
Startup Branding: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs - cschmidt
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/76648/Startup-Branding-A-Practical-Guide-for-Entrepreneurs.aspx
======
substack
As a hacker/founder who has also taken up the art/design role, I disagree and
think that developers who can draw reasonably well should try designing the
art assets for their startups.

When you design your own art assets, you can iterate on the design in a much
more incremental way because the transaction cost of going out and finding a
designer is quite high. When you can design your own assets in-house, the art
can work its way into the core of the product better and ends up in more
places. For instance, many of the modules my startup has released have silly
cartoons that I drew: [http://www.catonmat.net/blog/browserling-open-
sources-90-nod...](http://www.catonmat.net/blog/browserling-open-
sources-90-node-modules/)

When there are external barriers to art, you're probably going to use it less.
Contracting out for all of those silly readme cartoons would be wildly
uneconomical but for me it provides a nice refuge from coding all day that
happens to help us establish credibility with potential customers and expand
our product exposure.

If you are a developer who is going to try your hand at doing the art
yourself, I wouldn't be too concerned if your initial attempts look
amateurish. Our earliest prototype looked really bad:

<http://substack.net/images/screenshots/browserling-1.png>

but we iterated and made it a little better:

<http://substack.net/images/screenshots/browserling-3.png>

and then did a redesign recently:

<http://browserling.com/>

Make some art!

------
danmaz74
I completely disagree with the author saying that the name isn't important,
and with his citing "a great story" (especially one about Xerox) as "proof" of
this. Most startups will never become a common word like Xerox or Google, and
having a name that is both easy to remember and easy to link to the core
benefit they offer is _very_ important.

~~~
DanielRibeiro
I was bothered by this part as well, but for a very different reason: names
can be changed. Which is very possible for early stage startups[1], specially
considering that you are more likely to have only a small fraction of the
market you are aiming for.

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/17/trigger-raises-1m-from-
sv-a...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/17/trigger-raises-1m-from-sv-angel-
paul-graham-and-others-to-make-cross-platform-mobile-development-effortless/)

------
cschmidt
> 5\. Any tips on where to find a great freelance designer for a startup logo?

Most designers these days seem to hang on <http://dribbble.com/>. That's a
good way to find people.

I also looked for blog posts like this one about "logo designers you should
follow on twitter", by a fellow logo designer:

[http://www.brandclay.com/blog/people-you-have-to-be-
followin...](http://www.brandclay.com/blog/people-you-have-to-be-following-on-
twitter/)

Just go through people's portfolios and find work that you like.

For the record, my logo was done by <http://www.tywilkins.com/>

~~~
sgdesign
You should also check out <http://folyo.me> and let me know what you think.

~~~
cschmidt
I don't know, it seems too crowd sourced to me. I'd rather spend a couple of
hours looking for a freelance designer I like, rather than go the middleman
approach. I've never seen a crowd sourced logo that I didn't hate.

Also, it seems more focused on general graphic designers. Designers with much
experience in logo design are only going to be a small subset of those.

------
ryan_f
I think every startup would love to have a talented designer to work on the
logo (and also the site). Budget is always the biggest reason it doesn't
happen as soon as it should.

I haven't gone down the road of using sites like <http://dribbble.com> and
carbonmade.com to inquire about designers and their work. It seems worth the
investment of time to get a good designer for the right budget. Design shops
tend to be too expensive for startups with $150/hour average rate.

------
tgrass
Regarding finding a designer, I highly recommend visiting your local
university's masters of fine arts students.

