How to Create a Logo for your Next WordPress Product

Hey, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of WP Product Talk. So, you have decided to build a new WordPress product, and you know how important first impressions are. You can give it a name, of course, but when your audience first sees your brand and logo, that's an experience that they're not gonna forget, and you want it to matter.

You want it to stick in their memories for forever. How do you create a product brand to remember? That's what we're gonna discuss today on WP Product Talk. This is WP Product Talk, a place where every week we bring you insights, product marketing, business management and growth, customer experience, product development, and more. It's your go to podcast for WordPress product owners by WordPress product owners.

And now enjoy the show. Hey, Zach. Welcome. Welcome. Hi, Matt.

How are you doing? I'm good. I'm excited to talk about today's topic. Same here. Yeah.

And I'm Zach Katz. I have a few different brands, Matt. I think you and I might have the same number of brands somehow. Somehow. I I have GravityKit, Datakit, Trusted Login, and I might be forgetting something.

But, yeah, I I run those companies, and I have a lot of different branding experience, and I'm super psyched to talk about how, we made those brands happen. Absolutely. Who are you? I'm Matt Cromwell, cofounder of GiveWP and now now director of customer experience at Stellar WP, where we have, like, six brands over here. And, some of them we're gonna talk about today, highlight up on the screen, and have fun.

And today is actually the third episode of a new season of WP product talk in which we're going through each stage of building a WordPress product step by step. It's kind of a fun format that we put together. We launched this season talking about how to choose the right product to build. Then last week, we had a great conversation about how to fund your product, and that leads us to today where we talk about creating your brand and logo. Yeah.

And, the person that we are excited to talk about, this with is the Stellar WP person, Joel Butler. That's why we've invited him on to talk about all the experience he has with branding and logo design and and these types of choices. Hi, Joel. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Please introduce yourself and and what you do. Well, you've as you said, I'm Joe Butler. I am a graphic designer originally from The Dominican Republic, although I am now living in Spain. And part of what I've done is a lot of design for brands, for web based brands, and then also some work within the art world as well. And then, I've been with Stella WP for almost a year now.

And part of the things that I've done since I've been in the company in which you will see later has pretty much to do with rebranding as well. So that's been an exciting part of the work, and it's been really, really fun to be, part of this and seeing it all happen within this WordPress, WordPress ecosystem and with so many brands up out there that, you know, you need to stand out from and still feel somewhat familiar with, which is kinda like that interesting balance that we'll talk about later on. Absolutely. Nice. Hey, folks.

If you're watching here, live on YouTube or anywhere else, we'd love to answer your questions. So there's a little chat on the side there. Feel free to ask us your questions, and we'll highlight them on the screen and answer them live. If they're hard questions, we'll ask Joel to answer them. They're easy.

That's for me. We'll see what happens, but, welcome. Welcome. Let's jump into it. Joel, I really wanted to ask you a little bit about why logos and branding are so important from a product perspective.

I I mean, I went into it a little bit in our hook, but, I'd love to hear your take on it in particular. Well, I tend to humanize things a bit. And if we're talking about how important a brand or a logo is, it's how important is your face and your name to you and how people perceive you. So, to, like, sort of click this together, I'm gonna jump ahead a bit and and go into a difference on on a logo versus a brand. And, like, if you're talking about your logo, your logo is your face, your brand name would be, well, your name, Your logo type or the whole thing clicked together, your word mark would be your government ID where people can see what you look like and what you're called.

And then your brand is reputation, which is pretty much how you're perceived by others. And, sadly, as much as we wanna think we do, you have zero control over that. So you can pretty much guide people as to how you want to be perceived, but it ultimately is how they perceive you. So we put great efforts into how we would love to be perceived and then kind of sort of have to live with the actual perception out there and do our best to mold that, to where we wanna go. So that's and that's kinda like the big difference.

Like, the logos and the pieces come together, but then the brand is so much more like you've mentioned. And then like you've mentioned in other episodes in previous, seasons as well, it's it's that combination of even the tone of voice that your, that your your people have when they're getting a call from the support team. It has to do with how we behave at, an event when we have the company logo on us. That's all part of the brand. And if you're, like, a big big name and face to the company, even if you're not with the logo on you and people know you are that brand, well, literally, you are that brand.

So it it extends very, very far out and very far more complicated than just the logo. So I think that today, we're gonna be talking more about the logo part, and that is probably easier to grasp in one episode. Because if we go into brand, this could be, like, a whole season for it. Absolutely. Yeah.

We did have a conversation with, quite a while ago about, branding in particular. He's really passionate about the idea of branding and how, your your logo is just your representation, but your brand is kind of like who you are, who what you wanna represent in the world. And he was really, really pretty straightforward about saying, like, WordPress folks are not particularly good at the branding part sometimes. We like to stick a logo on a product and keep running, but thinking really holistically about what does it mean to be this product or in the world, and what how do I wanna represent myself in the world and things like that, I think are also super significant. Zach, what's your take?

Well, I think that it's hard to brand because it is so all encompassing. And so when you're talking about branding, you're when you say that Yoast says that people aren't good at it, I think that that's a reflection of the size of the average WordPress company and the the capabilities that the companies have to take the time to put together style guides and tone guides and, you know, from from setting up a booth at a WordCamp to, you know, the support form on your website, having those all aligned, that's a lot of work, and that takes a lot of dedication. So I, I agree that WordPress brands aren't as good as they could like, aren't as strong as they could be, but I also don't blame WordPress brands because, it's it sure is a lot of effort to get right. Absolutely. I I also think it has a lot to do with many of these things are were startups or are still startups.

And one of the big challenges oftentimes is once the brand is out there, how do I tackle updating it? How do I tackle a rebrand without losing that essence that I had? So it sometimes they're just there because someone may not know how to make it better without breaking it, and they just sort of stick to whatever it started being when they did not have the knowledge or the resources to make it great. So I think it also like you like you said, it it it talks about the size of the community. It talks about the how a lot of people are just empowered to start their own thing and kind of like, yeah.

We'll figure it out on the way. And that's one of the things that because you don't you can't really measure a return on it so directly. A lot of people just leave it for later. Mhmm. Absolutely.

