Help Us Select A Fresh New Logo

Posted by : Craig | Posted on : Friday, September 19, 2008

19 Comments

Steve, September 19, 2008:

Wow… Great design. I like the icon but don’t like “budgetpulse” part on any of them.
Craig, September 19, 2008:

Thank you Steve. What do you think we can do to improve the “budgetpulse” aspect to the logo?
Lauren, September 19, 2008:

I like the second logo with the two shades of blue
nodietneeded, September 19, 2008:

I like the first one. It has the ‘green’ that helps me associate the logo with money.
Orange, September 20, 2008:

I liked the first one with the green shade, definitely it caught my attention with the complementing colors. by the way, loved the pie chart – money design, good job

http://orange4money.blogspot.com/
Orange, September 20, 2008:

Ohh forgot to add, if you are going to use the logo on a white background, like it is right now, the second and third logos, the word “pulse” sort of blends in with the background making hard to see and read, so that is why I choose the first one.

http://orange4money.blogspot.com/
Paulo Schilling, September 20, 2008:

I like the second logo of this post and the third of the PDF sent by email (round2-1.pdf).

I’m very excited with these changes on BudgetPulse!

Thx!
Craig, September 20, 2008:

@Orange

Thank you for your input. The reason for the more blend aspect to the bottom two colors is because the brand is “BudgetPulse.” With a darker color for “pulse” we may be afraid that the two words would be looked at more as “Budget” and “pulse” separately and not unified as a brand. This is the decision making process we are going through and appreciate everyone’s input.
Lisa Burmaan, September 21, 2008:

I like the first design which has a green “pulse”. After long time, i see frequent changes in budgetpulse.com. I appriciate all your hard work and support.
Sam at Fix My Personal Finance, September 23, 2008:

The 2nd one definitely is the way to go. The 1st and the 3rd logo, with the highlighted color in green and gray, they stick out like a sore thumb. The don’t blend well with the over-all look. So I’m betting for the 2nd.

Or if you should use green in “pulse”, ensure that the color of the dollar bill is as green as “pulse”.
Jamie, September 23, 2008:

I love the third option!
Craig, September 23, 2008:

@Sam

I agree that “pulse” stands out more with the green and for that reason, a lot of users have told us they like the green because how it is more dominate and represents money and financial health. It is a very close decision we are going to make and have received a lot of feedback on which logo to go with. The results will be posted this week.
Lindsay, September 24, 2008:

It looks like you’ve put together a helpful tool.

I vote for the first logo. I like the green to balance the green in the dollars.
Petra, September 25, 2008:

More meaning is better than less, so the green one is best, because it has the most “storytelling” capability (color of money). It says at least something about your service. The grey one has “currently undefined corporate” values. Should’t be your first choice, unless you have a strong B2B audience. But even then it communicates too little about your company you can use as emotional brand assets. The light blue one is friendly, but also ads no meaning you can use. Light blue doesn’t communicating anything of what I assume is mentioned in your mission statement or your brand DNA.

The lines on the No. 3 illustration are a no-go because they communicate “movement”.You want to say that people “balance” their budget, I guess? “Movement” is not the same as “balance”. The tilted pie chart is a weak image to visualise the strengths of your service. What are your strengths? That should be the first read of the image. (Think of the amazon logo. What is the first read?)

The three logos are ok, but even without having read your company goals, it seems that there is a lot to clarify about yourself and your company before it can be communicated in a logo. A logo will always within the first 3 seconds “inutitively” tell the true nature of a company. In your case all 3 versions say: “young, inexperienced, undefined”. I would reconsider if this is really what you want to communicate about a new service asking people to enter sensitive data and use the service over a long period of time. I’d focus more on messages like “young, stable, experienced, strong, with backup”. You can say that you are young, but only in conjunction with values reducing the fear factor. These brand values will then determine the colors of the logo (and options like “light blue” will then not clog up your decision process and waste everybody’s time). So if you want to have a strong logo: define 3- max 5 values your service has, then create a logo from that, making every element of the logo (color, composition, typography, illustration) justify it’s existence in communicating those values.
Craig, September 25, 2008:

@Lindsay

Thank you for your input. A lot of users like how the green matches the color of the money on the charts.

@Petra

Thank you for the detailed analysis for our logo. I agree that the third logo is weaker than the others and doesn’t represent a strong brand identity to the users.

I respect everything you have to say and the great insight you have given. The thought process behind logo 1 is as follows. We are trying to identify “BudgetPulse” as a brand. The color green is a two-fold metaphor. Not only does it represent money but it also represents “health,” and one of our goals is to promote financial health for our users.

As for the pie chart, the tilt shows the chart on a balance, to represent the “balance” we hope to achieve. It holds onto money representing the overall balanced budget we would like our users to achieve. One of the tools major strengths in visualizing this point to our users through the beautiful charts we have to offer.

I hope this reasoning gives you and everyone a little bit more insight into the storytelling process and why we have decided upon the structure of the logo.
Allan, October 6, 2008:

Number 3 – it’s the only one with a “pulse”
Sam, October 24, 2008:

Hi there, first of all I’d like to say that Budget Pulse is a really useful tool for me. Nevertheless, from the beginning I thought it could really use a better interface and overall graphic design.

Of those three logos, I would go for the second one. It’s the one that balances color the best. The first one I like, but it would need a new green, or a new blue, because right now they don’t quite fit toghether.
Having said that, I’m not really impressed by that logo. It does look better than the one you already have, in that this one is more developed.
But since you are working with a big studio as Nclud, I would go for something stronger and more original.

I’m a graphic designer myself, so I know a bit about this things. I strongly recommend that you consider other possibilities than the ones you showed here.

Best,
- Sam
Craig, October 28, 2008:

Thanks for your perspective Sam. You clearly don’t like the new proposed logo designs. We hope one of them will grow on you, but you’re proof we can’t please everyone.
Sam, October 28, 2008:

Right, I don’t think it’s bad… but well… you asked! Anyway, the important thing is what it DOES rather than what it looks like. And I really like what it does, so keep up the good work!