Week 3 and headway was made with the logo and brand names. As mentioned in a previous post; we investigated the process that company goes through when choosing brand names. After a while brainstorming, individual thinking and reflection, considering existing names and reference books, we narrowed the list of potential names down to 9: Upal, Unipal, Edge, Fixer, Dentless, Sense, Fuse Media, Tone Media, Neon.

We in the group decided on the name "Edge" as it was a simple, single syllable, word that was both memorable and easy to say (taking non English speakers into consideration).

Development of a Logo was pursued this week by Emily and Philippa, a more detailed account of their process can be found in a separate blog post but the general thrust development of the logo was uniqueness. It was found in research that blue and red were common, recurring colours in most logos so a similarly bold colour that is seldom used was considered. Purple fell into this category nicely.

In our first session with Craig Walton, we had to consider initial ideas for our company name and was introduced to the programme, InDesign, which is appropriate for many uses including designing a logo.

We all came up with one idea for a company name which we thought would link with our values as a company and our target audience of students. After designing a rough design of our chosen company name on InDesign we joined back as a group to discuss which was the most preferred between the group. We chose to develop Philippa's idea of 'Edge' further as we thought it would relate to our young demographic and would give us the opportunity to be creative with fonts, colours and overall design.

'EDGE' - As we decided on our company name, we then decided to split the tasks of designing the company logo and further research into our app. George and Alex continued to research and develop our app ideas and myself and Philippa began designing our company logo. I firstly looked at other company logos to get an idea of what is the dominant colours used as a company we wanted to be unique and did not want to go for popular colour schemes.

Google search results of Company Logos.

The colours red and blue are recurring colour in logos in which we wanted to differ from as a company ourselves. I decided to go for a vibrant purple and white as I thought those colours worked well together and would appeal to our target audience. By using the website http://www.dafont.com  we used that to get unique fonts to create a original logo and I used the font named Edge Caps. With an initial idea with what I wanted it to look like on screen I managed to get a this design below however I want to develop my own design further to make it look more professional and recognisable by maybe working more with the diamond shape.

After doing initial research about existing brand names and branding, we investigated the process that company goes through when choosing brand names. There are many factors that go into choosing a logo, including the consideration of desirable properties, including connotations, relevance and memorability. There are also branding objectives, including establishing a particular image, identifying a target market, fostering brand loyalty and market segmentation. We found that brands use a branding criteria when choosing their brand name, including compatibility with the product image, memorability and trademark availability, as brands cannot share the same name as another.

Values & Mission Statement

As a company we focused on the main values we would want to represent us as a brand, as we wanted to relate to the community and audience we will be targeting which would mainly be students. As students ourselves we wanted the values to be genuine and relatable so the consumers feel apart of the company themselves. Coming up with ideas of what the company itself stands for and also including links to the app were more difficult that expected, however we narrowed it down to 5 main values and a mission statement which we feel have a friendly and approachable appeal to them. We as a company wanted our values to represent us as individuals as well as a group, so here are our company values:

1. Being a helpful friend in need to make life a little easier.
2. Nurturing young people into an efficient adulthood.
3. Opening new forms of communication
4. Present Opportunities with deals and updated discounts
5. Be Humble as a company

Our mission statement was what we wanted to achieve as a company in regards to our app, we knew we wanted to create a finance based app aimed towards students which made our mission statement easier to produce with having initial ideas already set in place.

Mission Statement: Building a platform to help and advise students to organise and manage their money efficiently.

Research:
Looking into other companies mission statement and values show the importance of having focused values which would tell the consumers the promises we are providing as a company and also having a focused mission statement to keep our task direct and organised. I looked at successful social networking sites such as twitter to see what the initial focus was for the creation of Twitter.

Twitter's Mission statement: To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.

Twitter keeps their mission statement basic and direct which I feel we have also achieved as a company. The slight differences between Twitter and our own company is we are more specific with our target audience as we focus on students instead of everyone. We feel this specific focus will influence our choices throughout this process by thinking for students, this could effect our design and the function of the app in a positive way.

The development of ideas continues and work began on designing a logo for our product. Branding and an investigation into the necessity of branding was our main focus this week, coming to the conclusion that the most valuable brands in the world today owe a large portion of their success to the effectiveness of their branding. The brand, to a large extent in many companies, is more important than the commodities they peddle. Examples like Google, Microsoft, and even smaller ones like BMW or Aldi, show how effective a simple name and logo can be. Saying those names and seeing those logos we, as consumers, know immediately who they are and what they sell. Another case of effective branding being of the utmost importance is with websites such as comparethemarket.com, Go Compare and other websites that compare prices for bills and insurance etc. quite often the websites comparing different car insurance policies are more recognisable than the car insurance companies themselves.

In addition to the investigation of branding we decided to shave off the feature set of our app that involved connection to bank accounts. Banks would never agree to a third party app being involved with their clients money so we thought it sensible to strip that idea.
Instead we thought it would still be important to feature the finance element of the app, however focus mainly on an income and/or student loans. This way the user can set up the total amount when their income or loan has come in, so the app is still efficient and can provide help budgeting the money the user has without involving a third party company.