Both interesting ideas
We would like to see a bit more 3d aspect to the icons and maybe a gradient of some type to the names that make them pop a bit more, the blocks running diagonally up the middle might look good with a stair step rendering of some type, seems like this would be a good idea with a bit of Escher's style applied
As far as colors instead of blue black we would like to see warm/cool on the stair step version