“Don’t let our name fool you. Even though our name is synonymous with logos, we’re a full scale design firm and can help you with anything from logos to infographics to brochures”: Logoworks

The Silicon Review

“We have created unique logos for more than 75,000 customers around the world. From logos to websites, we provide small businesses with affordable, high-quality solutions.”

A logo suggests something about a business, its products or industry. However, the logo’s connection to a business or industry often isn’t evident to consumers at first glance. Well-conceived and designed logos can be instrumental in building and maintaining a certain image of your brand.

Web design and development is important these days for a couple of reasons. First, we live in the age of Google, which means that whenever we are curious about a topic, we hop on our computers or phones and do a quick search. Good web design means the answers are easy to find, and that’s a good thing. Add to that how we also live in the age of Amazon, Yelp, and general e-commerce, and you have this perfect storm where every company needs a strong online presence. Not having a website means you essentially don’t exist. There are several companies that only run online, so for them, the entire customer experiences hinges on the quality of their web design. When Logoworks works with their clients, they design the logo first, and then use the thematic elements to build the website (any any other projects). That means clients end up getting a cohesive brand, an overall better customer experience, and great design (at a good price).

The firm has a community of designers from all over the world who it works with to consistently produce high quality designs for its clients. “In the 17 years since we’ve opened our doors, we’ve produced over 300,000 logos for 75,000 happy customers.”

Logoworks was founded in the year 2000, like most startups, out of frustration with the status quo. One of the founders was originally tasked with getting a logo designed for a new project at his company. After three months, tens of thousands of dollars, driving back and forth across town to hold meetings with the agency, he realized that has got to be a better way. From there, he built Logoworks as an online portal where clients could get a logo designed quickly, affordably, and hassle-free. Since then, the firm has designed about 300,000 logos for its clients.

The Early Days

Logoworks’ first product was (as its name suggests) a logo. They were the first to take a creative service like logo design and make it available online at a mass scale. Very quickly, the firm realized that customers don’t like to be nickel and dimed through the process, so to make it work, they had to create a standardized flow, so the customers would know exactly what they were getting and when. At first, it was somewhat tricky to do that with a creative service, because there are so many unknowns, but eventually they came up with the concept of ‘packages’ (and now you see this just about everywhere on the web, but at the time, it was revolutionary). The customers loved it, and as they kept asking for more products, Logoworks kept growing.

Some advice for the entrepreneurs out there

“Early on, there wasn’t a lot of web or code infrastructure out there, so everything had to be done from scratch. Nowadays, everything is really easy to do. For example, if I want to create an ecommerce store today, I can go to Shopify, set everything up, and be taking live taking orders within just a few hours. This wasn’t possible a decade ago. My big advice is, don’t try to build it yourself – especially for V1. There are so many services out there that you can use to make your life easier. Use them and don’t look back.”

Good fortune

The firm says that it has a great team and culture at Logoworks. Everybody loves their jobs, and it shows. When you’re a customer service organization, you’re not just selling a product; you’re selling the service that comes with it. Having the right people makes all the difference.

Next up is its designer community. They are the heart and soul of Logoworks, and without them, the company says it would be nowhere. It took a while to build the network, and it’s at the point today where it just keeps sending them more and more work, and they keep coming up with clever and inspired designs.

Today, the brand is also pretty strong. Customers recognize that we’ve been around for a while and that our name is synonymous with good design and great customer service. With all the “offshore” design companies out there, it definitely helps to have a solid reputation.

Assuage to global IT platform

“What excites me is that we’re the first or second step for businesses looking to get started. One of our former slogans was ‘It all starts with a logo’, which is so true..

I go to a lot of events where people ask me, “What makes a good logo” or “Hey look at this - is this logo good?”

There are definitely some universal design principles that differentiate good and bad logos, but when you start getting to the finer details, it’s all so subjective. For me, a good logo is one that the founder/entrepreneur looks at, loves, and it inspires them to work just a bit harder each day. It really does start with a logo.”

The Logoworks Difference

Every graphic design company out there will tell you their process is different, that they have the most talented, award-winning designers, the best customer service reps, the nicest gallery, and most important clients, and so on. Having said that there are three tangible differences between Logoworks and all the other companies. First, the project managers are all US-based and have a background in design. “Take our Art Director, Jenni. She grew up in Wisconsin, has a BFA in design, and actually worked as (as still freelances as) a graphic designer before taking on project management here at Logoworks.

Because of their backgrounds, our PMs are really good at bridging the gap between our clients and designers. Clients and designers don’t always speak the same language, and when a client says one thing, the designer interprets it as another. That’s frankly the primary source of most peoples’ frustration when working with creatives, so our PMs make sure everybody understands each other.”

Secondly, the company doesn’t believe in ‘spec’ or speculative work, roughly defined as doing work in hopes of getting paid. “You see a lot of spec work out there in the design industry in the form of design contests. I’m going to create a contest and tell 100 designers to submit work (for free). If I happen to like one of the designs, I’ll pay that guy. At Logoworks, we believe it’s unethical to expect folks to work for free, so we pay all of our designers for their time, regardless of whether their design was ultimately picked by the client.”

Finally, Logoworks has a fairly advanced software platform they use to facilitate the ‘back and forth’ when it comes to design feedback. “Most firms do their back and forth through email, which is just inefficient given how we interact with technology today. We spent about two years building a really robust online platform where our customers could give feedback and notes to the designers. We cut the number of revisions by about 30% and total time-to-complete a logo by about half. We literally are making designs better, faster, and cheaper.”

We introduce you to the fiery personality: Toufan Rahimpour, COO

Toufan started his career in aerospace, building satellites and launching rockets for NASA and the US Air Force, He also worked at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, in the Operations and Product Development group, helping companies design better products. Toufan has always had a special place in his heart for design, so when Logoworks was looking for a new COO to run ops and product, it was the perfect fit. In his spare time, he loves to spend time on his boat (which his 8-year old nephew says it far too small).