Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Designing and critiquing logos for web-based companies and startups is a pursuit of endless fascination for many of us. Over the years, we’ve seen enough startups come and go (and rebrand and merge) to fill a volume with how and how not to develop and execute a logo for a web company.

We’ve also picked up some knowledge about trends in this field. Some of the trends are good; others, regrettable. Others still are simply overused, which is the saddest scenario of them all. We hate to see a good design trick or typeface grow hackneyed over the course of a few months, but it happens all the time, unfortunately.

In this article, we’ve identified 11 trends in web company logo design. Hopefully, you’ll see a few here that apply to the startups and web apps we write about every day. And of course, we’ve included some handy illustrations as a sort of field guide to the logos of the web.

Take a look, and let us know what you think of these trends — and what trends we should have included — in the comments.

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1. Badges and Buttons

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We’ve moved away from the once-ubiquitious BETA! button, but location-esque badges, app-like icons, and “play” buttons are still showing up all over the web. These logos tend to be quite “shiny,” thanks to a few carefully-blended white gradient layers. The square logos have rounded corners. Some appear to glow as if lit from within, which is a compelling and trendy effect in itself. All in all, the badge-and-button set look quite touchable.

Still, this trend’s days may be numbered, if only due to overuse and association-bordering-on-marriage with the Apple/iPhone brand. See also: Wet floor effect.

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2. Speech Bubbles and Megaphones

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If social web apps are all about communication, then it stands to reason that many social web company logos are all about talking. We see fewer logos that revolve around listening (if you happen to see a giant ear logo in the wild, do let us know), but megaphones and speech bubbles abound.

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3. Fun With Opacity!

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Remember the first time you discovered Multiply and Overlay blend modes in Photoshop? If that moment changed your life forever, then you probably understand the beauty of a simple, elegant logo that delicately plays with opacity.

While this logo treatment won’t work for every web app, it’s a versatile and timeless way to present classic shapes in a new light. We’re seeing this basic effect used simply in MasterCard-reminiscent designs, and we’re seeing much more complex opacity effects used in logos for HTML5 and Microsoft Silverlight, for example.

Playing with blending modes, opacity and overlapping shapes can also be a fun way to experiment with analogous color schemes.

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4. Kawaii Illustration

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Calling all woodland creatures: You’re wanted on the Internet. In fact, the only time you’ve been in greater demand than you are now was when Disney was making those saccharine “princess” films.

Why are these wide-eyed, adorable critters making their way into logo design? Apps are for adults, right? Especially apps such as Seesmic, a powerful web app dashboard for power users and the enterprise, and GitHub, an industry standard for source code hosting.

We don’t know exactly how, when or why kawaii made a comeback into serious-business logo design, but with logos this cute, who are we to complain?

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5. Scripts, Slabs and Other Cool Fonts

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Say it with me: “I will not use Archer for a web company’s logo design.”

Archer and its ilk were used to great effect over the past couple years on a number of memorable web company logos. That being said, the Year of the Slab is definitely not over. In fact, it’s more of an epoch than a traditional Gregorian year at this point. Slab serif fonts — if they’re unique fonts — are still a viable alternative to been-there-done-that sans serifs in logos, and the web community still enjoys them.

That being said, a good, juicy script can be one of the liveliest, most unexpected logo choices yet, particularly if your logo is solely typographic. Rephoria uses my personal favorite, Candy Script, a swash-heavy number that’s almost too voluptuous for work but which still makes the cut for a single-word logo.

Just remember: When using more unusual fonts for logo design, restraint and legibility are key.

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6. Verdant and Plant-Inspired

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Plants and leaves aren’t just for green tech companies, folks. When you’re trying to project growth, one of the most obvious logo choices is flora. A shy set of leaves, a furling bud, a sprouting seed — what could better convey your company’s fresh problem solving and rapid expansion?

