Self-Development Logo - Please critique

Mindscapelife

New Member
Hi everyone, I need some feedback/ critiquing on a logo I have designed for my startup company. My background is in product design however I have limited experience in designing a graphic design logo.

The brand is called Mindscape. We plan to offer lifestyle products for the Self-development industry that focuses on personal development not only for personal success, but also for creating a larger positive impact.

As to align with our brands values we want to create a logo that is visually unique and interesting as well as something that looks simple and that compliments our brands simplistic styling.

The logo is also required to work well in both print and digital formats, plus work at both small and large sizes.

The thought process behind this logo was that it needed to be relatable to the self-development industry, however the logo was designed to communicate this in a visually less obvious way.

Questions

On first impressions, what do you think this logo looks like?
Do you think this logo is aligned with our value of simplicity?
Do you think the logo look aesthetically good looking?
Do you think the logo is right for a personal development lifestyle brand?
What do you think of the chosen typography (Typography is called Averta)?
How would you improve this logo?

Thank you for looking.

Nick


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honestly... first thought when I saw that was something that comes out of the rear end of a dog..... then the ice cream from an ice cream cone.
 
On first impressions, what do you think this logo looks like? I've got a tie hanger that looks like that.
Do you think this logo is aligned with our value of simplicity? No, it doesn't align with anything
Do you think the logo look aesthetically good looking? To be honest, I don't care about your logo. It's the content on the website that I care about.
Do you think the logo is right for a personal development lifestyle brand? No. See above
What do you think of the chosen typography (Typography is called Averta)? Nobody really cares what font you use.
How would you improve this logo? Bin the logo and focus on the products. The logo can come later in the business cycle.

How are you going to compete with all the existing mindscape brands?
 
honestly... first thought when I saw that was something that comes out of the rear end of a dog..... then the ice cream from an ice cream cone.

Ok lol, thanks for the reply, its really appreciated. It was designed to look like an abstract person/ Meditating Person sitting down with crossed legs. Something like this image i found on google.
 

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On first impressions, what do you think this logo looks like? I've got a tie hanger that looks like that.
Do you think this logo is aligned with our value of simplicity? No, it doesn't align with anything
Do you think the logo look aesthetically good looking? To be honest, I don't care about your logo. It's the content on the website that I care about.
Do you think the logo is right for a personal development lifestyle brand? No. See above
What do you think of the chosen typography (Typography is called Averta)? Nobody really cares what font you use.
How would you improve this logo? Bin the logo and focus on the products. The logo can come later in the business cycle.

How are you going to compete with all the existing mindscape brands?

Ok lol, thanks for the reply, its really appreciated. Thanks for the advise.

The website is still in the development stage, We will try our best to make sure the content on the site is great.

A lot of hard work has gone into the the product also, this is almost finished now.

We understand the Mindscape word has some competition on google so this has been discussed when considering our marketing approach. We hope the word differentiates us from other brands in the industry and we hope people like the brand name and find it relatable to the self-dev market.
 
On first impressions, what do you think this logo looks like? I've got a tie hanger that looks like that.
Do you think this logo is aligned with our value of simplicity? No, it doesn't align with anything
Do you think the logo look aesthetically good looking? To be honest, I don't care about your logo. It's the content on the website that I care about.
Do you think the logo is right for a personal development lifestyle brand? No. See above
What do you think of the chosen typography (Typography is called Averta)? Nobody really cares what font you use.
How would you improve this logo? Bin the logo and focus on the products. The logo can come later in the business cycle.

How are you going to compete with all the existing mindscape brands?

Hi fisicx! Can I please ask what on Earth you are doing on a graphic design forum? You clearly have no knowledge or experience in the field, especially when you say ridiculous things like "nobody really cares what font you use". It's like me walking into NASA headquarters and saying nobody really cares what rocket engine you use! I think you need to take a little vacation from this site, go away and do some kind of design course, then when you understand what you're talking about you can come back and continue to post doodoo. :)
 
Sorry to buck the trend here but I rather like it.
At first it reminded me ever so slightly of a coat hanger but that's just the hook at the top and also the end of a Flake or Ripple bar.

I like the typeface too but not entirely sure how the logo and the text are juxtaposed right now.

After seeing that it's inspired by a meditative pose I can't un-see it now which is a good thing.
 
Forgot this:

On first impressions, what do you think this logo looks like?
Meditation pose. (now I know)

Do you think this logo is aligned with our value of simplicity?
Yes

Do you think the logo look aesthetically good looking?
I like it

Do you think the logo is right for a personal development lifestyle brand?
I think it works

What do you think of the chosen typography (Typography is called Averta)?
Love it. I'm getting that typeface. :D

How would you improve this logo?
I'd try some alternative compositions of the logo and text and maybe thing about colour.
 
You clearly have no knowledge or experience in the field, especially when you say ridiculous things like "nobody really cares what font you use".
20 years working on UX. Hundreds of hours of testing and the same on market research. Most people don't take much notice of the font and on many occasions the logo. You can test this yourself. Remove the logo from a website and just put the name of the business in its place and see what happens. Dwell time won't change, bounce won't change, interactions won't change, time on site won't change, conversions won't change.

I'm not saying don't have a logo or to spend some time choosing a font. But in many cases the fine detail doesn't matter. Without scrolling up the page - can you describe the logo of this forum in detail? Can you accurately describe the starbucks logo? You may recall the general structure but do you know exactly how many dashes there are under the tesco logo?