Zach, you had kind of, like, a contrary intake too you wanted to chat about. What what what what is that? So, you know, we're trying to help product owners launch their new business in this season, launch their new product. And if it's if there's a choice between, do I focus on getting the branding right or do I focus on making the product good? I think the product wins every single time.

And there isn't always time to brand, when you're doing when you're focusing on making a good product. I think the name of your product, is really important in making sure that the the possibility for a good brand exists. But the I don't know if branding really matters as long as you look as long as your website looks professional, your code works, your support team is professional. Like, does and, obviously, branding matters. But does it really matter?

Yeah. It's a good one. If you're starting a new if you're starting a new product, I think there are two you could focus on your website. You could focus on all your brand messaging and and spend all your energy on that. And then what?

Like, you're stuck with the product that you already had. I I would focus more on, I would worry less about the brand and worry more about the launching of the product and making sure that your product announcement is good. And the brand is if it's a mediocre brand, I think the product launch will still go well. If it's a great brand, it might get a little more buzz. I think a brand is a more mature concept that is okay to to start off with whatever you got.

Just start with something and then refine it later even though it might take a lot longer than it should. And I have, I have experience with that as well. I wanna needle at that a little bit, but Okay. Like, you when you say brand, I mean because we've been trying to, like, trying to separate those terms, brand from logo. Sure.

You're you're really saying, like, don't worry about the brand, or are you saying don't worry about the logo? So are you saying both? Let's say, like, logo plus a background image that you put on x or you put on Facebook or you put on, like, the that all of a sudden is starting to be a brand with brand colors and, like, brand like, typography and stuff like that. You're starting to describe like, the way your logo feels in different contexts is starting to be a brand. And you can you can go ham and haw.

I I've looked at a lot of fonts over my life, and I don't think it really mattered to my customers as much as I think. As long as you get the concept of the font matching the concept of your brand, which is something we're gonna be talking about, like, making sure that your brand fits your audience. Yeah. You gotta make sure it fits the audience. So if it's too casual, that's not good.

If it's too formal, it might, isolate people. You wanna make sure it's the right tone, but I don't think it really matters. I guess one one thing I'll I'll lean in on there also is, like, it it kinda depends a little bit on the product in my mind. Like, if I'm going to if I head to Home Depot and I need a hammer, there's gonna be, you know, six hammers I could choose from. I don't really care too much about what they call the hammer.

Like, I know that it's a hammer. I'm gonna pick it up. I'm gonna feel it in my hand, and and I'm gonna get because you trust the Home Depot brand, I would argue, to allow for a refund. I'm not talking about Home Depot. I'm talking about the brand new suggesting that the that the cost of the hammer, matters.

So if you're if you have a website that looks professional and your brand is but but your brand is kinda weak, it's like, well, it says here thirty day refund guarantee. There's a testimonials. Like, the messaging of your your product offering does matter. I'm trusting Home Depot's brand when I go to buy somebody else's hammer. Like Yes.

You know? Yeah. No. That that but I'm just talking about, like, plugins. If plugins are hammers, like, I'm I'm I'm like, I don't care that much about what they're called.

But if if I'm not buying a hammer, if I'm buying a house, then I'm gonna be a lot choosier. I'm gonna, like, really be looking at the neighborhood. I'm gonna really be looking at, a lot of different things about the area. I'm gonna really wanna see, like, a foundational, inspection, and things like that. And, truthfully, with our products, there are plenty of products that are hammers, and there are some products that are houses.

And, like, sometimes that branding, the whole package kind of matters a lot more when when there's more stakes involved, I guess. But it's a good one. It's good one. I do think you both have, like, a lot of of you're right in in so many levels on both sides of of that discussion. I could argue both sides of this for a very long time, but the only one thing good.

Yeah. It's if if we're going for startup, of course, if your product's not good, you're not going anywhere. So why was when I was saying earlier that oftentimes, we have logos and brands that just remain as they were from the startup because the challenge of grabbing a hold of it and rebranding it later on seems daunting. I do think you need to be honest with yourself. Like, I can't do it now, but I do need to do this at some point.

And then don't go crazy at the beginning. You could do a perfectly good typographic logo where it's just like a really nice font with your very clearly stated brand name, when it works on different backgrounds, when it works in different colors, and that'll take you a couple of days and a few tries. And just make sure it's legible and it's recognizable. That's, like, the bare minimum, like or the MVP. And then, yes, of course, at some point later on, you can go back and revisit that and say, okay.

This needs to grow. This needs to expand. This needs to be more precise. Yeah. And so let's talk a bit about the process for, like, where do we start?

How does the how does, how what are some common approaches to starting, to develop a brand, develop a logo? Like, Joel, I'd love to hear how you approach this. Well, in the same sense that you would approach starting any product, you have to dive into research. And this research entails going into, on the one hand, your competitors, and on the other hand, and in our case, particularly, WordPress in general. And it's like, okay.

What do WordPress, plug in logos look like generally? Those that are my direct competitors, those that are not. Why? Because I need to feel part of that. Like, if I go into WordPress with a logo that looks like it belongs to a hotel, it's really not gonna work.

So you do need to feel part of the industry that you're in, and then you look at your competitors and okay. I need to look different from this one in particular. Or similar to. Or similar. But, I mean, usually, you want some differentiation so people know it's you and not the other one.

Yeah. But it's similar enough that you people understand it's the same sort of product, sort of solution. When I mentioned hotels in particular, like, let's talk about font. Serif versus sans serif font. Very first basic division here is banks, law firms tend to go for classic serif fonts that tend to be either very tall, or if they're gonna be white, they're gonna be thin.

Because that feels elegant, but that also feels the serif, gives it a base, so it feels stable, trustworthy. If you go for, like, a resort or a spa, they seem to favor thinner light typefaces because that's how they want you to, like they want you to feel like it's a light place to be in. The tech industry seems to favor sensor medium to bold typefaces, which tend to feel more current and more modern. And then we can go into, like, more customized ones with, like, either rounder or the grotesque, and all that. But it tends to be more on, like, in those three divisions sort of what is common in your industry so that you are part of that.