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7. Quadrangles

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It’s not a rectangle, it’s not a square, but whatever it is, it’s popping up everywhere. Quadrangles are, if the web is to be believed, the new dots. From rhombuses to parallelograms to indescribable yet angular blobs, these shapes strive for post-modern and consumer-friendly.

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8. Retro Game References

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Perhaps it’s because the newer crop of web designers are also children of the late eighties, but we’ve been seeing a lot of pseudo-retro, video game-inspired logo work lately. While these designs are definitely quirky, geeky and cool, beware using them for a general audience; not everyone feels the same nostalgia we do for an 8-bit, pixelated graphic of a mushroom.

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9. Color-Coordinated Compound Words

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Web startup names and logos are inextricably linked. We’re a couple years past the compound word phase (which was most virulent right before the tragic “missing vowel” phase that gave birth to web companies with names like “Packg” and “Clevrr”), but we haven’t left behind our love for merged-word logos in two snappy, coordinating colors.

This trick is one of the oldest in the book. It was notably used for Vignelli Associates’ 1967 rebranding of American Airlines, whose two-word name became a one-word logo in red and blue.

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10. Logotypes

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The big boys of the web, sites such as Google and Facebook, have inspired the logo design of a generation with their utter simplicity. In many cases, those initial logotypes were less legitimate logo design and more “put our startup’s name in a simple font and stick it up on the web, we’ll deal with branding later.”

The name-in-a-sans-serif look says your company has nothing to prove and that you focus on product over promotion. If it’s well-executed, it’s a powerful statement to make. However, if poorly executed, it looks hasty, sloppy, juvenile and amateurish.

Logotypes can also be a great excuse to play with exciting typefaces and trendy treatments, such as the embossed or letterpress look that’s getting so much play these days, thanks to CSS3.

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11. Nodes, Spokes and Hubs

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Between concepts such as linked data and the synaptic web, you had to see these designs coming. They remind us of molecular structure and K’nex, an updated take on the crop of mid-century modern Sputnik-inspired designs of the 1950s. These logos are usually intended to represent the interconnectedness of people and content on the web, or, in a more literal interpretation, computer hardware circuitry.

An excellent study of this concept is Bernard Barry’s designs for the 2010 f8 conference.

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What Trends Are You Spotting?

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What trends are you seeing in web company logos these days? What are you already sick of, and what do you want to see more? Please share your observations in the comments.

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Taste is the ability to select, combine and create experiences that the tribe likes–before they know that they like it.

John Waters, the filmmaker many accuse of having bad taste actually has great taste–according to a small tribe of people. He establishes a look and a feel and a story that (for this group) is then emulated.

Successful chefs like Thomas Keller invent restaurants and the dishes they offer–and are then rewarded for having the good taste to make precisely what we like. But of course, the ‘we’ isn’t everyone.

Martha Stewart, according to a larger group, also has good taste. She’s not merely copying what came before (that’s not nearly as difficult or as valuable)… no, she’s staying half a step ahead of her tribe, establishing the standard as she goes.

Great graphic designers have good taste. They understand how to use type and imagery to create objects and advertising that resonate with people likely to buy. Copying a book cover or a business card or a mayo label isn’t good taste, it’s copying. The difficult work is doing a new thing in a way that people who have never seen it before will ‘get it’.

The other difficult work: understanding that your standards might not be the standards of the tribe you’re seeking to connect with. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s in bad taste. If the market respects the creator, takes action and then adopts the work, it’s in good taste.

Xmarks, a browser add-on that lets you synchronize your bookmarks, passwords and other data over several computers, is shutting down.

According to a lengthy blog post on the official Xmarks blog, today Xmarks will start sending notifications to users (I still haven’t received one) that the service will be shut down in 90 days. The reasons for the shutdown are explained in detail in the blog post, but it boils down to funds running out and Xmarks being unable to find a viable business model or a buyer.

