specially designed for the financial sector. It allows an investment to be made in 1 hour, whereas the current paper process takes up to 3 months. This solution is mainly used by players in the unlisted securities sector as well as real estate investment companies. Blockchainiz, on the other hand, can be considered as an access provider to Blockchains. From the simple connection to the use of the smart contract platform, we support our customers by defining the outlines of their project, their prototype, but also in the implementation of business Uses Cases.

What do your customers look for when they use UTOCAT?

Above all, our unique expertise! We are one of the few players in the sector to implement ad-hoc solutions and to use the Ethereum and Bitcoin public Blockchains. Then, it’s our “agile” side that seduces them. We have a good knowledge of the financial sector and therefore a good knowledge of our clients’ procedures, it allows us to be reactive on their different requests.

Are you experiencing any particular difficulties right now?

Well, yes. The main one being hiring! It’s increasingly difficult to find senior developers. As a result, management with this type of profiles is not the same as managing junior profiles.

What are Utocat’s development objectives?

Our primary objective is to remain an expert and leader in the use of the Blockchain in the financial sector. At the same time, we are accelerating the deployment of our solution Catalizr in France and plan to deploy it in Europe next year.

Why did you choose Clever Cloud?

At first, our infrastructure was based on a private cloud computing offering. At the time the Docker’s learning curve was too long compared to our expectations, the administration of the system took a long time. There was also a great tangle of problems between development and technical architecture and managing all this with a mainly junior team was not easy. Since then, we have switched to Clever Cloud and we are delighted. It’s much simpler and you are much more efficient.

What do you prefer about Clever Cloud?

The support! The team is very reactive and it’s a real argument for your service, so don’t change anything!

If you could, what would you improve at Clever Cloud?

If we could, we would improve the dashboard. The ability to sectorize the environment and application context to simplify the management of daily applications would be a real plus for us. Indeed, this would simplify the sending of invoices or the management of rights. More information on www.utocat.com

utocat Archives | Clever Cloud