Innio LLC Logo

In 2009, a number of people from the RPI Web Tech Group began talking excitedly about the future following our graduations. We had certainly found considerable success with a number of our Web-based applications, such as Concerto, Shuttle Tracking, and Flagship Docs, and we felt that it would be important to keep and touch and attempt to work together in the future.

While we realized that not all of us would be interested in becoming full-time employees of a company, we nonetheless began to piece together plans to start up a company based on the work we had done as students at RPI. Full Disclosure: I have an equity stake in Innio.

We realized early on that we were interested in at least starting with computing consulting work, specifically with the development of great Web-based applications such as Concerto. Though we probably went about the process in a very backwards-way, we decided to talk as a team about a common company name as the first stage in developing our corporate identity. As happens so often in committee-based naming, we proposed and later tossed out so many names.

Certainly we were all over the map. But a colleague suggested Ineo, which means "to begin" in Latin. That was taken, of course, so we had to modify it to something that was unique. I suggested Innio or Inneo. Eventually we decided on Innio.

A sampling of failed names from the brainstorming:

• Tangential Aspect
• Mutable Horizon
• Elemental Solutions
• ThoughtBean or ThoughtBeam
• Arcturus
• Hyperion
• Seneria Systems
• Onyxia
• Crius
• Cronus
• Aequitas Technologies
• Libero
• Attacca

What's in the name Innio? Certainly it takes from the original inspiration from Latin, "ineo," which means, "to begin." Yet I also found the transfiguration to "Innio" to be meaningful, as it included "inn-" ("innovation") and "-io" (input/output). Since we started in a somewhat backwards way - coming up with a name and brand identity before nailing down the exact business details - it needed to be open-ended enough for flexibility yet reflective of who we are as people.

As I saw us to collectively be an innovative, thoughtful group of developers who focus on providing great solutions to daunting problems, I felt the name Innio fit us well. The rest of the team eventually agreed. Plus, it's a short and sweet kind of name - distinct and memorable.

The logo mark proved to be a bit more difficult to generate. I played around with many concepts, first opting for logo-type without a logo-mark. I felt this would be appropriate, as we would be difficult to represent using a logo-mark image. Our potential business areas were large - web applications, consulting work, and design. Often logo-marks are relatively specific or quite abstract, such as the idea behind Apple Computer's logo. I took inspiration from IDEO's abstract logo-type (as seen here) to create some strong text for a type-driven Innio logo. However, it seemed to be too close to IDEO, so I ended up moving away from that style. I played around with the name and tried coming up with some logo-marks that could help differentiate our logo from others.

My true inspiration came when I realized that the "inni-" in the name could become the filament within a light bulb. The logo-mark was born. From that point, another defining moment came when it occurred to me that the bulb could be locked into the logo-type more directly, as the "O" in the name. After a great many different variants, typefaces, and tracking changes, I came up with a version that I liked. I presented it to the rest of the team and got mixed results. With a couple days more of tweaking, I began to move to a more elegant lowercase type that resembles the logo for the Barnes & Noble Nook. Furthermore, the light bulb changed position to become the "O" more directly.

With help from some artistically inclined friends, the logo-mark received a bunch of additional changes. The final version is the culmination of over three weeks of work, over 25 revisions, and lots of debate.