The word Backdrop is always spelled with a capital "B" and lowercase "d", as a single word. The "CMS" portion is a separate word: "Backdrop CMS". Although the project is regularly referred to as simply "Backdrop", when needing disambiguation, the full name "Backdrop CMS" should be used.
The name "Backdrop" was first conceived by Mike McCaffrey as a play on the history of its parent software, Drupal. The original Drupal software was used to run a site named "drop.org" (since decommissioned in favor of drupal.org). One of the original goals of Backdrop CMS was to backport a large number of features from the drastically different Drupal 8 to a simpler architecture, and so the name came from combining "backport" with "drop" to form "Backdrop".
We believe Backdrop is a great name for a CMS, because it's always behind the scenes. The tagline "Put your content center stage" was recommended to pair with the name.
When abbreviating Backdrop (for an acronym or similar) the correct letter to use is B, and never BD. Since the "drop" in "Backdrop" is lower case the "d" should never appear in abbreviations of Backdrop CMS. "B CMS" or simply "B" are both acceptable. Similarly, when referring to this website, please call it "b.org" or "borg".
The Backdrop logo was designed by Darius Garza.
The logo is a black square with the lower right hand corner peeled back as a white triangle. Intended to represent a stylized backdrop (as in on a play stage) with a peeled back corner as though you're looking behind it. This geometic shape represents the simple and clean purpose of the Backdrop CMS project: to be the software behind your website.
When displaying with the logo or just as the wordmark, "backdrop" is lowercase. The font used for the wordmark is 'Source Sans Pro', but adjustments have been made to the positioning of each letter. The Backdrop mark should be positioned to the right of the wordmark when used together horizontally, as follows.
The Backdrop project avoids water analogies -- and imagery using drop shapes -- to avoid confusion with the Drupal project.
The Backdrop dragon was originally designed by Marc Bovino. The dragon is of the small, friendly variety, one we refer to lovingly as a lap-dragon. The dragon's name is Drop for three reasons. First, the most obvious, "Drop" is part of "Backdrop". Second, since Backdrop is avoiding water analogies and drop-shaped imagery, this is a place we can safely give a small hat-tip to the Drupal project. And third, "Dragon Drop" sounds an awful lot like "drag-and-drop", and that's just too hard to resist.
Just as the Drupal community has the Druplicon, the Backdrop community has Drop. The dragon belongs to the community as a whole, and can and should be adapted to suit any purpose. Change the color or posture, add a hat or a t-shirt. Use Drop to represent your product, company, camp, or whatever you like.
For more variations on the Backdrop logo and mascot, please download our Press Kit.