So while people might recall the wiggly spring shape of mindscape its just a recollection trigger. There have been umptten studies on how the brain proceeses colour and shape. It compares new images to what it already has in the memory and if there is a close match the brain doesn't bother with the new image. It's one of the reason we get deja vu.

I have great admiration for graphic designers, it's a skill I don't have and never will. I came here asking for help with a project of mine and found the thread better than the usual forum junk.

But if you think that non-graphical designers and illustrators shouldn't take part in the discussions then the whole shebang becomes a bit incestuous.
 
Try it. Remove the logo from your site and see what happens. Replace the logo with the words I am Scotty in the same font as your menu. Give it week and check your stats.

I've done this on a number of sites and on one of them removing all the imagery actually improved conversions. Wasn't a site selling graphic services though.

Look at all the major retailers. Very few of them have some sort of icon logo, most just have the name of the business with a fancy font and maybe a bit of colour. A bit like the one on this forum.

The reason why people don't notice (or recall) the logo is because they want the content on the site. You and your business don't matter at that moment. All the visitor wants is information, answers or to be entertained. You and your business (and branding) are secondary.
 
Try it. Remove the logo from your site and see what happens.

This is why I tend to recommend people who come here with a small or non-existent budget for branding just pick a nice font as a placeholder. A logo on it's own, though it may look nice or be creative, is pretty much useless. It needs the weight of branding and marketing behind it to be worth anything. A logo/identity is essentially shorthand for whatever the brand is or does – McDonalds arches for burgers, Starbucks siren for coffee, Nike tick for sportswear. We remember these things because these companies have spent a fortunes on brand awareness to ensure we do and I think that's something that a lot of people (designers in particular) forget.

As a designer, telling people that sometimes feels a bit like shooting yourself in the foot, but spending time and money on a logo when you don't even have a profitable business is busy work. Spend that money on marketing and come back when you have enough of a need to stand out or be recognised visually.

In response to the OP, I too saw the coat-hanger/dog-turd (sorry!). I like the idea, it's simple but I think you could simplify it even further to have less curves. I sort of see the sitting Buddha silhouette but not quite. I was working up some ideas for something similar a while back for a spirituality course, and I was exploring the concept of '3', 3 being significant in the Buddhist movement. I feel like you could perhaps get away with having 3 curves in your shape, maybe straighten the last line out to represent the ground?
 
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Hi fisicx! Can I please ask what on Earth you are doing on a graphic design forum? You clearly have no knowledge or experience in the field, especially when you say ridiculous things like "nobody really cares what font you use". It's like me walking into NASA headquarters and saying nobody really cares what rocket engine you use! I think you need to take a little vacation from this site, go away and do some kind of design course, then when you understand what you're talking about you can come back and continue to post doodoo. :)

I actually don't care which rocket fuel NASA use…

Everyone is welcome here, so long as they abide by the forum rules. Just because he is not a graphic designer doesn't mean his opinion isn't as relevant as anyone else's, and I'm glad there's someone with experience in a different field to design or illustration on the forums. Formal design education or not, design is entirely subjective and you don't have to agree with someone's opinion so long as you're able to unbiasedly look at their suggestion and conclude that you opinion is the one to stick to.

It's not good to surround yourself with people who agree with you all the time. Like the old saying goes, if you're the smartest person in the room, you should find another room.
 
Hi everyone, once again thank you for all the comments and it's very interesting to hear all your opinions on the logo.

For Scotty: It's really interesting you said "After seeing that it's inspired by a meditative pose I can't un-see it now which is a good thing." This is the same for me as i can mainly see the design as a meditative pose. However i can understand that the logo might have the form of a dog poo lol, or maybe look like Ice cream or a coat hanger. Honestly all people see thing differently so i don't have a huge problem with some people seeing the logo as ice cream or a coat hanger. However if people see the logo as dog poo this could be problematic.
i will now try out a few alternative compositions of the logo and text and could try add some colour also. Maybe i could post a few later on the forum to get people's view on them.

For Paul & fisicx: i have been discussing your thoughts with others and will now also consider just using a type based logo.

Also Paul thanks for this great advice.

"This is why I tend to recommend people who come here with a small or non-existent budget for branding just pick a nice font as a placeholder. A logo on it's own, though it may look nice or be creative, is pretty much useless. It needs the weight of branding and marketing behind it to be worth anything. A logo/identity is essentially shorthand for whatever the brand is or does – McDonalds arches for burgers, Starbucks siren for coffee, Nike tick for sportswear. We remember these things because these companies have spent a fortunes on brand awareness to ensure we do and I think that's something that a lot of people (designers in particular) forget."

To try make the Logo look more like a meditative pose. I have created three small revisions of the original logo, If everyone can leave comments it's really appreciated.

1) Do you think the logos looks more or less like a meditative pose?
2) Do the logos look less like dog poo, ice cream or a coat hanger?
3) Which logo do you prefer the most?

The main differences between the newly revised logos and the original logo:
1) Bottom of the logo has been reduced in width to make the logo look less like a dog poo emoji shape.
2) Top of the logo is now circular to make the logo look less like a hanger.

Mindscape logo revision 1.pngMindscape logo revision 2.pngMindscape logo revision 3.png
 
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