NOV 2018: New Logo - Same Values

Global team, Here's a quick oral history on Startup Grind's logo and history and where we're headed today: 

In April 2010 we had hosted Startup Grind for a few months with modest results. 5-10 people would come to the events, but it was an excuse to hangout with other entrepreneurs so we kept at it.

At the time I was building an iPad game that would eventually lose all of the $250,000 an angel investor gave me to build the team and the game. Another email perhaps. :) During that time I had a game designer on the team and I asked him to create a logo for our founder-get-together. After the first draft this is what we had and I accepted it right away.

Then in the summer of 2013 Google partnered with us and we simplified a number of things with the colors to blend in with the new mouthful of new awesome brand associated with the logo.

In early 2015 based of the advice of a great designer that worked on the logo, we changed the red to a lighter less industrial red. I remember vividly the pushback we got on it from long-time fans of the brand. "It looks pink!" I was told. Interesting to see 4 years so many brands have adopted and copied this color palate and look. We also went to a horizontal logo for better viewing on mobile.

Now it's 2018 and we're evolving it again! There are a couple of things that we feel have held the logo back that are worth updating: 

  1. Startup font feels outdated. The connected letters weren't unique and are used by lots of brands. 
  2. The uppercase "GRIND" was difficult to work with. While unique, it made it hard to put simply against other backdrops and with other combinations. 
  3. Google is changing their branding. The program is no longer being called Google for Entrepreneurs (GFE) but now "Google for Startups".

A couple of things to note about the new logo:

  1. Cleaned up "startup" to be more legible and modern.
  2. Lower cased the "grind" but maintained "gritty" design we're known for. We looked at many iterations of this, more gritty, less gritty, and this had the right consistence of close or far away. The grittiness of "grind" will be understood to be deliberate.
  3. "In partnership with Google..." is the new verbiage. Some have said they prefer "Powered By". I don't disagree with liking that but this is Google's new direction. The reality is at some point in the future, a day I hope doesn't come soon, but Google will not be on the letterhead, and we shouldn't get married to anything. We are what we are with or without Google and what changes they make to themselves doesn't change what we are.

No matter how it looks, we'll always be Startup Grind... with the same values and same great community... the best in the world. Thanks for letting me be part of everything great you're doing. 

Derek + team