Hi everyone, here’s an update on the logo competition on 99designs.
Final designs chosen
We have chosen the six final designs for the logo competition. It took some effort to choose just six designs out of nearly 600 designs that were submitted.
Of the 600 designs about 130 were submitted by Platinum designers during the first four days. We were then literally flooded with designs in the last 24 hours when the competition was opened to non-Platinum designers.
The quality of the designs varies quite a lot, so some were easily dismissed. Valuable feedback was given in this forum thread, although opinions seemed to be quite diverse. Some really liked specific designs while other didn’t like any of them.
Process of selection
Based on the feedback in the forum thread and our personal preferences we initially managed to narrow it down to about 30 designs in our first meeting. We then took some time to look at these designs and to see how well they portrayed these four properties:
- Security (The SAFE Network is a secure / self-encrypted network)
- People (People make the SAFE Network by contributing, time and resources)
- Network (Obviously the SAFE Network is a Network
) - Decentralized / Autonomous (A unique property of the SAFE Network)
This helped to drop some of the designs, but didn’t leave us with just six designs.
Deciding on the final six
Since a lot of designs seem to be variations of other designs we felt it would be good to end up with six diverse designs so that in the end the vote wouldn’t be between six designs that were different, but also quite similar.
So far none of the designs seems to have everyone blown away, making it the obvious favorite to win the competition. We therefore decided to choose one or two designs that showed room for improvement in the next phase of the competition. This way the final vote will include some of the current favourites, but perhaps also some potentially great new designs.
The six designs that will go to the next round
The following designs will go through to the next round. We will explain why we chose each of these designs. Understandably not everyone will agree on these six and some of you may be disappointed not to see your favorite design go through to the next round.
Design number 6 is the first design to go through to the next round. It has been a favorite of both the people who responded in the thread as well as the competition team. We have seen quite a few variations on this design, but felt that this first one hit the mark. It encompasses both the security element and the people element of the network and it’s a clean recognizable logo.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to show us designs with another type face, since that’s what we thought is the one thing that can be improved upon. We agreed that asking the designer to incorporate more of the aspects of the SAFE Network into the design would more likely make the design less suitable than improve it.
Design number 7 is the second design to go through to the next round. This has been a forum favorite as well. Obviously it shows the security aspect. We feel that the stripes and points can also be interpreted as a network element. The stripes also gives the logo a dynamic look.
EDIT: After @piluso pointed out that this image appears to be in part a combination of designs by another designer we decided to not use this submission for the competition. We have asked the designer to come up with a new design during the remainder of the competition.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to show us designs with another type face since that seems to be the natural thing to be improved. We’ve also asked for some variation in the stripes to see if that part of the design can be improved a bit.
Design number 15 is the third design to go through to the next round. This design is one of the designs that we thought holds promise when improved upon. The current design incorporates the security aspect in the form of a shield. We also thought that the shards could be seen as a network. The design also stands out compared to most of the other designs.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to explore the concept further, with different color schemes and paying attention to the unique aspects of the SAFE Network. We believe this one is a wild card and may potentially result in a great logo.
Design number 110 is the fourth design to go through to the next round. This design is also one of the designs we thought holds promise when improved upon. The current design incorporates both the network and security aspect of the network. We also liked the type face used in this submission. Also the designer has some very good designs in his portfolio so we feel that he will be able to improve the logo considerably.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to explore the concept further and to pay attention to the unique aspects of the SAFE Network.
Design number 235 is the fifth design to go through to the next round. We think the design is very clean and complementary to the Safecoin logo and that it would make for an easily recognizable logo. It gives community members that prefer an S-shaped design an option to vote on in the final vote on the forum.
EDIT: After @piluso pointed out that this image is very similar to two other designs we decided to not use this submission for the competition. We have asked the designer to come up with a new design during the remainder of the competition.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to show us some variations in type face. We feel the shape of the logo is good as it is. We would like to see an all blue logo instead of the blue/grey and would like to see variations without the shading.
Design number 268 is the final design to go through to the next round. This design combines the security aspect and the network aspect. We feel it adds to the diversity of logos that the community will be able to vote upon.
Feedback to the designer: We’ve asked the designer to show us some different (blue) color schemes and variations in type face.
So there you have it, the six logos that have gone through to the next round.
We’ve also asked all of the designers to show us variations where the word SAFE is in upper case letters and Network all lower case letters except for the N. We may include this in the final vote as well to decide if we want to have the word Network in upper case or lower case letters.