Xmarks (originally called Foxmarks) started out with a very simple purpose: to let Firefox users sync their bookmarks on several computers. Later, the company changed the name to Xmarks (as it extended support for other browsers) and added more functionality, such as browsing recommendations and password syncing.

The interesting thing about Xmarks is this: if you ask me, or many people I know, what their favorite Firefox add-on is, we’d say: Xmarks. After drivers and Firefox, it’s the first piece of software I install on a new computer.

And I’m not the only one: Xmarks claims it serves some 2 million users across their 5 million desktops, adding nearly 3000 new accounts per day. Sounds like a successful service, but it obviously wasn’t enough. Normally, when you hear about a service shutting down, it’s usually due to lack of interest, but there’s no lack of interest in bookmark synchronization: users still need the feature, perhaps more than ever.

The problem is this: Google, Opera and Mozilla have either added or are planning to add most of the features Xmarks offers, for free. The folks at Xmarks knew this, and you can’t blame them for lack of trying to extend their niche with additional features, but at the end of the day, users installed Xmarks for its core functionality, and that’s bookmark synchronization.

Here’s a quote from Xmarks CTO and co-founder, Todd Agulnick, that sounds like a warning for many startups following a similar path: “For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. With that investment thesis thwarted, there is no way to pay expenses, primarily salary and hosting costs. Without the resources to keep the service going, we must shut it down.”

Sometimes, you can fight the big guys, such as Google and Mozilla, and win. Sometimes you can join them. Most of the times, unfortunately, you lose.

Of all the social networks competing for our online persona and social graph, Twitter is special. The culture and self-governing rules of engagement shaped by the “me” in social media, create a personalized  experience that looks and feels less like a “social” network and instead, creates an empowering information exchange.

Twitter is at the heart of the Web’s evolving egosystem and its archetype is powerful and quite understated.  For better or worse, Twitter introduces the notion of notion of popularity, whereby the numbers of followers and also the friend to follower ratio we possess indicate ones stature within Twitterverse. As I’ve said over the years, popularity does not beget influence, but the egosystem and all who define it, do in fact reward and nurture it. The true promise of Twitter is revealed not in the size of our social graph, but instead how we influence digital culture shaped by tweets, responses, retweets, trending topics, and the evolving patterns of connectivity we explore as both individuals and as denizens of a global community. Eventually, what happens on Twitter will influence behavior offline as well.

The Illusion of Control and Influence

In business, the illusion of influence is often measured by the quantity of followers and as such, the success of social campaigns is routinely defined by the volume of responses and retweets we trigger and the overall share of voice we earn through participation. As numbers factor into metrics, programs must include strategies for expanding visibility and reach. Brands then look to those individuals with remarkable social graphs to represent products and services much in the same way celebrities endorse products in traditional media today.  As a result, businesses are targeting individuals with substantial connections and rewarding them with incentives and also compensation for introducing a series of paid or sponsored tweets, updates, and posts to their audiences.

While social media presents a wonderful opportunity for individuals to define their “15 minutes” and ultimately their online legacy, brands and individuals must take responsibility for their streams and their valued networks. We are now venturing into domains where “eyeballs” and “audiences” transform into relationships and each are curated and cultivated to mean something deeply personal. Here, people are the masters of their experiences and they are defined by those to whom they’re connected.

Action…

Actions speak louder than words and as such, we earn and retain the relationships we deserve.

Influence is the ability to inspire and measure action. Awareness counts, but if social activity can cause action or change or impact sentiment or perception, we begin to understand the transformative and powerful attributes of true influence.

For example, if we align a group of undeniably popular Twitter users who are recognized for their celebrity and not necessarily recurring topics, passion, and interests, broad reach is certainly an inherent benefit of the alliance. But does reach equate to influence? I don’t believe so. Followers don’t equal influence.

If anything, reach contributes to awareness and buzz.

