New Logo Design and Public Opinions

Last week I asked my Facebook friends and Twitter followers to vote on my new company’s logo. As expected, I received a myriad of letter and number combinations.

Here were the choices:

About 20 people voted.  Based on the public opinion, C1 was the winner. However, this wasn’t an national election. Asking for people’s opinions was dual-fold:

1. I wanted to gauge the reaction of the people close to me and see if they’re opinions reaffirmed what I already believed.
2. I wanted to give my friends and family an avenue to be involved in the process and a way to feel included.

So despite the vote, I decided to go with icon “A” and text “1.”

Reasons why I went with A1 instead of C1

Text “2” never stood a chance. I like “3” but text “1” was how I originally envisioned it. I like the emphasis on “Creative” depicted by the capital letters.

As for the icon, I like “C” better than “A.” That being said, “C” is flawed for a few reasons:

Scalability– This logo needs to look good on everything from a vinyl banner to a favicon. While I enjoy the design more, it’s not as easy to see as it gets smaller. Specifically, I’m thinking about the favicon which is 16px by 16px or for the signature in the footer section of the page aka “designed by…”

At those sizes, it’s hard to distinguish what the icon is.

Takeaway: Logos should be recognizable at any dimension.

Simplicity– The more I design, the more I appreciate useful, usable, and simple designs. It’s a driving factor in what I hope to do with the new company. Icon “C” is more thoughtful, giving the notion of internal thinking, it’s more busy then what I was hoping for.

Takeaway: If you can accomplish the same goal with less, try using less.

Cleverness– I really enjoy logos that leave me feeling clever. Logos like Fedex (look for the arrow) and Amazon (smiling/shipping from A to Z) make you feel good when you discover their secrets. I love that kind of stuff! (Click here for more examples)

I like the thought process you go through when looking at “A” opposed to “B.” The thought process happens within moments but it’s significant. When I look at “B,” I think, “It’s the letter C and, oh, it’s a gear too.” When I look at icon “A,” I think, “it’s a gear, oh wait, it’s the letter C. Cool.” It’s subtle but important to me.

Takeaway: Easter eggs are fun and people like feeling clever.

I will have my graphic designer, Heather Gerken (Heather also made our Happy Mitten Games logo), make one tweak to the design- someone suggested that I should rotate the inner-circle of icon “A” 15 degrees clockwise. That way it will look like it’s in motion and it won’t be as uniform.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the vote. I appreciate the feedback.

The color scheme will be the next vote.

What is your favorite color scheme? Vote in the comments below.

Location: Google Certification Conference
Music: The presenter’s voice
Beverage: Sprite