Nice. And I think that's a good starting point. Interesting. I also think that it's important to consider who your audience is right off the bat. So like like Joel was saying, different feelings, are are reflected graphically in different ways.

And if you would know that you're gonna be targeting enterprise customers, you better have an enterprise looking logo compared to if you're gonna be targeting just the common WordPress user, it it should feel more approachable. And those are reflected in color choices, in typography, in in the in in the like, the relative sizes of things. Like, if you think about, geometric versus handwritten, typography, they they say different things about, like, this is computery, geometric, handwritten. This is human. So if you want a more human brand, you approach it from a typographic position where of, like, okay.

I'm gonna go more toward a natural looking font. And I think the give logo, which we're gonna get to later in the episode, is a great representation of that. Yeah. Absolutely. That's a good point.

Hey, Joel. I wanted to bring it back to you a little bit, and talk through kind of, like, how you approach, logo design from a couple different perspectives. And, in many ways, like, of course, Stellar WP brands or even the company is kind of like you could think of us like a client, even though that's not the the actual relationship. But, like, we come to you and we're like, hey. We're gonna build this brand, this logo, then you gotta walk us through, like, how to think through the right things.

What are kind of, like, some major kind of big bucket approaches to up to asking that question and starting to do the work of of thinking through a a logo, specifically? Okay. Like, if we go then past the this font and and stuff that we're talking about, and you first wanna, again, know who you're talking to and what industry you're in. And then your first choice is if you're gonna be abstract or very figurative in the shapes that you wanna work with. And that is that comes up with how other brands in your industry work and then how, tangible what you're offering is.

So there are moments where you can have, like, a very, very defined icon that it's a very recognizable object that makes sense to your brand. And sometimes it's better, if it's not. Because, for example, a brand like Stella WP, which is like an umbrella brand where other brands live under it, probably is best to whether it's if it's gonna be figurative, not have it be something way too specific, which in the end, I mean, planet is very figurative and very specific, but it can be so many things and it can fit in so many places, and it gives you space to be broader. And then if you look at one of the sub one of the daughter brands, let's call it, which is StellarPay, it goes into a very different space where it's a very geometric brand, very simplistic, very minimal. And it fits under it because of a certain detail that that is aligned throughout, and we'll see it when we start looking at them.

But then that also could work as future, projects that Stellar may be putting out come out. I mean, there are there are ways to keep them linked and aligned, and that's something we we can we'll discuss when we're looking at the logos as well. But then first, like, questions I would have is, okay. Are you trying to make this brand more serious, more enterprise? Are you trying to make the brand feel more playful, more, irreverent to a sense if it could be?

If if you wanted to be more modern in a sense of of, like, relevant and culturally relevant now or because modern is a weird word to use because it can mean so many things to so many different people. But you wanna be to feel more current or you wanna feel more classic. Technology tends to favor things that feel current, but there's value in combining things that can be timeless. And that's something that, that was word I think I mentioned when we were looking at the give logo earlier that it's something that the moment we bring that out, it's such an organic logo that you could have said, this may feel trendy, but in the end, actually, it's not. It's been very timeless just because of that humanness to it and and the fact that the shapes are not as complex as they seem.

And you keep on reading more and more things as you look at it because there's a leaf in there. There's growth in there. There's so much into that logo. And I think those are things you have to keep in mind, and they can be expressed in so many different ways. Like, what does your brand do?

Like, what does your product do? What what are you aiming to get your product to do for your customers? And something like give will allow clients to grow because funding for nonprofits is basically growth. So that's green is a really decided, like, very, very direct connection to that. And the shape of that leaf, those are two things that really signify growth in in a very powerful way.

Nice. So that's kind of, like, sort of how you could start approaching it. Like, what things move me in the direction of thinking of what my product does and how I could start telling this story. And what about colors? Because colors mean a lot of different things across the world.

And I know that in The US, green means money, but I think in Asian cultures, red is more predominantly associated with prosperity. So when you're creating a brand, how much do you think about the color space of the of the marketing materials? To me, that color space is very important, but that to me is also part of the brand, not necessarily a logo. And I'm gonna spoil my big, advice for that I have for the end, and it's like, make sure that whatever you're designing works in flat black and white. Yeah.

If your logo does not work flat black and white at a favicon level, it's not gonna work. Yeah. So we tend to overcomplicate logos oftentimes. And then also that possibility of having it work black and white in a flat environment is gonna also help you make sure it's a timeless logo. And you will see when we when we talk about, the still WP logo that it's not necessarily anywhere near flat nor black and white, in its current state.

But the way this logo is designed, we can dress that logo in so many different colors as time passes, but there is a flat black and a flat white version that work just as well as the one you see in color now. And that makes it seem that now gradients are sort of trendy. We have a we have a very similar, gradient on our background here. Mhmm. They may fall out of trend tomorrow, and we can very quickly adapt that coloring into something that's relevant at the moment.

Mhmm. I like that idea. Changing logo. Yeah. I like that idea that that color is part of the brand, and that the logo could be adaptive, to different colors, but also how important, the white version or the black version is.

That's really interesting. I feel like I almost wanna see if you can just grab the white version of the Stellar logo and throw it into that thing just so we could show that too because that's a really good point. But, I don't know if I even sent you that link, but, I don't know. We'll we'll figure it out. But, Zach, you also had, some comments about processes of of getting, logos.

And, you know, you and me both, like, as, you know, bootstrap type of, startup folks who are just, like, thinking exactly what you were thinking in the beginning of, like, I just gotta get this product out the door. I don't care what it looks like. Give me give me something nice that that that I can stick on my product. We gotta we we gotta be scrappy about our processes of how we get them at that stage. Often, we don't have the funds to hire a really good designer and whatnot.

You have a couple examples of, processes you've done. Yeah. And so I I have a few different brands, and GravityView was my first brand that I I really worked to develop. Well, it's not true. I've I had another product that I did the logo for myself, but that that was fine.

