Collectorz.com is now "CLZ" at clz.com! / New logo and a new website

General
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Starting from the year 2000, our name has been “Collectorz.com” with our website at “www.collectorz.com”. Makes sense, right?

But since the release of our mobile apps, titled CLZ Comics, CLZ Movies, etc… many users started to refer to us as “CLZ”. So we figured, let’s go with the flow and officially rename the company to just “CLZ”!

So last week we made the big switch. Our company is now called “CLZ” and our website has moved to clz.com. (We have owned the cool CLZ.com 3-letter domain for many years and now we can finally make full use of it!)

But that’s not all. We took this opportunity to make several other big changes:

  • A new company logo and styling for the CLZ brand
  • A complete redesign of the CLZ website, with a fresh and modern styling
  • All CLZ mobile apps have new icons, to fit the CLZ brand and styling
  • Our web-based software, previously called Comic Connect, Movie Connect, etc… , is now simply CLZ Comics Web, CLZ Movies Web
  • Where necessary to make the distinction, we will refer to the mobile apps as “CLZ Books Mobile”, “CLZ Music Mobile” etc…
  • The CLZ Shop has moved from shop.collectorz.com to shop.clz.com.

About the new logo and website

The old Collectorz.com logo was designed in the year 2000, by our friend Johan, an ex-colleague of Sytske and me (Alwin) from the Lost Boys period. Back then, Johan created the logo and the 2000 version of the website. Through the years, the circular logo has served us well, basically unchanged, even though the website has seen several iterations.

Fast forward to 2024, Johan now runs a design company called Studio Black, together with his wife Sacha. So we thought, how cool would it be to hire Johan and Sacha again to do our new CLZ logo, website and app icons? So we contacted them and they agreed! Over the past few months, we have worked together through several iterations of the design. And we are very happy with the final result!

Thank you, Johan and Sacha!

The new CLZ logo:

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The new clz.com website:

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New icons for the CLZ mobile apps

To better fit the new brand logo, new website and styling, we also updated the icons for all 5 mobile apps. And while we were at it, we added support for dark and tinted / monochromatic mode.

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Dark mode:

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And these are the tinted / monochromatic versions of CLZ Comics:

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Coming up…

Most of the rebranding has been implemented, but we’re not done yet. These are the changes we are still working on:

ETA: in the course of next week.

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So…what does the new logo represent? It means nothing to me.

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So yeah…I’m just going to say it,
I absolutely loved the ‘old’ logo’s (even bought the mouse pad) but I absolutely hate this new logo. It makes no sense at all to me, and even if if does (after some explanation) I think it’s just ugly. Sorry.

That being said, I know this is all a matter of personal taste and you guys seem to like it so who am I to judge.

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We think the new logo is a strong logo, a strong symbol. It includes a kind of Z shape to refer to the prominent Z in our name, also a reference to the old logo for fun.

I am sure you will all get used to use and will learn to love it in the end :slight_smile:

Change is difficult, I know.
But sometimes change is necessary to make the next big step forward.

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Not that my opinion matters, but I tend to agree. And for those unfamiliar, will “CLZ” help convey what the products are for? “Collectorz” may have done a better job of that.

At least it might not be confused with something else:

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Thanks for your business advice. However…

Most users know of us as “CLZ”, many of them have not even heard of “Collectorz”. When people are recommending our apps and software to each other, they refer to us as “CLZ”. When people search for us on Google, in the App Store or Play Store, they search for “CLZ”.

And now the company is actually called “CLZ”. Which consolidates our branding.
In other words, we already WERE “CLZ”. We just made it official now.

We really did think this through. This has been discussed, prepared for and worked on for over 2 years. We know what we are doing, we did weigh all the pro’s and cons.

We are confident that this is a good move which will help further establish the CLZ brand in the collecting world.

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:+1:

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I’ll just say one more thing and then I’ll shut up.

I just think that when you keep being asked to explain your logo (here and on facebook) its simply not a strong logo/symbol by default.
That’s rule number 1 in design.
I think its great you’ve asked the same designer to create a new one, I just can’t wrap my head around the fact he came up with this…

The conversion to CLZ I get, although I have never in all the years I have used your software referred to you as CLZ myself (and probably never will), but apparently the newer generation of users does, so that’s marketing I guess.

I have nothing against change, not to change is to stand still. I know that.
I just think this is not a positive change.
And I’m not sensing much enthusiasm from the other club members either.

That’s it, I’ll let it rest :wink:

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I can agree with that.
But what about the old logo then? Was that so super clear it was about collection database software?

