99designs needs a new simple and timeless LOGO!

99designs

99designs is the world’s biggest online design marketplace.
- We give designers an opportunity to create and work with real clients
- We help designers grow their skills
- We help designers connect with designers
- We help designers connect with clients / business
- We help businesses get started
- We help businesses get design they need
- We help businesses grow by design
- We help people create and grow by design
- We are design

Our brand personality is:
- Energetic
- Unique and a little weird
- Authentic
- Witty
- Passionate
- Friendly
- Risk-taking
- Confident

Our customers are:
- Business owners, business people
- Designers

The logo design MUST be:
- Simple: Must be simple enough for someone to draw it with a pencil in 3 seconds.
- Timeless: It should not follow any ‘trends’ or be fashionable. It should look great if the year is 1950, 2000 or 2050.
- Culturally sensitive: The logo must work across different cultures around the world.
- 100% new and original: You do NOT need to update our current logo. If wordmark logo is modified from an existing font, include font name in comments

Bonus points:
- Strong rationale: Prove how your design communicates what our brand is and its personality
- Design principles: Prove how your design was carefully designed using the golden ratio, cleverly uses negative space, versatile in applications etc.

Logo types to explore:
- Word mark
- Letter mark
- Pictorial mark

For examples of classic, timeless, simple logos visit our Pinterest board:
https://www.pinterest.com/joleneche…-examples/

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Regarding the prize: The winner will get the listed prize of $3000, and EACH finalist will receive $600.

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*UPDATE* - 12/7

We've recognized some concepts that we *do not* want to see anymore:
- NO pencils, pens, or other art utensils.
- NO literal interpretations of graphic design or computer tools (no computer mice, art boards, etc.)
- NO quotation marks.
- NO hearts.
- NO paper curls turned into 9s.
- NO infinity symbols.
- NO symbols that include (or are made up of) the number 9. We've seen enough of those, and because those symbols will be placed alongside our full name (99designs), the extra 9's are unnecessary.

Our full name (99designs) needs to be very easily readable. No caps -- all letters should be in lower case.

We don't want a redesign of our current logo -- we'd like to see something fresh, which successfully captures our brand personality.

We love seeing concept stories alongside your entries. While some have strong conceptual ideas, they aren't as immediately striking or understandable as we'd like. Simplicity is key!

We really want our brand personality to shine through. Read them over again before submitting your concept! Here are a few that we feel we are missing from most entries:

- Energetic
- Unique and a little weird
- Passionate
- Risk-taking

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*UPDATE* - 12/8

Today we had a meeting with some key decision makers, and were able to narrow down the concepts and types of logos we are most drawn to. Please read them over, have a look at your concept(s) again, and decide whether or not they fit:

- Word marks with original or unique treatments/implementations, AND/OR abstract marks alongside name (and again, 99designs must be very easy to read).
- The concept of the sum of parts (ie: we’re lots of designers, customers, 99d coming together).
- The concept of "thinking outside the box" (could be a specific 99d word mark treatment).
- The concept of 99d being a global company and community.
- The concept of uniqueness (this is very broad, but we've had some great ideas come out of it!).