GravityView was the first one I cared about. And I actually went to 99designs.com, which still exists. And it's a really great service for people who know they want a logo, know they want they they also have more, graphics available, not just the logo, but also, like, Facebook and social media headers and background images and things like that. If you know you want a logo and the graphics and you have a brief, or even if you don't have a brief, you can go to 99designs.com, put together a, a bidding structure and say, I wanna pay this much for a logo. Whoever wins the logo contest will get this money.

And then you can describe what you want, or you can point and click at some of their logo examples and say, this is the type of thing that I like for this project. And then you get to choose the winner. One of the nice things about or a few nice things about that. Number one, you can get a bunch of different designs from a bunch of different designers, all without paying anything until you choose the right design. So that's that's one nice thing about it.

Number two, ninety nine designs also has built in a polling system where you can share links with your friends or your colleagues and say, hey. This is, here are my top picks for the designs. What do you think? And they can vote on it and give feedback and notes. And then, three, they have a built in revision process so that you can say, hey, I like this design, but this part I don't think is good.

And the designers will then submit revisions to the designs that have already submitted. And you end up with hundreds of designs that you could pick from. And, and I feel like it has resulted in it was a really good GravityView logo back in the day. I did it for, Trusted Login behind me, right here. I'm happy with that.

And I also did it with Datakit. I'm happy with that. And it the the process makes takes the pressure off and it says, You know what? I don't need to spend, you know, a $10,000 for a premium, you know, graphic designer to do this, I can I can outsource it and have it done well enough to just move on to the next thing, which is building the product and releasing, the best possible thing? So I recommend 99designs.com, but I also refreshed GravityView's logo to, in a few years ago.

I went with a a professional design firm, called Parakeet, and I had a really good experience with them where they created a refresh of that logo and created, matching, add on icons. So that's one of the things that Joel was talking about earlier is trying to find a graphical language that you could reuse throughout the rest of your product line. So Gravity Kit, we have many different plugins, and we wanted to have a similar look to each one of the icons that also match the parent logo like we were talking with the umbrella, company. So, we hired Parakeet, they did a great job with the icons and the logos, and it gave us a visual language that we are now using to our new website is coming any day now, with this updated brand feeling. And this brand rebranding of GravityView took the took the brand from more casual to more professional.

Nice. Because that was one of the things we wanted to do is to show this is not a, you know, fly by night company. This is we've been around for ten years. We are we we have solid products, and, we want to reflect that in the design and the branding. Pun intended.

I'm sure that's perfect. That's awesome. I I will say that I've like, folks like Joel might have mixed feelings about things like ninety nine designs. We've definitely heard some, some valid criticism that, like, it's not fun to go and compete and then get $0. But there's also all kinds of interesting rules you can add in there, that that kinda prevent against that.

We should If you do use 99 designs, make sure you do not publicly show the submissions because everybody's just gonna rip everybody off. Mhmm. So you make them all private. That's a good that's that's a must, if you use 99 designs. Nice.

I actually, redesigned the WP Prog Talk, logo with 99 designs also. And, that was a fun process, very similar. But, nice. Well, let's get into some examples, and I want you all to start leading a little bit while I swap out the, the presentation because I did get Joel did, drop in the other logo. But, Joel, this is the Solid WP logo.

I'll I'll definitely talk about it some, but, I'd love to hear a little bit from you just in terms of, impression, of of this logo, and what it communicates to you and things like that because, it's a it was a process for sure for us. But, what's your take? Well, to me, this logo is very interesting in a few different levels, and I'm gonna stick a lot into the icon part of it first. And it's even though it's a shape, it's a very typographic logo because in the end, that is an s inside that circle. And then it's very stylized, but, ultimately, it's the letter s.

The angle of the direction of those strokes, it definitely evokes motion and speed, which is something that you want from when you're using our products. And there's a certain symmetry to that logo, which it's kind of like in a diagonal, but but it is symmetrical that gives it a sense of stability, which when we're talking about a product for security, you want. You want a sense of stability. And even though it's a dynamic looking logo and it is in a round shape, notice that you don't feel like it's toppling around. It's very well placed, and it stays put visually.

So that's interesting to get with a round logo and a dynamic shape. And then you have the color purple, which is a combination of red, which is energetic, and blue, which is calming. So you're getting speed, motion, action, but you're also getting calm. You're getting a something that feels safe. And there's something particular about purple that makes it very interesting to the tech industry and to everything that wants to feel technological, futuristic, modern, new, And it's the fact that it's a very scarce color in nature, but it also feels like it's something built, made, which is some which is why you're gonna find it in a lot of futuristic feeling pieces and things.

And that's good for tech. And then, also, if we go back in a completely different direction, historically, purple has been associated with knowledge and wisdom. Oh, wow. Yeah. I know that.

Yes. Like, both bishops, tend to be in purple, and they used to be, like, a source of wisdom back then. Mhmm. So, like, that's just one of the examples on on why purple has been associated a lot with knowledge and wisdom. So that's also interesting for a product like this because it does give you a sense of of you feeling like it's, it gives you confidence and trust in the product.

Yeah. Then, of course, you have, solid in a big bold solid font, that is wider than taller to an extent or so it feels so it grounds it. And then the WP just because it's there to, like, expand on it, then it's lighter and it sort of just accompanies. And that's something that you will see we, we grabbed and ran with when we got to the style of VP. So that's also another thing.

We have products that are related, and we have things in our logos that have been picked from here and there to make them related. That's awesome. I mean, honestly, Joel, you weren't with the company at the time, but, like, all the things you're saying are exactly what we were thinking and wanting to communicate with this logo. Our other designer, Alberto, was heavily involved here, and we had another one named Elle, who helped us as well. It was a really very collaborative process, but we really wanted to make sure to highlight, that that that foundational aspect that you're highlighting, and that modern, and safe feeling as well.

So I love the way you talked about purple and the blue and the and the red mix and all those things. That that's % what we were thinking. So, fun fun question from another stellar person in the comments there. Stephanie Hudson is a important question. How do you make it pop?

You just make it bigger. Just or you I used to have a teacher that used to say, if you're not sure, make it bigger, and if you're still not sure, make it red. But, I mean, that's kind of, like, the crazy part of it. But, I mean, you make it pop good place. With with contrast.

Notice how this logo pops out of that black background. And, again, if you go to the white background, you make it pop with contrast. And and contrast is not only colors. Contrast can only be shapes. If and contrast can be the use of space, how cramped or or spacious something can feel.

And when you have something that feels continuous and structured, whenever you break it, you're gonna call attention to it. So if you have a website that is very boxed in, like, things are boxed in, if you leave a large free space and you play something in there, you're gonna attract attention to that. So, like, there are ways visually to create that sense of something popping that are created by many different ways of creating contrast. That's awesome. And for me, for what makes this logo pop is the icon being separate from the, from the type in a really it gives it really nice space between the the circle and the word solid.

And then the choice for the word solid and the, like, the typeface to not have round o's and, d's, but have it be squished. Mhmm. That makes it so that the icon does it doesn't feel repeated, with because there's a lot of o d, capital p. There's a lot of opportunity for the those gaps in in the negative space to look like the circle, but it doesn't because of the typeface choice. Interesting.

That's really interesting. That's awesome. And we could have used the s from the word solid into the Yeah. Triple ship, and that would have been so boring and sadly, it's something we do a lot. And it's something that if you don't know what to do and it's the first logo and you need a logo for tomorrow, by all means, go for it.

But know that you will need to revise that. Yeah. Yeah. We'd experimented with that a little bit. And as soon as we experimented with with it, we were like, no.

That sucks. No. Plus, I'd I mean, it's no mystery to anyone who's worked with logo. Like, there are letters that are a nightmare to work with, and the s is one of them. Mhmm.

Mhmm. There are so many ways to misshape an s Mhmm. So easily. The w tends to be a horrible one to work with topographically as well. But, I mean, it is crazy to get an, a logo based on the letter s that feels like it's Yeah.

There, and it's not moving around on it. It's not toppling over, and it's just there, static in place. Yeah. And look at the shapes of the horizontal lines in the s of the icon and how they kind of match the, white space in in the s itself, the negative space there. So Mhmm.

I think I think it's really well done. And honestly, this is the best representation of the Solid WP logo that I've seen. It just on its own, like, in on on black, it looks really, really good. Nice. And I haven't taken the time to appreciate it in this way before.

So Well, there we go. We did this show for you, Zach. We got quite a few examples. So and I I don't wanna spend a ton of time on give because we have talked about it quite a lot. The one thing I wanna highlight here that I I don't know how, but I grabbed a version of this logo that isn't totally complete.

When we were, creating this logo, we wanted it to have also a bit of depth, and that the depth would kind of add to that organic feel like Joel said earlier when when he was talking about the give logo. And there so there was actually some shading, in parts where the letters where the cursive parts actually overlap. So like a dark shading right at the tip of the g where the I connects, some shading, in that v loop a little bit and at the beginning of the v, and then also a strong shading actually where on the par on the bar that overlaps where the e is as well, to try to really have the whole thing feel, hand drawn, and, and and and you can notice that it that it's, has depth a little bit. I love, Joel, that you noticed the the leaf. That was actually really, really, really important, and, actually, not everybody notices the leaf.

And, of course, the leaf is the g. And there's also another another figure hidden in there that I don't know how apparent it was meant to be, but, I mean, there's someone giving out something. Oh, yeah. The eye is extending an arm into that leaf. So, I mean, they're that's also another thing that's kind of, it may may make the logo feel a bit whimsical, but also gives it so much more meaning.

And I like that it's shown here, in a flat form because it shows that it does work without the shading as well. Yeah. And and I hadn't noticed the the figure until today either where the the eye being a figure. The the the, the original designer actually wanted to, like, emphasize that even more, and we we scaled it back. And, and we actually were like, we wanna emphasize the leaf a lot more.

Mhmm. And if I think that was a good choice. It could have gotten kinda weird and awkward, when you start making letters into people too much and stuff. But, yeah. So, I I was saying before we got on, like, I've been really, really happy that, it's been ten years now, and, this give logo has has stood the test of time over over quite a bit, and, it's still carrying us through strong.

So I'm I'm really happy with it overall. Next, DataKit. Yeah. And so DataKit, is it's a, it's a product that is designed to show any form of tabulate data from any data source and make it usable to people. And the challenge was to to make that generic enough.

I didn't feel like making a like, when I was naming the company, I wanted to keep it, rhyming with the, gravity kit, which is my other one of my other brands. So I used the word kit, and data was just the right right right name for the, for the product. I wanted to have something that connected that showed that pieces are connecting and fitting together and becoming cohesive as a whole, that there was, ability to have outside influence, which is the part of the blue arrow in on the top right, like, showing either going in or coming out, and also, fit in with the other tools in the ecosystem. Like Joel was talking about, I looked at, competitors in the space, wanted to make sure that the data kit didn't feel out of place when you were talking about, data processing and and, and dashboard creation. And, like, the hexagon as a geometric form is stable like, is strong and and good, and, I just didn't worry too much.

Like, this is using Poppins, type font, which is on Google, as a free font. It's a popular font. It's a well used font, and but it's a good font. I I went through, you know, hundreds of different, you know, fonts to see if there was one that I like more, and, really, there wasn't one that I liked appreciably more. And I think that choosing a font that's common, like a lot of people were using Helvetica very heavily a lot of the time.

It says, yeah, I'm one of those. Mhmm. So if you see Poppins, you might be like, oh, it's a, you know, a tech software thing. Like, just associative without even if people don't even know it's Poppins, they'll be able to say, oh, yeah. It's like that other stuff.

So I didn't wanna fret too much about it. I created a brief in 99 designs and said what it does, pointed it to some competitors, and, said I wanted to be, you know, tech. And I chose this one after, a very, very hard decision between this and a more, you know, unique looking logo. I chose this one because I felt it was, more generic in a good way in the sense that, like, not objectionable, pretty clear that it's kind of something along the lines of what we might do. Yep.

I really like, how the the icon a lot. The icon has some, some real good variety to it, and I like the two shades of blue. Personally, although I may I might be problematic for some folks, in terms of recognizing that it is two shades of blue. Right. But I'm sure you probably have some variations of it in different ways.

But overall, it's really, really bold and clear and clean. I really like it. Yeah. Joel, what about you? Well, I was started thinking about what you said with the shades of blue, but I think that could probably work the same if there was no two different shades of blue.

It still will convey the same message. So that's kind of one of the things that I was, mentioning earlier. Like, it should work without them. It this just add another layer of meaning Yeah. Which is a good thing.

Yeah. And I'm a big fan of fonts that are seemingly common maybe. One of my teachers, at at one point in time told me he had built an entire his entire career on six fonts, and they're all part of what comes in well, most of them are part of what comes preinstalled in almost every computer. Mhmm. And I'm talking about someone who made brands like American Airlines, United College of Benetton, like, really big brands.

The New York subway map system, like, this it's, built by the same person. And, I mean Those are all Helvetica. Right? Like Most of them most of them are Helvetica. Yeah.

Mhmm. So And He didn't do the new Jaguar one, did he? That one? No. Okay.

It would and it was either like, you would find a lot of Helvetica and a lot of Futura in his work. Mhmm. I mean, you can't go wrong. No. Exactly.

Everybody got fired for choosing Helvetica or Futura for him. So, I mean, if if it works for the message you're conveying and if you're looking nowadays, we do have Google Fonts where we have, like, a wide variety, but, like, while background, we didn't have so many of them. If you could grab get your hands on a font that didn't need to become an extra expenditure, it was it was a win. Same thing as we were saying. Like, if you're starting out, you're probably using your funding for the product, not for the brand.

So, again, it's there are places where you can keep it simple at the beginning, and then you can complicate it later on if necessary. You don't have to. And in the data kit, I'm a big fan of single story a's, and you'll see that appear later on. Mhmm. And that's one of one of the switches we made, when we redid the the Stellar logo because to me, they that added roundness to the whole thing and not having the the two story a that feels more handmade, but it still feels like you're pushing, a technical shape into a a into what should have been a handwritten gesture.

To me, it just feels odd when when you're using it in a tech brand. Like, there are there is a place for that, but just, to me, makes a lot more sense, this sort of shape. Yep. Zach, you got one more here for, oh, no. You don't.

I thought I thought we had I do one later. Yeah. Oh, later. Okay. Cool.

This is the Stellar WP, and Joel was huge in making this happen for us, and we're excited about it. This is actually, I think, maybe the third iteration of the Stellar logo. The very, very, very first one was literally just a a font face and nothing else. There was some, playfulness that we tried to introduce with, like, some sort of, like, mascot monster kind of thing that that didn't fly so well. But a lot of because the Stellar brand was really mostly an internal, brand for the most part for a long time, we weren't really, pushing all that much, but we are intending now to be coming out a lot more with Stellar specific products, and so this brand has become really important to us.

Joel, walk us through a little bit of, like, why this logo is what it is today. Well, on the one hand, this is not a full change from the previous version of it. It's what I would wanna think more was an evolution because it is the same font with heavy customization. One of the things that we had with that with the font that we're using for this is well, that two story a that we had. And then the shape of the s was very symmetrical, which is a very odd choice for an s because it feels unstable.

It feels like you could, like, barely touch it and it'll and it'll start spinning on its on itself. So some of the things we did was, like, change the weight on that on the bottom of the s, and work a bit of the shape on the top as well, make reshape the t in a bit so that it connects a bit better to to that s, and then make the single story a, play around with the spacing of it, and then add the WP, which is very heavy reminiscent of the one you're gonna with the one you saw in Solid WP. So that's I would also calling back not only to our previous Stellar brand, but also to some of our other brands that are part of the portfolio. And then, the planet. Well, I mean, if we're talking about Stellar, a star would be the most obvious choice of them all, but stars are very difficult to scale down because you start either losing the points or you start getting it, like, all, like, globbed up.

Very technical term there. And then, like, if it yellow, which is a color that's very difficult to work on on light backgrounds. So it starts getting really weird, and and we would have had to work with a very cartoony looking star or way too much of a realistic looking star. So stylizing a star is a very it proved to be very complex, and there's hundreds of attempts of doing that in in an illustrator file somewhere in my computer. Yeah.

So we ended up going for okay. It's planet. But then there are so many ways you can do that ring on a planet. It could be the full ring, half a ring, a bit more of a ring, a bit less of a ring. But to me, what really got me when I when we're looking at options between, few fellow designers, myself, and, yes, we did use the 99 design page that you mentioned, and we did get some options from there.

And you pay your designers when you do that, and you take what you can use from there and bring it into your process as well. So, like, this ends up becoming iterations over iterations of many different people bringing pieces together. And then to me, that negative space cutout under the ring is what really really gets me from from this logo, and it's what Yeah. Carries on to some of the other brands that, are part of this that live under this umbrella. And I will say also, Devin Walker was also heavily involved in this process with you.

Right? And Yes. I think there are elements of the give, not the logo, but the give stylization and whatnot. Like, this there's this depth of that of that gradient of the ring on the top there. I even think a little bit of that negative space had some, influence from the give side as well.

Is that right? It does. It is correct. He he kept saying that, again, because we wanted to relate to some of our other brands. Like, one way that it would've that made a lot of sense for this style of image to relate to give was working with that style of shading.

And the fact that the ring is not an obvious solid ring shape that just goes around the whole thing. It's just more kind of like it feels kinda like more like a swoosh or or more like a line there. So it's also not making seem to me like a road in a way, like a road to, like, to the future. That's another thing there. Like, the idea and the actual specific angle and direction of that angle.

Like, if we flip that if we mirror that image and we're pointing, from top left to down right, we're not going up. We're going down. Yeah. It's like those are all little things. Like, that direction of that ring that's giving you a sense of growth.

And if we add the bottom, negative space, you're actually turning it into an arrow that's pointing you up, and to the right, which is the natural sense that we, at least in the Western Hemisphere, associate with growth. Yep. So that's that's a lot of what was part of that. And did did you manage to get the the white version in? Yep.

Right here. And this is kind of what the flat version of this logo looks like. So if at any point in time, it's like, okay. The gradient is completely dated and we need to get rid of it. This is the purest version of this logo, and we do use it.

Like, it's currently in the footer of our pages, and it's currently being used in some print material. And there are points where a gradient doesn't render well. So you do need to have that version, which, let's say, it's like its simplest, purest form that can exist in the tiniest possible space. Mhmm. And I also like that it's reminiscent of the NASA logo.

Are you familiar? Like, do you know what I mean with the the circle and the the red, swoosh through it? It's reminiscent of that shape. Some other airlines, like Turkish Airlines, has a similar shape. It feels very lofty, and and futuristic and, while also looking like something an object in space, which is great.

That's awesome. Yeah. That's great. I feel like it came together really, really well, Joel. It's it it also, all the things with the gradient, I really I really pushed on the gradient part.

I was like, we gotta have these gradients. I was like, gotta have some fun colors in there. And it came together so well. So it's great stuff. Gravity kit.

Let's talk about that. And we got one more after this. This is a a good long episode today, but I think it's it's really useful stuff. So, So gravity kit, we had, Floaty is our mascot's name. On the left there, he's Floaty.

And before, Floaty was kinda boxy. He, he had his arms down on the side. He was very like, he he didn't have much motion to him. Yeah. And I wanted to make sure that Floaty, had, had was doing something that was, like, had looked more like a person.

And so, we went back and forth a lot on this. I wanted, so we decided that Floaty should be waving. So that's what we're like, hello. But also at the same time, Floaty becomes less detailed and and more of an more anonymous and more geometric, and less representational of an actual, like, you know, specific astronaut. And, it was hard to decide this, but that that was part of removing Floaty a little bit from our marketing and from our branding.

Mhmm. Because mascots aren't as professional as, not mascots. I mean, mascots are they help you connect with your customers, but they also can, be a shortcut to saying this is cartoonish. This isn't serious. And I wanted to make sure that we were not doing that.

I wanted to have our our brand, be more professional and and look higher status than our prior brand did so that it appealed more to agencies that were cons like, wanting to make sure that they were choosing a stable, professional product line. Yeah. So the gravity kit, wordmark essentially can stand on its own without floaty, essentially. The gravity kit word mark can stand on its own. Floaty on the left can stand on its own.

We also have icons for all of our different, product lines, but also an icon of a helmet with a rainbow representing all of our different product lines, which have different colors associated with them. Mhmm. And on our new website, we're going to have each product page has its own color, which is associated with the color of the product. Nice. And so we're we we're trying to make it a cohesive whole, while allowing each part to stand alone.

And the gold in this situation is also like, we can have it be a shiny gold on, like, marketing materials, that that allow for metallic printing jobs or metallic thread. And the gold represents the company, and the individual colors represent the individual products. So Nice. Trying to think of it as a cohesive project, that could that makes sense. Each of each of the parts makes sense with its with its color, with its with its purpose.

I I have to say that's one of the best looking gold colors that I've seen, honestly. I think gold, like, as a, of course, nonmetallic color It's tough. Green is super hard. It sometimes looks just like diarrhea. It sometimes looks just like yellow, and Yeah.

By getting it to look really sharp here, it might be the combination of it being with that navy blue a little bit. And and that is part of it for sure. Yeah. It looks really, really sharp. I really like it.

Joel, any comments? Based on the color, but as you mentioned, like, the the gold, I was I was looking at it and, like, wondering how it did not end up mustardy, which is where golds tend to go. And, definitely, I think it's very, very successful here. And to me, one of the cool parts about this level is, like, if the mascot is really rounded and it's really like, everything's round about it. It's everything soft about it, but then the font is really a lot more rigid and angular.

And I think that's one of the things that make them work well together and not necessarily fight each other. Because if everything was rounded, it would feel probably childish. And trying to make an angular, astronaut will probably would have made it stiff, which is what you were running away from. So I think it's a very, very good balance here. And I do think that, like, when using it without it, I was kind of, like, doing this and covering it a bit.

And it's a great, it has a font with a great personality to it. Like, the that r and that y have very tiny details that give it so much personality to them that I think it's very successful here. Nice. That's awesome. We got one last one, and this is an an iteration and a new product that's out there right now that Joel also was, heavily involved with.

Joel, tell us how we ended up, developing the Stellar Pay logo and icon in relation to Stellar WP. Well, ever since we started working on the Stellar WP rebrand, we knew we wanted to have or that we will have, brands that are associated with we could we could refer to them as sub brands if we want, which in this case, StellarPay was the first one, and we already knew that was coming up. So these two sort of came up together. And the whole idea of StellarPay is after we go one level under Stellar WP, we are all of a sudden going very geometric, very, abstract. And and that helps us not compete with that, mother brand in a sense.

And then each one of them has a single monochrome, color scheme to them or color palette, which, again, relates to what Zach was just saying that they did with some other brands. Like, we could really go in there and brand each one of them. And if they all coexist together, then it also starts to feel like you're looking at a solar system illustration sort of thing where each plan a has a bit of their own thing going. And, I mean, ever since this was put together, there have been other shapes that eventually will become other products in the future, and some of them you may be seeing soon. And, like, they're all set together with their own colors color palette, all monochrome, and how they can go and, like, all the different shapes.

And when they were being built, colors and shapes did not necessarily need to go together unless, like, once they start grab like, getting meaning, they do. The first time I did the the circular one here was not necessarily green, but as we started talking about stellar pay and that direct association that we have, especially in the Western world with, money and green And a very roughly idealized abstract shape of a coin, which is probably the quickest way to think of money, came get came to this, shape. And then, again, you see the cutout, the negative space that we have under the under the ring in the StarWP logo and then the shading on the top of it as well. So it's like, basically, you remove that ring out of there. So this first iteration is probably the one that's most similar to that planet if we just got took the the ring off.

But, I mean, as more of these brands start to come out and you start to see this system coming together, then you start to see, like, those connections and how personalities can sort of evolve out of each of one of these brands. Absolutely. Yeah. We definitely do have some more of these logos coming out soon with some products, and, they're not all gonna be circles. So, There's a lot of there's a lot of suggestion going on, and, like, I don't know if I can handle this anticipation, Matt.