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We never received similar questions about that one.

  • what does the old logo mean?
  • how is it related to collecting?

There is exactly one other member commenting about it :slight_smile:

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Hahaa, yeah that’s true, the old logo didn’t scream database either, but at least it clearly stated ‘Collector’, so that’s a hint.
And to me it was physically pleasing to the eyes, and the new one is not (to me).
As I said, in the end it’s all a matter of taste and lets agree that we have different tastes on this issue.

And yes, there is only one other member commenting. So that’s a whole lot of members not saying they like it :wink:

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But do you think the logo should have a meaning of “database”? That is quite generic. We were thinking more about “collecting”.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely see your point.
I think a company logo should either clearly show a meaning of what the company does OR do something with the name / letters, OR the logo should just BE the name in an interesting font.

The new logo is somewhere in between I think. People are either looking for a meaning, like “how is this related to collecting?” OR they start looking for the letters “CLZ”, and fail to find the L.

I think design a logo that conveys the meaning of “collecting” is very hard to do, or may impossible.
So maybe we should have gone for some logo that has all 3 CLZ letters.
OR just a basic symbol with the letters CLZ in it, more like the old logo.

I don’t know… maybe it needs some tweaking.

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you’ve got me there, I meant to say ‘collectors database’ with emphasis on the ‘collecting’ part.
And you are right, a symbol that screams ‘Collecting’ is hard to design, if at all possible. The old symbol at least had the word in it and also, the circle with the little colored parts reminded me of ‘collecting all slices’ in Trivial Persuit.
Don’t know if it was meant that way but to me that made sort of sense. :sweat_smile:

So, personally I think the choice of hiding one letter in this new design is not as clear as you would like to believe and it would have been clearer to use the complete CLZ name.
Maybe even keep the full word collectorz in sight to identify what the CLZ stands for, but in a smaller font to shift focus to the new spelling of the company name. Maybe morph the old logo to the new name by using the ‘old’ big blue C and add the LZ in the same style, placing them where the colored parts are now, stretching it to a bit broader logo while playing with the colors on the LZ part for the different versions. Maybe placing the word ‘collectorz’ under the CLZ, supporting the new company name as it were.
But that’s not the direction you have chosen so it would take more then ‘some tweaking’.
I don’t know, we could go on for hours on this (and you’ve already put two years in it) But if you do decide to do some tweaking I would focus on the 3 letter option, not hidden but clearly in sight.

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What does “CLZ” even mean? Is it suppose to be short for “Collectorz”?

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Hi Alwin,

I would just like to add my opinion to this chatter about the new logo design. I’ve been subscribing to CLZ for a while now and while I liked to old design it was beginning to look rather dated. I really like the new logo, it’s fresh and bold and modern. I understand that some won’t like change but at the end of the day all companies update and reinvent their branding all the time.
As for the change to CLZ from Collectorz, I barely ever have called it the latter. Whenever I recommend your software (which is a lot) I always call it CLZ.
I would just like to finally add thank you to you and everyone else at CLZ for all the hard work in creating, maintaining and improving the software.

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@okun69

I too like the new logos :+1: and always called it CLZ as well.
What’s the big deal? I never called IMDb the Internet Movie Database either LOL.
A new coat of paint almost always makes the house look better.

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It stands for Coffee-Loving Zombies.

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first of all, there is no ‘big deal’, never was.
Alwin asked for our opinion on the new name and logo, so I gave mine.
Granted, that turned out to be a rather ongoing discussion, but never a ‘big deal’.
It’s nice for Alwin to (finally) get some positive reactions too.

the discussion was about the ‘blocky’ company logo thing, not the app icons, they’re ok I guess. At least clear on what the app is about. So no complaints there.

IMDb always presented themselves as that and not as the full name, so that’s not a fair comparison. And there actually was no discussion if that change of the company name was good or not. Just the ugly blocky logo :wink:

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@Bartje
Didn’t mean to offend you. I tend to do that without trying.
I like the new CLZ design. I suppose if it had rounded corners, it’d be better. Still, it could be worse, think eBay’s trans purse logo or many others that make no sense at all.
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Looks like the desktop legacy logo stayed the same. Don’t fix it if it isn’t broke.

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no worries, no offence taken. (and I tend to do the same thing :laughing: )

That’s true, they don’t do updates anymore for the desktop versions.
And those are the ones I use and probably will keep using for as long as possible (Comic, Books and Movie)
So my desktop icons should be save :grin: :+1: