The NRFIS Logo

The NRFIS logo incorporates an 'eye' picturemark representing sensing on an abstract level.

The logo was designed by Dan Gould, a Cambridge-based freelance graphic designer specialising in logo design/branding, web design and design for print and illustration.

One of the interesting challenges for Dan was marrying the idea of an ‘eye for sensing’ with infrastructure. This led to the creation of the eye picturemark using tessellated triangles, which themselves form geometric cubes. The shape can appear to be a flat plane, or a 3D surface, depending upon the interpretation of the viewer, which hints at the data analysis which will be done in the facility and the multi-layered nature of research. The ‘iris’ of the eye comprises a double-story cubic structure, an acknowledgement towards the two-storey laboratories housed within the new building. The ‘pupil’ of the eye is a focal point, hinting at the way in which the laboratories will be the heart of the new facility. Two triangles of the same shade appear either side of the iris pointing towards its centre, again emphasising the importance of the laboratories and the work that will be done there. The top part of the ‘I’ in NRFIS forms an inclined shape, which not only represents infrastructure on an abstract level but is actually a nod to the architecture of the building itself, which has slatted shapes (from the thermo-chromatic glass panels) along the external façade.