3 takeaways on logo design, via RJMetrics CEO Bob Moore

What makes a company look the way it does?
When it’s a software company that’s just starting out, and style really isn’t a part of the company’s DNA, that thought process can be painfully short. It doesn’t usually yield good results, either.
Business of Software USA just released video from an hourlong talk that Bob Moore, cofounder and CEO of RJMetrics, gave at a 2015 conference on that very subject, and how the development of RJMetrics’ visual identity took the company down some unusual paths. Even one down the unmentionables section.

Hot off the presses: my 2016 BoS talk about the @RJMetrics journey, told through the lens of our logos https://t.co/VKj8ETJy3r

— Bob Moore (@robertjmoore) July 5, 2016

Here are the three big takeaways.

1. You can buy style, but it’ll cost you

The frugal nature of RJMetrics’ early days led to outsourcing design to very basic online services.
“When you go to one of these logo-design services, very commonly what they will do is, they’ll charge you a hundred bucks and for the first round of logos they’ll just drop your company name into a bunch of super generic clip art,” Moore said.

2. Don’t rush it

One of the key mistakes that Moore pointed out was trying to cram the design and execution of the logo into a hackathon-style process.
“We relentlessly in the history of our business undervalued and under-prioritized design and specifically the design of our logo in a really big way,” he admitted.

3. It’s a process

All of that talk on design and Moore’s main takeaway is that the company isn’t through with this design thing, in spite of all the hits and misses so far.
“We’ve got these amazing products, we’ve got this amazing team, but all of it really is a function of having gone through a really ugly, long period of adolescence as a business, particularly from the design side and I don’t think we’re done,” said Moore.