Modern & strong design for bleeding-edge tech startup's logo

ionGrid, Inc.

We're looking for a very modern but corporate-friendly design for our tech company. We build software to allow iPads and similar touchscreen tablet devices to connect to each other and run more business-oriented applications.

Think: Game company meets Corporate, with a touch of chemistry or physics. We expect people will look at our software and think part of it is magic.

Our products are going to change the way people interact with technology. We hope your design can introduce us to the world in the right way.

Our current web site has nothing on it, though we don't dislike the image we used for the site's logo (http://www.iongrid.com). However, it's too busy for a real logo, of course.

Brands with logos we like include:
- Intel (modern type, whoosh looks like an electron spinning around a nucleus)
- Lexus (simple, easily distinguished)
- Sasol (but not animated and less busy)
- Newmarket (http://www.newmarket.ca/en/townhall…anding.asp)

We're looking to sell to forward-looking mid-size companies (probably largely US-based initially, but hopefully Japan/Korea/EU afterwards). The product buyer would be marketing people or mid- to upper-level management.

Our customers are people who love their iPad, or lust after one or something like it, but haven't figured out how to justify using it in the workplace yet for anything other than email and basic web reading. They probably love to show off the latest cool gadgets or applications to their co-workers, and always want the latest cool toys.

Not overly colorful. Probably largely greyscale with a splash of color to liven it up, or a gradient based on one dominant hue. Probably stylized type-based logo, where "ionGrid" is the core but the G might be stylized, especially with the theme of electrons spinning around an atom, a planet orbiting a sun, or other science-like visuals.

We would like the logo to be simple but also fit well in a square (perhaps if you remove the type (see http://www.icis.com for an example)).

Colors that resonate with us for the highlights include cornflower blue (http://www.trelleborg.com/upload/Ru…ue_big.jpg) with maybe a touch of green or orange if appropriate, and greys, to appease our corporate overlords who will buy our products. Feel free to surprise us with something different, though.

Fonts we like include Futura, Calibri, and Candara, but again, please feel free to choose whatever you think is great.

As implied above, for now, we just need a logo, but we'd love to work with the designer again for more complete corporate identity services as we grow.

I've never done a contest on this site before, but I'd expect the winner will deliver an Illustrator file (or similar) of the design... Please also give us your contact info in case we want to ask you to do more work later.

Thanks! Looking forward to seeing your ideas!