How do you brand cloud security?

What descriptors come to mind when you hear the word “cloud?” Open? Carefree? Fluffy?
The word “security” is most likely associated with the exact opposite — which brings about an interesting conceptual exercise: How would you go about branding a company that specializes in cloud security?
Just ask IPR International’s Mario Juliana.
IPR (Information Protection & Recovery) specializes in providing businesses with secure IT infrastructure and data storage through five tiers of cloud services. When Juliana joined the company in 2013 as its marketing and creative director, the logo hadn’t been touched since 2002.
That logo — red bold letters on a steel-plate backdrop — was just one IPR design floating around online. Juliana said the company had been presenting a “mix of brands” across the web. His first task was to bring the brand up to speed.
A bit of an arduous assignment for your first day on the job with a cloud security service.
“The logo they had wasn’t going to do it,” Juliana said. “We’re in the technology arena. It’s constantly changing and we need some type of brand that can be flexible and work with us as we grow.”
So Juliana rolled up his sleeves and got to work. Single-handedly, he designed about 30 different branding campaigns. It wasn’t a piece of cake, per se, but he had just been presented with a similar challenge about a year-and-a-half before he came onboard at IPR.
For 15 years, Juliana was creative director at higher-ed software company SunGard. After merging with Datatel to become what’s now Ellucian, Juliana and his team were presented with the opportunity to brand the new company. That rebranding experience was still fresh in his memory.
“The checklist was prepared in my head of what we went through,” he said. “IT made it really simple for me to itemize the different pieces that would be affected, make sure the color pallet was intact and that anywhere this logo was used and broadcast would be consistent. It was timely, actually.”
Still, branding cloud security is a totally different beast.
“Each time we’re in a room with someone who’s thinking about migrating to the cloud, one of their biggest fears is security,” he said. “They fear major security issues by moving to the cloud.”
How do you assuage those fears? With a logo like this:

The chrome diamond plates, Juliana said, represent impenetrable strength — similar to the firm directions of a “hazard” street sign. Yet, they’re arranged like a cloud.
Boom. There you have it. Cloud security.
“It was a little bit of a struggle, but I was able to come out with something that totally hit the mark on all levels,” Juliana said.