We recently underwent a big redesign of our site at HotPads. Having never been through a redesign of this scale before at HotPads, we set out to start rethinking what our brand means and how the look and feel of our site affects that branding. Internally we have long talked about the recent changes as a “reskin”, not a full redesign, because in actuality we made only a few major changes to the core product. One of the most surprising challenges in the reskin process was the difficulty in choosing a new logo for the site.
Here is our old logo:
As of two weeks ago, you now see this logo:
It’s a subtle yet important change. Let’s explore it a bit further.
Logos, Branding Theory, and Branding In A Mobile World
As an Internet company, we keep an eye on what leading sites are doing to determine what we should also be doing and where we could be innovating over and above leading sites and especially our competitors. These days, that also means thinking about mobile and how to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and on a user’s homescreen (hopefully!).
The Internet first, and now mobile, has undeniably changed branding and how the world looks at branding. Previous to the Internet a brand could be relatively static and controlled. Your logo would be put up on billboards, marketing materials, and other places.
These days, logos and brands have become a part of the public domain. Brands are built and destroyed through the power of social media. Similarly, logos are riffed upon, like the new AirBNB logo which they invite you to play with.
Logos
It’s important to remember your logo is not your brand but rather a representation of your brand (source). As Drawar says:
A brand isn’t a logo. A logo is merely a symbol that represents the brand. Your corporate identity, the stuff found on letterheads and signage, isn’t a brand either. A brand isn’t the product or service that you make.
But as Drawar continues:
Competition on the web is fierce and it seems that to differentiate themselves from the crowd many companies simply add feature X without any regards to their brand.
The same applies to logos and company colors. Remember the early 2000s when studies came out extolling the virtues of blue/orange logos? We ended up with thousands of small business logos that were all indiscernable:
Branding In A Mobile World
About two years ago, Facebook made the decision to go mobile-first. Their advertising revenues on mobile were abysmal. CEO Mark Zuckerberg decreed that Facebook would think mobile first. Two years later, mobile makes up 62% of their billions in quarterly revenue (source).
If you look at Facebook and LinkedIn, two leading websites online, you’ll notice that they’ve done something that is easy to miss, but actually shows their approach to mobile.
Both Facebook and LinkedIn have designed and developed their experiences so that they feel seamless across devices.
Here is Facebook’s desktop site followed by their mobile web and then their app. Pretty seamless experience, no?
And here is LinkedIn’s desktop beside their mobile web and app:
As you can see, we have started down the road towards this with our new design, and the logo works in well with this also:
But Is It Differentiated?
As we set out to find a new logo, we kept finding that it was incredibly hard to find a new modern mark that would also still set us apart from the pack online and increasingly on the home screens of mobile phone users. Because we have been looking at our new site as an update, we settled upon one that feels very HotPads 2.0 to us. Let’s explore the process.
Eventually, as you’ll see, we settled upon a logo that feels very HotPads 2.0 to us.
The Process of Differentiation and Consistency
We had many ideas for what the new mark could encapsulate. We considered a number of options, such as:
- changing to a single letter to capture “hotpads”,
- a grid of sorts to attempt to convey “building” and “building blocks”,
- a logo that scales across platforms
In order to get a broad array of ideas, we engaged with both a freelance designer we have worked with in the past, who also designed our original logo, as well as trying out 99Designs to see what designers who had absolutely no prior experience with the brand might dream up, given a bit of direction with where our brand is heading.
Freelance Designer
Our amazing freelance designer, Matthew, designed the original HotPads logo and has been both a friend and champion of the brand since its inception back in 2005. He jumped at the chance to dream up some new possibilities for the brand. Here are some of the designs we considered:
While considering these options, though, they didn’t pop out on mobile like we desired. We also had a wide range of opinions internally about what we liked, with different areas of the business advocating for different options. It quickly become clear that selecting a logo can be one of the most divisive tasks when updating a site’s branding.
It quickly become clear that selecting a logo can be one of the most divisive tasks when updating a site’s branding.
Feedback ranged from “It makes me feel crazy” to “I don’t get it”. We were going too far outside the box, if that’s possible with creativity.
99 Designs Contest
Alongside the designer, we ran a 99Designs logo contest. For about $500 you can get as many designers as you want to present you with options. Here are some options that we considered:
Pretty quickly comments like “Looks like (competitor)” or “Is that a roof?” started coming up in discussions. After taking them all into consideration, we agreed. We were not on the right track.
HotPads 2.0
We went back to the drawing board. All of the HotPads stakeholders agreed that what we were really looking for was something to show that the changes are an upgrade, a HotPads 2.0 of sorts.When I looked at my phone’s home screen, none of the icons we were considering actually stood out. Everything blended in with the other brands. But what did stand out was our current logo. If that stood out, why not update it to our new colors, fix a few scale issues, update the typography, and (hopefully) boom — HotPads 2.0. What’s awesome is that the minimum viable example (MVE) was done by our director of front end engineering.
You never know where inspiration will come from in a startup.
By updating our logo to the new colors, we were also able to update our well-known building icons and keep our branding consistent across the brand while also bringing it up to date.
What Did We Learn?
First and foremost, we realized more fully just how personal a company’s branding and logo can be. While it’s not your brand, it’s the forefront of your brand many times and every internally, no matter their job title or role, has an emotional reaction to it. All of these reactions matter, but ultimately you cannot make everyone completely happy.
Secondly, we learned how important collaboration and healthy disagreement are. We had many conversations where we disagreed highly, and learning both to give feedback and cultivate a culture where feedback is not only encouraged but safe to give is a challenge. I think we made great headway on this during our rounds of edits and ideas on the new HotPads logo.
Thirdly, inspiration comes from unexpected places. As noted above, our Director of Front End Engineering came up with the minimum viable edition of new mark, which was then smoothed out by a designer.
We’re the HotPads team. We build products to help people find their next place to live. We’re passionate about cities and neighborhoods, especially our hometown of San Francisco. We’re hiring too.
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