Software development company needs a new logo

Radium Technologies

We are a small software company that specializes in home productivity software. We have developed four products to date: Living Cookbook (cooking and recipe management software), Home Inventory Pro (home inventory software), Diet Pro (diet and exercise software), Bartender's Companion (drink recipe software).

http://www.LivingCookbook.com
http://www.HomeInventoryPro.com

About our company name:
- Radium Technologies’ name comes from the chemical element radium, number 88 on the periodic table. Pure radium is a white, silvery, solid metal. It is intensely radioactive (more than a million times more so than uranium), extremely volatile and luminescent (it has a faint blue glow). Our name is intended to connote energy, innovation and productivity.

Feel:
- We are a small company but our product packaging, letterhead and websites shouldn't belie that fact. If our new logo were to appear next to those of Microsoft, Intuit, Corel or Adobe, we would want prospective customers to get the sense that we are peers: competent, innovative, professional and reputable.
- In most cases our company logo will appear in conjuction with our product logos. The product branding and message are what sells so the corporate logo must be subordinate (i.e. not too loud or flashy). Take a look at any software packaging (e.g. Microsoft Office, Intuit Quicken, etc.) and you will see what I mean.

Color:
- We would like a full color version as well as a black and white version.
- If the logo is 3D then it will need a 2D (i.e. flat) version as well.
- We have no specific color preferences but keep the colors bold.

Logo Use:
- Product websites: http://www.livingcookbook.com, http://www.homeinventorypro.com.
- Product packaging: CDs, jewel case inserts, software boxes.
- Letterhead and business cards
- Signage

Target Audience:
- Two thirds of our customers are women. They tend to be well-educated and relatively affluent. They are mostly English-speaking and reside in the United States, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
- Our recipe software customers are mostly home cooks and cooking enthusiasts. Our home inventory software customers are home owners who want to organize and value their assets.

Logo Idea: Word Mark
- A clever and compelling word mark would probably be my first choice. I prefer bold sans serif fonts but I am open to just about anything other than cartoony fonts or fancy scripts.

Logo Idea: Tiles
- We currently sell four products and we intend to add more over the next couple of years. We have toyed with the idea of reworking all of the product icons so that they were a matched set (i.e. same shape, format, etc.). The company logo could then be a collection of those icon shapes. Imagine a series of hexagons honeycombed together. Or square icons tiled or stacked or arranged like dominoes arrayed one in front of the other.

Logo Idea: Emission
- This idea comes stems from radium's (the chemial element) intense radioactivity. Imagine an atom emitting radioactive particles or photons. In this analogy Radium Technologies is the active, energetic atom at the core and the emitted particles are the products that we develop.

Logo Idea: Orbit
- This idea also comes from radium's radioactivity. Imagine electrons orbiting an atom. This idea is not new so we would need to put a new spin on it. For example, I like the iTunes Genius logo but I would want our logo to be substantially different.

These ideas are just starting points. Do not feel that you need to limit yourself to the ideas I have suggested. Only use them to the extent that they are helpful to your design process.

We will be watching this contest closely and giving feedback frequently.