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Comment by artembugara | Hacker News Reader

I am in a similar situation as you are. Our logo is also just a name written in Roboto font [1]

It’s enough. We also don’t have any illustrations on our website. Just text that explains our value proposition.

How many logos do you know? Apple, Google, Uber. Logos a damn hard.

How many companies do I know which I do not remember a logo? Stripe, Segment, etc. billion dollars companies which I know without a logo even though I might use them every day.

So, to just sum it up. You don’t need a logo, or design guidelines until you’re big enough that you can easily spend $10-50k to shape your brand — because that’s how much it usually cost for a good branding. Everything else will most likely be a waste of money, and more importantly waste of your time.

[1] https://newscatcherapi.com/

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I agree with you, but not fully: if there is no need or budget, then yes, a brand may not be a 1st priority. But in my experience as a designer, an effective brand will be a necessary ingredient to grow, as this is an expectation for a lot of people.

Regarding your brand: You cannot not communicate. What I saw in [1] example it's called a "no-brand" aesthetics: it's very minimalist and very neutral. And to be fair, I like it.

Looking at your website, I think the logo is perfectly fine for your target customer. I would just slightly adjusted the kerning and maybe used the same casing you have in the page title but other than it is def good enough!

But I don't think you need to spend as much for the branding as you suggest. I did a couple of branding projects for around $5K each, and that consisted of a logo, palette and typography. That is mostly enough for startups with a little bit of cash flow just getting out of the side-project phase.

It's also true that focusing solely on the logo and forgetting about what matter the most (the services offered by the company) is probably wrong. I like your approach - start simple and the update the logo afterwards, if you really point towards marketing.

This obviously depends on which area you're targeting, but I would say that for most of the business this is true :)

In any case, a logo isn't really written in stone, and they get refreshed after a couple of years.

Logomark and Logotype are two aspects of Logos. Some companies decide to do both, some only one.

Regardless, the purpose of a logo is to discern and identify amongst thousands of other similar looking logos. I lean towards Logomarks (Nike, Apple, Starbucks) and less towards (Stripe, CocaCola, Kellogs).

I recommend getting a logomark + logotype designed by a professional graphics designer.

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