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From March 28, 2011 RedCLARA has an online Portal and invites you to walk across that first room of its house in order to discover, after registration, all the rooms and services that have been modelled and conditioned to meet the needs of the academic, scientific, technological and innovation communities that are emerging within it.

RedCLARA. After those eight letters we will write from now on the history of advanced networks in Latin America.

But, why change? What for? Were the Latin American Cooperation of Advanced Networks, CLARA, and the network it promotes and sustains not well-known enough? Any answer could sound subjective and this is why the Marketing and Service Management Office carried out a brand appreciation study process and it concluded that members and users used the same name to refer to both the institution and the physical network: RedCLARA. However, CLARA as a brand featured an effective positioning of its logo, its brand awareness was very high; so much so that it overshadowed the RedCLARA logo’s awareness. So, what was the decision?: to keep this image and generate a new logo over it, that is, the new brand image.

The basic condition for the process was to maintain complete visual and conceptual coherence with the already old CLARA bran image, visually expressing the evolution that we wanted to convey and which is what RedCLARA does and for who it does it. The new image must favour the positioning of the RedCLARA brand, as the one which brings together the human association, CLARA, and the physical network, RedCLARA.

The result is not a new identity, but a new face constituted by the union of the new logo and slogan, and which make up the different graphic pieces, the Portal, and the future productions that online or in print speak about this great RedCLARA which is not simply a network, but +Network, and not only exists for science, but to generate +Science.

According to the graphic designer, Marcela González, who conducted the colour analysis for the new visual image, the chromatic proposal considers the concepts of academia, science, technology, advance, progress, innovation and connection. “This is why we chose mainly colours related to technology, blue and gray, and metallic textures plus pure and bright colours related to science and the academia. These colours, randomly combined in the isotype, reinforce the idea of future and communication”, she says.

+Network + Science

One of the new elements included in RedCLARA’s visual image is the slogan placed on the lower part of the logo, which is the result of a meticulous and lengthy work which began in during the second ALICE2/CLARA meeting, held in Managua, Nicaragua from 27 September to 1October 2010, when the first face-to-face meeting of the Communications and Public Relations Network of the institutions connected to RedCLARA (LA NRENs PR Network) took place.

“The meeting resulted in a list of suggested phrases with key words and determining elements of the work done by advanced networks. Later on, there was a selection and analysis process by the Executive Direction, the Innovation and Development Direction, the Marketing and Services Management Office, and CLARA’s Communications and Public Relations Management Office, in which the phrases were evaluated to reduce the list. Once this was done, at the end of December, we conducted an open consultation which featured the participation of representatives from all of CLARA’s member networks; the final result was the election of +Network +Science as our slogan. It was a highly inclusive work” tells María José López Pourailly, RedCLARA’s Communications and Public Relations Manager.

The RedCLARA “Brand Image and Corporate Identity Handbook” is available online at our network’s Portal in the section “Who we Are”, subsection “Institutional Image”. Download it in PDF and learn about which graphic pieces are associated to our new face.


Welcome home!

The Royal Spanish Academy mentions as the first meaning for the word Portal the following: “Hallway or first room in a house, through which one access the other rooms and where the main door is found”.

From March 28, 2011 RedCLARA has an online Portal and invites you to walk across that first room of its house in order to discover, after registration, all the rooms and services that have been modelled and conditioned to meet the needs of the academic, scientific, technological and innovation communities that are emerging within it, either thanks to the ALICE2 project, the IABD initiatives, the 2010 and 2011(and future) COMCLARA  programmes, and all those initiatives constituted by members of the national research and education networks (NREN) connected to RedCLARA, whether they already exist or get constituted in the future, and wish to access the benefits of the Web 2.0 tools made available for their better online interaction and collaboration, and services like desktop videoconference,  SIVIC multiconference, event management (Indico), documentation (DSpace), video-on-demand and others (some of them available right from March 28 and others will shortly be implemented).

In order to enjoy all these collaboration tools, you only need to visit the Portal and fill in the online registration system; a small effort that will provide you with great benefits.

It only remains for us to say: We are waiting for you, the doors are open!