As we near the horizons of 2017 with patience, we brace for the next wave of dissolution, consolidation, disruption, and innovation. The question on everybody’s lips right now is “what will be the next greatest thing since sliced bread that everyone talks about?” Instead of vouching for the future, we decided to go back over the year that saw the birth of many great businesses and applaud their ingenuity and ground-breaking discoveries. In addition to the state of the art business ideas, some of these businesses have come up with extraordinary and memorable logo designs to define the face of their businesses. Here are some of the hottest businesses of 2016 with logos set to wow!
1. Regrained
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure! The brain child of Dan Kurzrock and Jordan Schwart, Regrained wishes to rescue the food industry grappling with mountainous heaps of food waste. Leveraging the nutritious, flavorful, yet sadly deemed “spent” and discarded beer grains from breweries, the company has concocted scrumptious snack bars, in classic flavor combinations such as honey and almonds IPA, and chocolate and coffee Snout bars, using all naturally resourced ingredients. Not only is the idea ingenious and unprecedentedly green, their logo is also fascinating and self-explanative of the company if one knows where to look. The logo is minimal, yet each letter form has been rendered in a slightly rough texture, resembling that of beer grain. The logo design is further supported by the motivating tagline; eat beer!
2. Starry
Brainchild of Chet Kanojia, the former CEO of Aereo, Starry has come up with wireless equipment aimed at delivering supercharged internet speeds, exceeding 1 Gigabyte/second to its customers, capitalizing on a state of the art technology known as “millimeter wave band active phased array.” Furthermore, the company announced the spectacular Starry station, First of its kind ambient touchscreen Wi-Fi station; a diligently constructed smart home internet station that allows users to glimpse into the device connectivity and internet health of their homes through an interactive 3.8” capacitive touchscreen.
In line with the modernity and ingenuity of the company, its logo design has been kept minimal, in a blue tone to instill trust in the company and exude reliability and efficiency. The logo design incorporates 5 inverted triangular elements to symbolize the 5 touch points on the starry station interface. On a second thought, they do appear to be shooting stars on a “starry” night!
3. Ritual
While pharmacy shelves are replete with myriad brands of vitamins out there, Katerina Schneider noticed that most had obsolete and unsatisfactory formulations. From D3 to Omega-3, her team of scientists at Ritual put their heads together to identify the only nutrients that we need to look and feel our best. After scouting the globe for the most vital ingredients, proprietary encapsulation technology was employed to enhance absorption and assimilation of the vitamins inside the body. The logo of this burgeoning company is shaped like a pill to reflect what the company has to offer. Since the vitamins focus on an adequate consumption of Vitamin D, the entire logo is colored in the hues of a rising sun, and the icon appear to be the image of a sun rising above the horizon. Overall, the brilliant yellow incites excitement about the product and give us a really optimistic perspective of the company.
4. Recharge
Have you ever felt exhausted and drained and needed a place to catch a quick snooze? By collaborating with hotels, Recharge, a San-Francisco Startup co-founded by Will Johnson, Christopher Lo, and Emmanuel Bamfo, charges people $40/hour or 0.66$/minute, and allows them to find an unobtrusive place to take a break, shower after a run, or get their own room to nap during those tiring days at work. For those whose office doesn’t come with a nap pod, this could be just the earth shattering idea of a century. In accordance with the name and the underlying essence of the company, “helping people recharge”, the logo of the company has been designed to incorporate the icon of a charging battery. The logo speaks volumes about what one could expect from the company and shows the progressive point of view of the business!
5. Nextbit
Devised by Tom Moss and Mike Chan, Nextbit is adopting a creative approach with the release of its cloud-based smartphone. The company has come up with an ordinary seeming Android smartphone, called Robin, but with a surprise; the phone offers unprecedentedly unlimited cloud storage! By harnessing the unrestricted potential of the cloud, Nextbit’s syncing technology allows users to “pause” the app when uninstalling it, so that the data can be reinstalled with ease the next time they want the app.
In order to clarify and simplify the promise of the brand, the logo incorporates a cloud symbol based on 6 geometric circles, while a modified rendition of Brown is used for the logotype. The contemporary color palette of the logo, relying on muted ocean tones, looks inspired by the ethereal and unique UI. The color selection, san serif typography, the visual language, and today’s over-simplified standards of the logo is a nod to millennials.
6. User Testing
Bad web and app experiences aren’t just utterly excruciating for customers; they cost millions of dollars to companies each year. Darrell Benatar and Dave Garr understand this dilemma and have come up with “User Testing” to allow developers to glean on-demand feedback from their target market at lightning-fast speed and a cost-effective price point. The feedback from real people help companies comprehend where they need to make improvements to offer the best possible experience to their visitors. Since the entire essence of the company lies in usability testing with real users, the logo features a chat symbol enveloping the ‘user’, to reflect the user centric approach of the company!
7. Zipline
Due to gaps in infrastructure and challenging terrains, especially in developing countries, more than two billion people are devoid of adequate access to essential medical products each year. However Keller Rinaudo, Will Hetzler and Keenan Wyrobek came up with a groundbreaking idea five years ago. Employing most of the approaches used by commercial airlines, Zip is a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed for a high level of safety, which can carry blood, medicine, and vaccines to remote hospitals and clinics at a moment’s notice.
Released in the April of 2016 from Rwanda, the San Francisco startup Zipline aspires to expand its lifesaving mission over an extensive area. The logo of the company has been kept minimal yet highly memorable. The ‘Z’ of ‘Zipline’ has been ingeniously broken up in the semblance of two navigating drones, to depict the mission of the company; “The future of healthcare is out for delivery.”
