Posted By Paul Kafasis on August 5th, 2016

We don’t have a new product or major software update to announce, but it’s an exciting day nonetheless. That’s because our website has just been overhauled for the first time in many years. We hope you’ll have a look!

Our last major update occurred way back in 2008, when we worked with Dan Cederholm on a design that has served us well for many years. That site grew and evolved as our company did, but now the time has come to modernize. Our designer Neale began that process earlier this year, when he introduced our new style of product page, one which aims to reduce clutter while still providing all the information customers might want.

Today, we’ve updated the frame of our site as well. You’ll generally find everything in the same place, but the site is brighter overall, and should be a bit easier to navigate. The new frame also includes a new company “identity”, which means a new look and a new logo. You can see the entire new site at rogueamoeba.com, and read on if you’re interested to learn more.

A Farewell to Arms

Our company has a strange name, and we extended that eccentricity to our original logo/mascot, Ammo. When creating Ammo back in 2002, we sought to marry the brashness of Rambo (“rogue”) with the silliness of a Gary Larson-style drawing (“amoeba”)¹. Ammo served as a fun part of our visual identity, and an attention-grabbing one at that. Ultimately, we didn’t think too much about him after his initial creation.

Ammo the Amoeba

Over the years, however, we occasionally heard from folks expressing their distaste for our gun-wielding little mascot. Because these emails were quite rare, we made note of the feedback but kept our focus on continuing to improve our software itself. After all, a digital logo can’t do any direct harm. Physical guns exist in the real world, and disarming Ammo won’t change that.

However, over time the appeal of our cartoon logo has waned. As the list of gun tragedies has grown ever longer, our lighthearted riff has lost some of its humor value. Meanwhile, our products have matured into more professional markets, and we’ve wanted a more professional look to match. We decided that a new logo was in order, one with less firepower and more focus on audio.

The New Logo

When we founded Rogue Amoeba, we didn’t plan to focus on audio software, but that became our niche. Our new logo is intended to be a bit more professional, while also evoking some of that old time rock and roll.²

Neale went through many ideas to get to our final result. One of the goals was to evoke a moving, undulating microscopic creature, and inspiration came from several amazing images of amoebas (including this gorgeous picture). The overall shape was then simplified through countless rounds of sketches. Neale said “the hardest part was getting the essence of a wriggling mass of protoplasm to also feel orderly and composed”, and that’s just not a sentence you hear often.

In addition to its amoeboid shape, the logo also features a “nucleus”, seen in the stylized “O” in the word “Rogue”. That “nucleus” provides a nod to our specialization in audio software, with its subtle speaker shape. It’s a touch that not everyone will notice, but it’s a detail we’re happy is there.

While we’re sad to see Ammo retire, we wanted something more cohesive and clean for our site. We love the new logo, and think it will better defer to the actual content of our site, allowing visitors to focus more on our products. After all, that’s the real point of our website!

Get A Stuffed Amoeba While You Can

Our bristly little mascot is no longer front and center on our site, but he’ll likely continue to appear now and again in some form. In fact, you might just find him in your mailbox! We recently dug out a leftover box of the plush toys we created way back in 2005, and we figured our customers might like to get their hands on them. So, we’ll ship a free plush Ammo toy to the first 100 people who make a new software purchase and then request a plushy.

Coming Soon?

Just place an order through our store, then request your free plushy through this form. If you’ve been considering picking up one of our apps, today’s a great day to do it!

Closing

Our site has changed, but our commitment to great audio software remains the same. If you haven’t seen our latest work, be sure to check out the improvements found in version 3.3 of our audio recorder Audio Hijack, the new Bluetooth speaker support in Airfoil 5, and our newest app, audio router Loopback. We’ve got plenty more in the works, including further updates for MacOS 10.12 (Sierra), Chromecast support in Airfoil, and much more. As always, stay tuned to this blog to get the latest.

Footnotes:

1. Admittedly, our “amoeba” always looked more like a paramecium.

   
   As seen in Gary Larson’s “The Far Side”

   Call it artistic license. Also, it’s a lot harder to give personality to an amoeba. ↩︎

2. You know, the kind of music that soothes the soul. ↩︎