Any designer will tell you the hardest job you’ll ever do is to design for yourself.
Even though I’ve been a part of HiiDef Inc. for a while now, there’s only recently been a need to put a ‘face’ to the name.
Challenge
There were a few things that made this job tricky.
It’s got to be broad
HiiDef is a web product incubator that’s really hard to put into a single box. Because it’s a parent brand, not only does it need to reflect the company, but it needs to compliment the products we put out.
It’s got to be relevant
Well, I say relevant, but the name ‘HiiDef’ is inherited from one of Jonathan and David’s (founders) earlier businesses. So beyond the idea of something being ‘high definition’ there wasn’t too much of a connection.The new identity had to stay married to this name but also fit with the current company, which meant being simple, bold and flexible.
It’s just the beginning
Let’s get one thing straight: the brand doesn’t make the company. It’s the other way around. Still, whatever meaning we place on the branding, we wanted to be as excited about it as we are about our future.
Solution
So to start, I came up with some rough directional concepts that were intentionally pretty different. The hope was this would allow us to narrow a path from which I could start to refine things.
Some of the broad directional concepts for Round 1
While the guys were excited with where we were going in round one, we all agreed that maybe we should have a look at a second round of ideas. Most of the concepts followed the most obvious ‘high definition’ angle. I also liked the idea of keeping the two ‘i’s lower case, as they reminded me of the two founders (and brothers) Jonathan and David.
Some concepts from Round 2
One concept, however that turned out to be most popular from the second round batch was an abstract ‘H’ and ‘D’ formed through circles in a square. We were actually very close to deciding on this one, but I wasn’t happy. As a web company, I wanted something that could be shrunk to a 16×16 favicon and survive.
Even though this logo itself was quite generic, this sort of treatment was worth exploring.
One, but many
Another direction that I liked from the second round of ideas used a very basic rounded rectangle shape and used changing backgrounds to give it more than one look. I know AOL (oh sorry, Aol.) had recently done something similar, and we were all conscious of not going down that path. What I liked about this approach was that it ticked two of the boxes straight away — what’s broader than a logo that’s always changing? Similarly, it gave us a lot of room for changing direction and keeping things fresh.
Some applications with the final logo. I’ve continued with the many-but-one treatment for the HiiDef Inc. website.
And we’re done.
So the solution (it must seem obvious at this point) lay in combining these two ideas — a shape using the ‘H’ and ‘D’ in a form with enough symmetry and simplicity to be styled in many different ways. And unlike every other concept that I’d sent through for feedback, this seemed to get everyone mutually excited.
The Flavors brand started as a tree.
That’s because at the time, I didn’t really care about the brand, I just wanted to start working on the product.
What does a tree have to do with the word Flavors? Nothing…but it looked cool.
Jonathan and I work well together because he knows when I’m half-assing it. So after he called me on it, I ditched the tree and started at square one. (no pun intended)
Baskin Robbins has a lot to do with flavors. All 31 of them.
Everyone knows the colorfully delicious grid of ice cream behind the counter of a Baskin Robbins.
I started with circles.
That looked way to girly, as my wife Marisa told me from the other couch.
I tried squares, starting with a single square at 150px x 150px.
After that I realized I was on to something. We created this site to allow people create something unique. Every flavor at Baskin Robbins is unique, BUT it’s still ice cream. Every page on Flavors.me is unique, BUT it’s still within boundaries. (My sister Kayla just said she likes that line)
So I colored up these bad boys…
Now I had a grid to work with. Every page was born from this grid. I usually don’t use really strict grids (I forget most of the time), but this time it became such a part of the brand, I had to use one.
First the homepage…
Then finally the settings page…