Twitter is unique in that its most active users, to some extent, are developing their own dedicated audiences. And just because they follow a popular person on Twitter, these campaigns don’t necessarily translate into desired actions or outcomes. They do, however, succeed in spreading the word and most commonly done so via retweets as followers of notable personalities also have followers of their own, which are as important to them and therefore require constant feeding of valuable and interesting information and content. Essentially, followers aren’t really followers at all. They’re collections of “interest graphs” where individuals are not bound by social relationships as much as they’re tied through context, common interests and goals, and shared experiences.

In a recent study entitled “The Million Follower Fallacy,” author Adi Avnit observed, “The act of retweeting (based on my personal experience), typically indicates that the receiver reads the tweet carefully, found it interesting, and deemed it to be of sufficient interest and value to forward it further to her followers. In some sense, retweets capture the content value of the tweet.”

In relation to the number of followers one earns in Twitter, Avnit concluded, “Popular users who have a high indegree [number of followers] are not necessarily influential in terms of spawning retweets or mentions.”

As an organization, how would you test the value of these connections? What if our goal was to raise donations for a particular cause or increase pre-orders or registrations related to a soon-to-be released product? Retweets are a necessary step in spreading information, but in the end, it’s the resulting clickthrough and donation, purchase, or registration that tests influence and defines the success of the campaign.

Perhaps the answer resides in the following statement, “we are defined by our associations.”

Brands seeking reach, presence, and connectivity must look beyond popularity and focus on aligning with the influential beacons who serve as the hubs for contextual networks or nicheworks.

The Conversation Quotient

Conversions are already a key metric in other forms of sales and marketing and eventually, it will permeate social media as well. Formulas exist to measure conversion ratios and if we analyze the performance of conversations, we can then not only assess influence, but also identify how to improve or increase conversation to action ratios. If a campaign earns 100,000 tweets and retweets and elicits 600 donations, purchases or registrations, the conversation quotient represents a .6% conversation rate. In this case, it can be assumed that for every 100,000 tweets, we can potentially expect 600 actions.

In the simple example above, conversations contribute to presence, but it is conversions that measure the effects of awareness. It’s imperative that we introduce a click to action, one that evokes response and also a measurable and meaningful event. However, as attention is increasingly thinning and information competes against itself, we must be mindful that multiple factors exist that are already working against you. While popularity factors into the likelihood for visibility, the design of the tweet contributes to whether it’s read, read and retweeted, or read, retweeted, and activated.

The Growing Popularity and Prominence of Nicheworks

Users on Twitter are already forging social graphs based on context. As such, Twitter will eventually base its Promoted Tweets advertising program on frames of reference. For instance, if you tweet about coffee on a regular basis and build a small, but dedicated audience around the subject, you are building a network of influence based on an identifiable topic. While I refer to these contextual networks as nicheworks, Twitter views the relationships formed around subject matter as interest graphs. Accordingly, these interest graphs will then receive advertisements in their streams, in this case, coffee.

Starbucks is already experimenting with Promoted Tweets tied to interests. The company also recently partnered with Klout to run a test campaign whereby “influencers” identified to related keywords were given a special offer. Applying the conversation quotient would immediately measure the performance of the campaign. And if Starbucks experimented with certain variations to test conversion ratios, the company could then introduce an awareness component to the program where the influencer is then empowered to extend the offer to their audiences. The campaign then focuses on context and influence rather than popularity, which will most likely result in a significant increase in clicks to action and ultimately greater conversions.

You Get One Tweet to Make a First Impression

You only get one shot at a desired outcome and one-click to make a first impression. Plan accordingly and ensure that the series of crafted tweets are optimized to incite desired behavior. It is for this reason that we look beyond popularity towards those individuals and organizations that have established influence within relevant subject matters. Thoughtfulness, strategy, research, rewards, and context are critical ingredients of our programming recipe. The consistent introduction of value linked to interests and influence, sets the stage for the establishment and cultivation of active, dedicated, and beneficial social nicheworks.

Image Credit: ShutterStock