Evolution of a Logo

The Nouncer logo took about 3 month to develop with over 100 revisions, 5 designers, and a panel of 15 friends. Of the original 10 concepts received (for a bargain amount of $495), three concepts made it to the finish and evolved into mature logos. I find logo design a fascinating art and always wanted to have access to the artifacts of other companies, see how they ended up with the logo they are known for. As I was going through the process, I decided to share it with the world and post most of the revisions in some logical order for others to follow. I say “most” and “some” because putting every single pixel change or color test is just nuts.

The company I hired for the logo had a very interesting and inexpensive model delivering revisions the next business-day after comments were provided. They did an outstanding job on the logo and I think the results are great – even the logos I decided not to use (for now). I wanted to post their name and send some business their way but they recently got into some legal troubles involving unpaid employees, took money from customers without delivering any results, and generally stopped answering emails, phone calls,  and chat.

The first batch of logos are the crazy, all-over-the-map, cute-but-useless ideas. There are some very interesting concepts in there but none really communicate the idea of real-time content delivered to a wide audience. My favorite is the orange clam (the entire group).

The second batch is a logo I like very much which got great feedback from my panel but everyone kept saying “I love it but can’t tell you why.” I think it is a very simple and clean logo and will not be surprised to see it “adopted” by someone else one day. In this image and the ones to follow, the progression is in rows from left to right and top to bottom.

The third batch is a close second. I actually chose it as one of two final logos to use. My panel of friends was basically split in the middle between the final version of this concept and the one I ended up picking. I made the final decision to go with the other logo mostly because it is simpler and I believe that simplicity is a critical quality for a successful brand.

The last batch is the winner. It actually evolved from two separate concepts (shown in the first and second lines). I ask the designers to somehow combine them, and throw in some of the elements from the reject pile. When the logos from the third row showed up, I knew we were onto something. There are actually about 50+ more variations in this group of colors and countless versions of waves coming out of the dish / speaker image. After sending a email to the panel with about 12 of these variations for feedback a friend called to ask if I have lost my mind– “they all look exactly the same” she exclaimed.

I invite everyone to post their favorites and other feedback in the comments to this post. Use the batch number, row, and column. This might be hard with the first batch but I am sure people can find some creative descriptions.