EOSC logo contest - EOSC Association

Young Design Student Logo Contest

Are you a young design student, ready for a € 5.000 award and a trip to Prague to present your logo to the world?

Participate in our logo contest!

Submissions are now closed

** Due to the fact that it can take some time before you receive notification that your account has been activated, the submission portal will remain open until Monday February 28th 7 AM CET **

This is your opportunity to shape the visual identity of EOSC – a large-scale European initiative. Create a logo for the European Open Science Cloud which expresses its driving role towards more innovative, collaborative and effective research and win € 5.000,- and a trip to Prague.

Until 28 February 2022, the EOSC Association is accepting proposals for a logo and a co-branded logo from young design students or recent graduates, that can be used across media, including, but not limited to, websites, social media and print materials. Eligible submissions will first be judged by a jury of renowned designers and EOSC experts. In a second step, shortlisted submissions will then be put to a vote by the broader EOSC community. The winner will be awarded a prize of €5.000 and will get the chance to present their work at the next EOSC Symposium in Prague (Nov ‘22), which brings together experts from across Europe.

Who can apply?

You can take part in the contest if you are a student or recent graduate (graduated in 2021)

who was born not earlier than 1991;
is completing, or has completed, a degree in graphic design or a clearly related topic;
is, or was, affiliated with an institution in: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Morocco, Norway, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine or the United Kingdom.

It is also allowed to send in a proposal per team of max. 2 eligible persons.

(Uploading a scan of your student card or recent graduation certificate is a requirement in the submission process, so ensure you have yours ready when submitting.)

Contest procedure and prize

A jury of professional designers and EOSC experts will shortlist 3 proposals. Shortlisted applicants will be informed by 31 March 2022.

The EOSC community will then vote to select the winning logo. The winner of the contest will be informed no later than 6 May 2022.

The winning entrant will be awarded €5.000 no later than 15 working days after they correctly submit the vectorial format of their proposed logo.

In addition, the winner, or the winning team, will be invited to present their logo at the next EOSC Symposium in Prague in November 2022. Accommodation and flight and/or train tickets from and to a departure point in one of the eligible countries* is covered by the contest organisers.

If no logos meet the content or quality requirements, or no consensus can be reached, the EOSC Association reserves the right not to select a logo and to not award a prize.

*see list of eligible countries under ‘Who can apply’

About EOSC

Visualising the transformation of research in Europe

As the world changes, research does too. This new logo should capture EOSC’s mission of supporting the digital transformation of research and its driving role towards more innovative, collaborative and effective research.

Over the past decades, some trends have dramatically changed research. Academic research increasingly now involves very large datasets. That includes genomics data, telescope observations, but also high-res infrared scans of paintings or carbon dating results for historical artefacts.

Opening up research results (data, publications, software) to others has become one of the most powerful instruments to share knowledge, to allow it to be used by other researchers or as inputs for artificial intelligence.

Europe wants to help researchers lead this transformation of research. The EOSC aims to make it easier to find, access, and reuse research data, tools and services. It builds and connects digital infrastructures to provide seamless access to research data and services for the scientific community, thus providing an environment where European researchers from different scientific disciplines and countries can work together in a more efficient way. This web of research data and services will make research more innovative and more efficient.

You can read more info about the EOSC here:
https://eosc.eu/about-eosc
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-science-cloud

Why a new logo?

The development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) kicked off in 2018. Now, taking stock of the digital transformation of research in Europe and the role EOSC can play, we are looking for a new logo that showcases EOSC’s ambitious vision of cutting-edge, pan-European research through an integrated web of data and related services for researchers.

The current visual identity of EOSC is represented by the logo below:

This logo was perfect to launch the EOSC initiative in 2018, when it was important to make the scientific community familiar with the meaning of the EOSC acronym “European Open Science Cloud.” It also showed that EOSC was fully supported by the European Commission. At that time, representing the initiative with a visual design of a cloud was important.

Three years later, EOSC is a recognised brand. The new logo does not have to display the full name, a stylised representation of the abbreviation “EOSC” is enough. The cloud visual element is now considered too ambiguous. The cloud is “the” driving visual element for all the cloud computing initiatives, but EOSC is not only about cloud computing. The research community is aware that EOSC is a European initiative. The stars are not necessary anymore.

Design specifications

The EOSC logo, or elements of it, will also be used by projects and organisations around the EOSC to create visual cohesion across initiatives. That is why we expect you to also submit a proposal for a “co-branded” logo template. With this we mean a logo that allows the name of another project to be integrated within the new logo or combined with elements of the logo. Please consider “Project Name” as the name of the initiatives/projects that need to be co-branded to EOSC.

The new EOSC logo and co-branded logo should:

capture EOSC’s mission of supporting the digital transformation of research and its driving role towards more innovative, collaborative and effective research;
only use the abbreviation ‘EOSC’, not ‘European Science Cloud’ written out in full;
not include a visual ‘cloud’ element;
not include stars;
use max. 2 colours, no gradients, if needed in addition to white and/or black;
be flexible enough to use in multiple sizes and formats across different digital and print media;
be easy to resize and adapt. We prefer a horizontal logo layout with dimensions that are adapted for website banners and headers. If you wish to submit a vertical logo, you should also submit a horizontal adaptation of the logo;
be adapted for use in grayscale and on light and dark backgrounds.

Proposals (consisting of one main and one “co-branded” logo) must be submitted as 2 separate .pngs or .jpgs on a white background, in RGB format and not be larger than 900x600px.

Sending in a branded colour palette is optional at this stage of the contest. Should you wish to do so, please indicate 2 main colours and 4 support colours, in addition to white and black, with colour values in CMYK, RGB and HEX.

The main colours of the logo should pass the WCAG’s AA-level contrast test for graphical objects and user interface components. One of the main colours as a background colour and black as the main colour should also pass the AAA-level test for small and large text. Logo compliance can be checked using any of the following sites:

The rest is up to you!

Intellectual property

You can only submit a logo that is your original work and is not derivative in nature (including from your own work). Your submission can’t violate the intellectual property rights of another individual or entity.

You must unconditionally and irrevocably agree that every part of your submission, should it win, becomes the exclusive property of the EOSC Association and can be used for any EOSC activities in any medium, by the EOSC Association and projects related to EOSC.

The EOSC Association retains the right to modify a submission.

If you win the contest and your entry is found to have violated any of the stipulations above, you will be required to forfeit or return the prize money in full within 15 working days of notification of the infraction and will be held liable for any fines or court cost incurred.

Submission process

Each eligible person can submit max. 1 proposal until 25 February 2022, 23.59 CET by completing the online submission form.

It is also allowed to send in max. 1 proposal per team of max. 2 eligible persons.

In this submission form, we ask you to upload:
● The files mentioned under Design Specifications;
● A scan of your student card or recent graduation certificate;

No later than 5 working days following the notification, the winning logo has to be submitted in a scalable vector format (EPS or SVG), retaining transparency and with all text as outlines. The logo and all assets (e.g. fonts) need to be packaged correctly for delivery and easily editable.

Submissions are now closed

** Due to the fact that it can take some time before you receive notification that your account has been activated, the submission portal will remain open until Monday February 28th 7 AM CET **