microISV, Logo Round 1

The Logo Brief

My brief to the designers was to create a logo with two parts. First of all it needs to have the Component Factory name in a modern but professional font style. Second, and more important, is the creation of an image to go with the text.

It has to be an image that when seen without the text is still instantly recognizable. One look at the image should be enough to know the company. Remember that a logo is not just a pretty picture but the foundation of an identity that the user will associate with you for a long time.

I also want the image to have a professional but stylish feel. A difficult balance to achieve, but as the company is going to sell components based largely on the quality of presentation this is essential. If you visit a company that is selling visual components and the logo and website are of a poor quality, why would you even bother to check out the components themselves?

So lets see what each designer came up with as a first set of concepts...


Candidate A - $75 from India



I was very disappointed with this initial set of ideas. They all appear very flat, boring and frankly very amateurish. I would say that none of these are of a professional standard and even with some direction I doubt they could be progressed into anything worthwhile.

This was the first reply received and I became very worried that the idea of working with three cheap designers was going to back fire.


Candidate B - $125 from Romania



Phew, this is more like it. Not fantastic but certainly they had more potential to be worked with. A little disappointed that my brief about the picture being instantly recognized was not really been worked into the image. But I like the 3D effect of the boxes even if they are not obviously factory related.


Candidate C - $199 from Argentina



Aha, the best has been left to last. I am really pleased that they have been creative and come up with a variety of quite different ideas. The text on the first picture is really nice and I like the contrast in colors for the two words that place the emphasis on the word factory. Plus it looks quite modern without becoming so arty farty that it would date quickly.

Ding Ding, Round 2

It only took about 10 minutes to sit down with the concepts and decide on the next stage. Candidate A needed to be dropped entirely because I could see no way forward with that work. Still, that's only $75 wasted.

The feedback for Candidate B was to take the image of the 3D box but work it into a more realistic factory. I want to create an association in my market place of the image of a factory and my company.

Candidate C was instructed to work on the 3D folder logo and to try and add a smokestack. Also I like the clever use of 0's and 1's in the third picture as the way of drawing the smoke.

So far nothing is obviously grabbing my attention as the definite way to go forward but it is still early days in the design process. Lets see what they can do in the next round.