The VC machine: A tail of two logos
Quiz time: which of these two logos cost nothing and the other $70,000USD???
When Jobe and I started anbiun- we spent very little money getting our pitch together for VCs. We designed our first logo ourselves. It served us well through two rounds of financing. Heading into round three, our investors couldn’t spend money fast enough. They insisted we hire a west coast design firm to help shape our brand. Relunctantly, we agreed. We then chose USWeb in Portland. A few weeks later and a huge money burn – new logo. Was it worth 70k? You decide. The round logo is the freebie… the other logo (blowing bubbles) is the professional creation.
Categories: User Experience
Well not $70,000 USD, but sure much more than your crappy self design logo!
I have to agree, $70K is an exhorbitant cost for a startup branding exercise. If you were an established player where modifying your brand was going to have a significant impact then possibly the $70K would be worth it. But a startup with relatively no brand recognition, no way.
There seems to be an obsession with “West Coast” designers amongst tech firms which is completely misplaced. There are good designers, and good design firms everywhere. Ask yourself the following two questions: Does my designer listen to me? Can they justify what they are doing? If you can’t answer yes, then dump them.
“Creatives” who try to explain their designs by saying “it’s a aesthetic/creative/design/emotional thing… it can’t be explained” should be shot. Good design is about function and purpose, not opinion.
As for your logo… the professional one is definitely better, but not $70K better. This isn’t an opinion either, but fact. A good logo must be able to work in black and white, it must be clean and crisp and it should scale well. The professional one meets all of those criteria while your initial one, while not bad aesthetically, does not. That having been said, the professional one falls into the same old stereotypical high tech esoteric design that has absolutely nothing to do with your business and could be any high tech firm in any market. It sucks because it is a boilerplate design that is similar to about 2000 other logos. It says nothing to anyone and the only thing that would make it worse is to make it blue and give it a swoosh underneath.
Thanks Erik,
Good analysis. Having workediwth USWeb andother big design firms like Fitch, I agree-that they can provide good value. unfortunately the high price tagsand their “mystique” dimishes this value substantially.
BTW – the jpg of the free logo shown is quite distorted from the original. Nevertheless your comments on scaling etc still apply.
Cheers!
Hey guys, um this is very funny… the logo was designed not as a logo but for an onscreen interactive product. If you wanted it as a logo it could have been adapted very easily for print use.
Man, it seems like a million years ago… you guys doing ok?
- bob
LOL – yeah but we didn’t have the master-designer Bob Beaton around to help!!