8. Truebill
Anybody who has ever forgotten to cancel a free trial is familiar with the onslaught of strange charges making mysterious appearances on their credit card bills. After Yahya Mokhtarzada found out that he had been obliviously paying $40 a month since the last 14 months for an unsolicited internet subscription, he decided to stop others from getting ripped off by unwanted subscriptions. Truebill is a startup that finds your hidden subscriptions, cancels all unwanted ones, and keeps you on top of your finances. The logo of the company rightly reflects its core mission. The logo icon hints at the continuous cycle that autonomously runs on after you install Truebill; Tracking and cancelling! The blue color of the logo is a testament to the reliability and efficiency one can find with Truebill.
9. Nebia
Revolutionizing the way we shower, Nebia employs H2MICRO technology to atomize water into thousands of tiny droplets, creating 10 times the surface area than can be achieved with a regular shower. According to the co-founder Philip Winter, more water coming into contact with the skin leaves it supple, revitalized, hydrated, and cleaner. Not only does a Nebia shower leave you ready to take on the day, it helps save thousands of gallons of water a year. Since the purpose of Nebia is to remind us how precious each drop of water is, the logo of this company is composed of the design of a water droplet to play around with the idea of conserving water. While the water droplet icon is quite conspicuous in blue, if you look closely, you’ll notice the negative space in the lettering of the logo forming another water droplet.
10. VarageSale
When you take eBay and make it local, you get Varagesale! Pet project of Tami Zuckerman, the Co-founder and CCO of Varagesale, this platform helps people sell, buy, and connect with other people in their communities and neighborhood. By unlocking local person-to-person transactions, Varagesale enables anyone to sell and buy low-cost items without friction. The trusted community approach of this local classified platform makes it one of the safest places to sell, buy, and connect over the internet. The well-designed app of this mushrooming startup is engaging, fast, and fun, and its logo has been designed to fit in to the friendly, casual, and community ambience of the app promising smooth, amiable, and safe transactions. The informal handwritten font, funky color, and the simple, unassuming wordmark logo couldn’t have blended any well within the application!
11. Bright
Launched by Jeff Judge, the CEO and co-founder of Signal, Bright launched in 2016 to offer subscription businesses with real-time SaaS metrics, such as average revenue per account, monthly recurring revenue, and other insights to aid them in expanding their business. Another 2016 Techstars Chicago members, Bright bids adieu to vanity metrics, and offer smart data insights designed to help businesses churn slower, grow faster, understand the health of their business, comprehend the segment of customers making up their revenue, and make prudent business decisions. In order to depict the expertise and proficiency of the company, its logo design incorporates the symbol of a pie chart in varying hues of blue, with a bar graph surfacing from it, to double as the letter B. Smart choice for the logo of a metrics business.
12. Brigade
The startup company Brigade is facing its make or break limelight moment in the election year. In a viable, yet bold, move to engage millennials in politics, Miche Capone, Jason Putorti, James Windon, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, and Sean Parker aspired to transform political discussions into an interactive app. Instead of sowing bitter seeds with people of conflicting political viewpoints, Brigade identifies your neighbors and friends with similar opinions so that you can team up to champion causes or sign petitions, and influence elections and politics together. Nicknamed “a Tinder for politics”, the logo for Brigade incorporates the subtle imagery of multiple pair of hands folding over each other to reflect the community spirit and utmost support fostered by the app.
13. Inverse
The awesome new venture backed publication of Dave Nemetz, Inverse is a male oriented website that caters to millennial men and incorporates all things that they find engaging; be it entertainment, technology, or science news. Inverse is a news media startup promising to deliver the most up-to-the-minute news based on the designs and innovation of the future. Paying tribute to the startup’s mission and aspirations of stimulating your thoughts by helping you to look at things upside down and inside out to help you have insight into our tomorrow and see the world from a new perspective, the logo of this burgeoning startup has been diligently designed. If you look closely, the negative space between ‘I’ and ‘V’ forms an ‘N’. This shows that there’s always more than what meets the eye!
14. Paribus
Brainchild of Eric Glyman, the prayers of all penny pinchers have been answered with Paribus, which capitalizes on the fact that most stores promise to refund the difference to customers if they introduce their own additional discount soon after the purchase or if a competitor store has the same product for less. Each time the user receives a receipt in their inbox, Paribus peruses through the product information and spends weeks scouting around for potential discounts. As soon as it manages to find one, the user becomes eligible for a refund. In line with the nature of the application, the logo of Paribus incorporates a ‘P’ shaped symbol, designed to double as a periscope, since that is what the application does; hides seamlessly and keeps an eye out so that it never misses a discount!
15. Operator
Virtual assistants are going to be all the rage in 2017, and operator is showing a promise to take the lead. Launching from the Expa incubator of Uber cofounder Garret Camp, the application operator helps you pick out presents and discover unique products from stylists, decorators, and expert designers, send flowers, and book flights; just like a responsible assistant would. While it is still in its infancy, being overshadowed by Facebook messenger, it is growing in popularity fast. Since the application allows you to chat one on one to see what the experts will pick out for you, your shopping experience is rendered as easy and effortless as texting. This is why the logo of the application incorporates a chat icon to reflect the one-to-one communication afforded by the application.
Takeaway For Startups In 2017
For startups in the throes of preparing for the grand launch in 2017, designing a viable logo that reflects the business objectives and the nature of the business is one of the most indispensable aspects of making your brand stay in the minds of the consumers even before the inauguration. As such, the commendable logo designs of the startups above can prove to be some measure of design inspiration for the startups in the midst of their logo designing process.
Truth be told, we are absolutely smitten with these business ideas and the real world dilemmas they have been designed to answer. Which do you think has the greatest chance of staying a-surface in 2017? Do share in the comments below.
