Ask HN: Help me pick a logo for my web app, Preceden | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Help me pick a logo for my web app, Preceden

crowdspring.com

9 pointsmatt126 comments

Based on your project spec, the logos from snipp seem to be the most successful. I like how they use a similar set of colors to your screenshot. They are simple, elegant and compliment your app's UI.

If I had to choose, I would probably pick logo number 120. It's playful and modern. And I like the typeface!

But don't listen too much to other people. Part of the fun of running a startup is getting to choose your own logo! ;)

Completely concur on #120. Definitely my favorite.

I like 118 but 120 would be my second choice

I really like 120 when it's small. Magnified it's less appealing.

Great typeface, indeed.

Hmm, instead of posting on Crowdspring for creating my app's logo, I might just contact snipp to do it instead. Most of the good ones on that page are by him.

I was trying to figure out what I didn't like about a lot of them, and then I realized it's really the name I don't like.

I'm a fan of stylized text as a logo, which most of those aren't, so I wouldn't be happy with any of them for myself.

(Sorry if this isn't very helpful)

Preceden, similar to the word Precedent (which has to do with time), is nice to say and is nice to look at, I think. The .com, .net, .org, GMail, Twitter, and Facebook names were also available, which is a nice bonus.

Has anyone else tried Crowdspring or similar distributed freelance sites for designing entire website templates? (xhtml, css, images) If so, was your experience positive? What have you found leads to the best submissions? How did you decide on an offering price?

I'm a hypocrite for saying this since I'm the OP and I just paid $200 + $30 (submission cost) for this service, but a much better way to spend your money is on a few design and Photoshop books. That way you can stop depending on others for your basic design work. My Photoshop skills don't extend far beyond making gradients and some simple buttons, but even that has helped me tremendously in all the projects I've worked on.

PS: One of the benefits of working alone is that you're forced to learn a lot of different skills because you have to do everything yourself. A bit frustrating at times, but I'm more capable because of it.

Not keen on #120 or the rest of that designer's work. The gradients seem to be there just for the sake of being there and aren't subtle. There is little harmony between the icon and the type and the shapes appear too irregular also. Looks okay at a small size.

I like #111 and #44. #111 needs to have a thicker font and different colors. I don't like the tick in #44. #88 is okay but I'd be worried people thought the 'c' was an icon and the app was called Pre Eden. I would prefer if the c symbolized a clock instead. It has shades of Nike. I'd rather the cuts on the 'r' and 'e's weren't diagonal.

#59 and #60 look well and fit the brief but may appear a little generic.

My concern with 120 and the rest of Snipp's submissions are that the horizontal bars are curved. You'll notice on the Preceden screenshots that the timeline is made up almost entirely of rectangular shapes. To me, the distorted bars don't fit in with the rest of the site. As someone else pointed out, Snipp's are playful, but the rest of the site isn't. Time, by its nature, is a precise thing, and I think the logo should convey that.

On the same note, I asked early on that people use sans serif fonts because, like the curved bars, serif fonts don't fit well with the rest of the site.

As far as the casing, lowercase "preceden" has a lot of circular letters, which, again, stands in contrast to the timeline. However, uppercase "PRECEDEN" is more angular, like the timeline itself.

For these reasons, my favorite is 28. It's simple, angular, and the staggered bars make you think of the site's timelines, all of which I think would make it a great logo for the site. Thoughts?

To me the bulk of them come across as way too generic; you could just replace preceden with any company name. There's very few that have any character.

I like the ideas in 15 and 87, but not so much the rest of the logo.

I notice a lot of variance in how the name is written. Do you prefer "Preceden", "preceden" or "PRECEDEN"?

I'm working on a web app called Preceden for building simple, powerful timelines. It hasn't been released yet, but should be within the next three weeks.

I posted a project on CrowdSpring for a custom logo design and these are the submissions I received.

Which do you like and why?

I wouldn't pick one with the name in it. It's a hard name to read, hard name to remember, and makes for an awkward logotype.

I'd go with something conceptual instead. Too bad you didn't contact an actual design shop to do that for you, because none of the presented specimens go in the right direction -- conceptualizing the branding instead of visualizing the rather meaningless (by power of ambiguity) word.

You asked.

Thanks for the feedback. I like the name for several reasons, though I agree it usually seems a little awkward at first. But hey, what domain name these days doesn't?

Can you elaborate on conceptualizing the branding instead of visualizing the rather meaningless (by power of ambiguity) word? I don't follow.

Try and find you a designer that is willing to do to your "Preceden" what Apple's UI designer did to "Safari", if you want a literal example of what I meant. Illustrate the function, not the pronunciation.

120 for me. It incorporates the multiple lines, and conveys a lot of action with those lines just bursting out. Only thing I'd try to do is emphasize the whole line theme throughout your app so the logo makes a bit more sense. But it's definitely the most polished, professional, and exciting one for me.

On a side note, it's interesting to see some of the logos so blatantly rip off Plaxo's.

89 for me, definitely. Echoes the look of your app (assuming that is actually what it looks like in 91) and isn't too busy.

I find the most of the others a little distracting, random colours swirling all over the place.

Thanks -- I'll hold off on saying which one I like for now.

As far as the layout, I haven't spent much time on it yet (intentionally) and it'll likely look a lot different when it launches. The timeline, however, will mostly be the same.

I agree, 89 is my favorite as well.

89 is probably my second choice, after 28. I'm pretty sure the designer of 89 saw my high score on 28 and just modified it a bit because he knew I'd like it. Not a bad strategy.

What do you think of the bars on the left (89) vs on the right (28)?

They are very similar aren't they? But I like 89 much more, looks much neater tucked in on the left in my opinion.

I think just by convention, more sites have the logo on the left. Also, if you think of the three bars as physical objects, it sort of feels like the bars will topple over in 28. It kind of reminds me of the stack overflow logo a bit. Although, I guess you should consider the entries independently, I also like the designer of 89's work a little better.

111 suggests time while most of the others dont. 36 is interesting, but probably doesnt work.

Why are there so many withdrawn? Do people withdraw and resubmit to be on the frontpage?

When you give feedback, most people revise their designs and submit new ones. You don't have to withdraw old ones, but a lot of people do since the new submission will almost always be better than the original, assuming you took the feedback.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com