Our picks for the most intriguing companies from the latest batch of Y Combinator were based entirely on substance and our infinite experience, so it's time for something much more superficial. Here are the 11 best logos from the hundreds of companies that unveiled yesterday.
Watching companies go 60 seconds at a time for around 8 hours was pretty shocking even when a lot of them were great, but I always perked up when I saw something with a cool logo. So I started marking them, and pretty soon a post appeared.
Sadly many of these will be purchased in a short time and their awesome logos will be retired, like what happened with my recent favorite logo, DataFleets. I guess it's not really sad because they all get super rich, but there's a perfectly good logo, you know?
Anyway, let's proceed. These are in no particular order except the top three are my favorites and the others are all fourths.
Enombic
The capital E always makes many interesting geometric possibilities available. The Enombic logo enhances this famous trisulca optical illusion without exaggerating, giving a clear (if impossible) shape that is obviously also a letter - without lines or extraneous materials, indeed with the absolute minimum. The clean type is also well chosen (and avoids repetition by changing upper and lower case). Golden Star.
It's not the first time U and I have been joined this way, but it's done here very elegantly and with complementary curves and spacing in just the right places. They also use the inversion of the above, but I think white on black is better than black on white.
Here's one where the logo is informed by the purpose of the company, which records and highlights video calls. A loop with an arrow is a universal multilingual symbol for getting back to something, and there are a few ways to do this that are more flashy but don't look good. Getting the effect of a circle and not just a semicircle without compromising the shape of the P is a difficult thing to balance. This logo has the weird side effect of putting a recognizable P right before the P perfectly, so you'll end up with PPerfect Recall. It happens often, but it's still something to watch out for.
Another logo actually informed by the purpose of the company, this one combined with the logo could do a little more work (the curve of the tail bothers me, the advantage is too much, and the Dr Mario player in me wants a solid half of the lower capsule) - but it is immediately recognizable and adequately communicates what the company does without words, a rare quality. I have to hand it over to them for the name too.
It's a bold decision to leave out half the "o" in any situation, as it can quickly become another letter or symbol if you don't do it right. In this case using it as a rising sun works really well, hinting at the purpose of the app as well. Having an uppercase R the same size as lowercase letters would normally something that would really bother me and may have gone wrong, but it works here due to the white space left by the o. Not perfect but surprisingly palatable.
I liked the idea of this, but the graphics need simplification. The proportions are wrong with the eyepiece, the lens barrel and the plate and the dial is one element too many. I like the D slot, but there is something strange. Maybe it's an optical illusion, but some stripes look thicker than others. Actually, now that I look closely it is obvious that someone has left an extra pixel on the lower layer. The geometric type is also solid, but it loses the .ai, it's small and weird. Just ... Dashlabs.
This really seems to have no connection with the company, or even the famous geneticist, but I love mountain M. It would have been legendary if Mendel had produced hiking boots or camping gear (not too late for a pin). This type of literary art is surprisingly rare to find done right, and that's really just on the charming side of the primitive, but you can see the thought that went into it. The type is not exceptional, however, he cannot stand those waves.
The double helix structure of DNA (linked to Nuntius gene therapy) can be used to create many shapes, but this capital N is really nice. The stylized bases aren't exactly biologically accurate, but they work well, and the sinuous curve of the helix flows beautifully into the circle.
The muted rainbow was used to death, but apparently they didn't deactivate it enough. Aspen Cloud goes all the way to pastels, but they're harmonious enough to suggest CMYK rather than other polychromatic logos. The leaf-tree combination is simple and memorable, they avoid weight and symmetry issues, and the colors are well laid out. On a white background it recedes harmlessly and on a black one it opens. I can't say the same about the guy, though. I can't really say anything.
I hate this high-visibility color when it's on the stupid Uber bikes littering my neighborhood, but I have to say it's a great point. The full logotype is nothing to write home about (any logo for a company called "ping pong" that doesn't use a symmetrical or bilateral pattern is a waste), but what I assume is that the app logo is great. The darker gray tone does a lot of work: it establishes a kind of "light out of scope" that casts a shadow, and because it is always slightly narrower than the point / ball, it also gives an illusion of depth. I suppose it could be interpreted as the line of flight of the ball (i.e. it is zooming in and to the left) but I like my way more. It could also be an small too close to the flag of Japan.
I don't know why it works, but it works. The bell paired with the chicken takes two "alarms" and makes them a cute object that screams (or rather sings) "notifications". Or maybe "peeps". Let's just hope Nintendo doesn't sue them for violating a group of bird-type characters in Animal Crossing (especially Knox).
Good luck to all these companies and many others that I have not listed just because I got tired. Design is important, not just to grab the user's attention, but because it indicates attention to detail and an approach beyond purely functional - something startups often struggle with.
