[The behind-the-scenes story] This is how we came up with the new logo for our startup

Just this month, SendBird was introduced as a result of re-branding from its previous name, JIVER. This is the story of how we came up with the new logo.

As one might expect, the point of SendBird logo is to incorporate the words “Send” and “Bird.”

I’ve sketched a number of different ideas for the logo that would better reflect of who we are and what we do.

• Birds that look like a puzzle,
• A bird that looks like speech bubble, representing SendBird’s messaging feature,
• A bird that looks like paper plane, which represents “sending,”
• …and so on.

After we came up with a few drafts, we crystallized our ideas by narrowing down and screening the ideas by keeping an eye toward further development.

When we drafted the different logos, we tried hard to capture the dynamic appearance of a bird. However, we found that if we showed the bird bending and looking dynamic, it appeared too soft, but straight lines looked crude. Our design work was a constant iterative process to address these concerns.

The last draft above has is the final result of an elaboration of the logo many times and we finally were able to express a sense of stability along with a bird’s key characteristics.

Finally, we applied the golden ratio to the logo and added the finishing details. The feedback I received from my designer friends was a big help!

Finally, after all this time and effort, we had finalized the SendBird logo. We created logo guidelines and shared them internally to make sure that whenever we used the logo, we were communicating the brand’s values that we want to deliver to customers.

The logo’s guidelines allow designers to organize their thinking and determine whether the logo is aligned with our consistent brand experience. We also think that following the guidelines helps designers become more competent. Startups usually skip creating brand guidelines, but for these reasons, we think that it’s an important step!