Yeah. No. We're excited. And I think this came out really great. I do, like, of course, I love the green.

We actually were joking internally at seller a lot out because give was, like, the only green, logo in the whole org. Everybody was blue for a long time. And they were like, we need some more greens. So Stellar Pay was a great opportunity there. And I just wanna point out for those watching, the y is actually cropped.

It's it's act it's a full the descender is cropped in this image. Go to Stellarwp.com/StellarPay to see the full, logo. Good catch. I don't know how that happened. Thank you for catching that.

Sure. Nice. Well, this has been great, and I'm really happy that we were able to, share some live examples and talk through them a bit. And, folks, we'd love to hear from you in the comments, if you have any feedback on any of these logos. We're not changing them, but, you know, we still like to hear what you think.

So, every single episode, we love to wrap up with our best advice. And today, we're gonna go through really super quick, and, hear what everybody's best advice is. Joel already kinda gave his way, but you're gonna be last, Joel. Zach, what's your best advice for folks who need to develop a logo for their product? So, I have two, similar to Joel, I think.

One is to, check out existing rebrands and participate in discussions about branding to find out what matters. Like, if you're not if you don't have a natural inclination to learn about logos and stuff, you might not know all the all the theory that goes into it. So, I'm we're gonna have a link in the show notes. A site called UnderConsideration.com is a site that I subscribe to. It has really great breakdowns of branding and not just logo design, but also, like swag, how you apply those logos to products and to, like, to product labels and swag.

And it's a great discussion place, where you can peep where you can then, rank rebrands and find out how successful they were, to and you can learn your own taste through doing this and seeing a lot of different rebrands in one place is a great way to do it. So going to to underconsideration.com, but then also pick a product that has an emoji that you can associate with it. This is something that I've done not very successfully. Yeah. But but it's really nice to be able to have an emoji that you can use in your newsletters, you can have on your website.

Like, if you have a Slack reaction to somebody, that's your you can have the a Slack, reaction that is the right color for your brand. Like, Jack Arturo with w two fusion reacts with an orange heart. I'm like, oh, Jack wiped something somewhere, because I know he owns that orange heart. And that's the color, but, like, see if you can find an emoji that fits with your brand and, like, try to make that happen because I think it'll pay off. That's a good point, actually.

I actually have been trying to do this. Let me see if I can get it going here. Let's see. Show our face our names again, please. There we go.

Boom. Maybe a little bit hard to see, but I've been adding the little Saturn emoji in, in my name sometimes. That's a good one. My best advice is most, not a lot. Not not I don't know if it's most anymore, but, like, Zach and I, you know, Devin Devin's actually a really good designer, but, overall but, like, a lot of these folks who listen to WP Product Talk, you're like dev folks or you're like a finance person.

You're not good at this. You're not good at logos. Like and just, like, acknowledge that you're not good at it and just decide that you need a lot of help for, from other people, not yourself, for, figuring out a good logo for your for your brand. And that doesn't mean you don't have taste. It means you don't have skills for designing a logo.

You can choose a logo that that is good, and Yeah. You might have good taste and not good design skills. Exactly. And you might think that, like, puke orange is the best way to go, and you're just wrong. You know?

And you need other people who are more experienced and and more skilled, to help you learn that. So, some of these resources that Zach's been highlighting, I think, are really helpful on that front. The 99 designs front is a really good way to do it, honestly. And even as, like, a prototype, I think it's a really great way to prototype ideas. Like, go to them and have, maybe one or two different ideas you're gonna be investing in this, and try to, you know, maybe put in a good investment so these folks are paid well.

And maybe you come out with two or three different ideas, and then you bring those to somebody like Joel, and say, look. I had these done, and they're all kind of directionally kind of what I like. But can you, like, make one thing out of all of this? That would be a a lot better way than, you trying to do some sort of brain dump and and be very manipulative and controlling over a process that you're probably not very good at. So, definitely leverage other people, and try to pull back a little bit, when it comes to your branding, with your logo in particular.

That's that's my advice. So, Joel, last but not least, what what do you got? Well, as I mentioned before, make sure your icon is recognizable in a very small size, in a favicon size, which is probably the smaller size we're gonna use on the screen, and that it works in black and white. Then you can dress that up in brand colors just, but the simplest version of it needs to work. And then also mentioned before, explore styles and colors and other logos in your industry.

Figure out what your competitors in your industry looks like because it's really hard to push a WordPress plug in for a website that does security with a playful font like a Omicron, unless you go with a playful font and you're gonna make it look like a superhero, and then it may make sense. But that's not necessarily the easiest way to go. So make sure that the piece that you're putting together send the message that you wanna send. Love it. Love it.

And I do have one more that I wanna add in. So I'm gonna have have three. One of the best advices that I've got, in school for, graphic design is if you aren't sure about the spacing of letters and the spacing of icons in relation to the type form, squint squint. And if it looks okay, then that's what you go for. Like, there it's called the squint test.

It's a great way to, tell quickly if the logo is recognizable at a small size. Like, even if it's full size, it's like, can I make it out, while I'm squinting? And Yeah. Does it look good? That's a good one, actually.

The WP Product Talk one, the full Product Talk logo, it's not so good on the squint test, honestly. But that's why I did the icon. I was like, if I'm gonna go small, it's gonna be just the icon. So, Google. Well, Joel, thank you so much for being here.

And where can people find you online? I think I'm kinda tough to find online, but you can find me on LinkedIn, and you can find me on my website, which is my portfolio, which is ButlerFernandez.com. Love it. Well, next week, Matt and I will be discussing another important step of the journey to building and launching a WordPress product, how to develop your product from alpha to launch with Jonathan Jernigan, the author of PyCalendar. Also, PyCalendar, a great exercise in branding.

Check out their website and their for their brand feel because they do a great job of that. Absolutely. Special thanks to Post Status for being our green room. And if you're enjoying these shows, do us a favor. Hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, subscribe button, or, you know, whatever, like, Spotify subscriber or wherever you're listening to us at.

All those things are helpful. They keep us going. We don't make any money here. We just have a lot of fun conversations. We wanna make you money.

Yeah. I wanna help you all out. So have a great week, and, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.