The Evolution of a Logo

Every logo starts somewhere; here's where ours started. This is the follow-up post on How to Build a Great Logo: 5 Things to Consider.

For some reason our name started off as "What Bands Want," but luckily it eventually changed to Kicknote as you'll see in our post 6 Steps to Naming: It's the same for Kids, Bands or Businesses. Here are some of the first designs. Please note that you can click on any of these to view the full-size image.

This first one was done by me (Brian) with my (very) limited skill. The important lesson is that you can't be afraid to try!

Moving forward, our newly inaugurated graphic designer tried to salvage my work. Poor guy.

As you can see we went through a few phases of this type of thing before we realized it wasn't working.

As we studied more and more what makes a great logo, things started to take a life of their own.

Eventually we ended up with the next image. It was pretty cool for a really focused, narrow group of alt-rock people (just like us!), but it certainly didn't apply to all music lovers and the different business types we wanted to appeal to. We decided to scrap everything and start with a completely new name and new feel. We do this a lot, and it's always a hard decision but it always turns out awesome- it's an essential part of of the creative process; hence 'a clean slate.'

After much deliberation we decided on the name Kicknote.com and we started with a blank slate- new name, new colors, new font, new images, new feel. The thought process is pretty self-explanatory from here on out.

Soundwaves are cool, so are headphones...

Combine them?

Lose the sound waves, attach the headphones, try some new fonts...

The headphones finally made it to the same line...

Web designer tries his hand and an ew font, bolding it up a little bit...Add some drop shadow to give it some definition...

Slap on the tagline, tone down the colors and we're good to go. Only took 8 months!

I'm sure this won't be the end of our logo-changing, but it's a solid base for the next few years. As you can see, designing a logo is just as much fun as picking a name and coming up with a tagline.