To celebrate our 15th year of delivering quality QGIS support and development, we’ve decided to give our branding and website a significant upgrade. We think the new logo and branding represent our dedication to developing cutting-edge features for the open source GIS community while looking really cool doing it. We’ve also made some updates to our website to make it easier for you to find out about all of the services we offer.

A fresh look of the old Lutra

As it goes in business and life, sometimes you feel like you've outgrown something—this time, it was our website and logo. The old branding simply didn’t reflect the dynamism and passion we still have for building open-source GIS solutions.

With all due respect to otters—we consider them beautiful animals—we couldn’t find a suitable visual to include in the logo. However, you can still spot their footprints in our brand, just as you would in nature.

We also took inspiration from the otter’s world, incorporating earthy tones and natural textures. After all, our business is to help map this earth. The soil is visible even in the logo.

QGIS from the very start

In 2009, our founders Saber Razmjooei and Peter Wells decided that they wanted to break free from the doldrums of corporate life and start their own business based on the ethos of the open source community: freedom, openness and a healthy work-life balance. According to Pete, “I’d felt frustration in previous organisations where limitations on the use of open source software meant that I could not use the most flexible tools and workflows for what I wanted to achieve.” With these goals in mind, Pete and Saber set out to make it easier for anyone to adopt open source geospatial solutions. At that time, there was a steep learning curve for those who were unfamiliar with open source GIS. Nevertheless, the benefits and potential of the open source software, thanks to an experienced and dedicated community, were expanding quickly. 

Since our beginning, we have always provided support, training and migration assistance to customers who want to enjoy the benefits of QGIS and open source GIS solutions. Since Martin Dobias and Peter Petrik joined the team around 2015 to expand our technical expertise, we have also become active developers of core QGIS features such as point cloud, mesh data and 3D visualization. We also have developed our own cloud platform and app, Mergin Maps, which allows you to work on QGIS projects collaboratively and collect data in the field on a mobile device and synchronise it to your QGIS project.

To make the benefits and power of open source GIS solutions available to everyone

It's fair to say that Lutra Consulting is no longer unknown in the QGIS universe. While the team has grown to more than 25 people, the goal of the company is the same: to make the benefits and power of open source GIS solutions available to everyone. At the same time we want to emphasise the ethos of the open source community - freedom, responsibility and openness. Looking to the future, Saber hopes that Lutra will “be a leading force in the QGIS community, collaborating to achieve a standard of excellence that makes open-source GIS the preferred choice for everyone”. Pete wants to see Mergin Maps go even further to “become the logical choice for QGIS users doing field data collection.” Most importantly, we are excited to be able to work with such a passionate community that shares our goals to make the best GIS solutions open source and available to everyone!

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Lutra Consulting is a QGIS-focused expert provider of geospatial software development, consulting, training, and support services.

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