Why VoiceSignals and how we came up with the brand.

What went into the logo for VoiceSignals? How did we land on the mark and font treatment? To understand what a logo is, we first must understand what the main purpose of logos is. The design process must make the logo immediately recognizable, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty, and implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand or economic entity. Its shapes, colors, fonts, and images are strikingly different from other logos in the same market niche. Logos are to identify.

The universal principles for logo design-

• Simple
• Memorable
• Timeless
• Versatile
• Appropriate

One of the world's greatest designers, Paul Rand states that "a logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign. A logo does not sell (directly); it identifies. A logo is rarely a description of a business. A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around. A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it represents is more important than what it looks like. The subject matter of a logo can be almost anything."

But what is our Identity?

It's pretty hard to even think about the design without knowing who we are as a company and what VoiceSignals means. We needed to start with some questions to drive the creativity.

What are we building?

We are building a platform that enables customers to gain valuable insight into their clients through the power of voice. Bridging a gap between voice, data, and insights to improve outcomes and find new growth opportunities.

What we tasked ourselves with is connecting a duality of human behavior and science. We take the intimacy in a human's voice, the tones and inflections of their vocal patterns to learn and glean unique insights that provide ways to better connect and refine further communication and interactions—the blending of voice, technology, and predictive analytics.

What words describe our company?

When we started talking about who we are and what we stand for, it was always that bilateral idea of science and compassion. Finding the intimacy of the human connection and the data that you can derive from understanding the vocal patterns in those conversations.

• Intimate
• Thoughtful
• Understanding
• Confident
• Actionable

Where could we find inspiration?

As a child growing up, my life revolved around comic books and graphic novels. I poured over the Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse universe. I spent my days reading and imagining I had superpowers. Thinking up what a mutant healing power would feel like, what I would do with super-strength, if I could have the ability to throw things so accurately that even a paper clip could be a weapon (huge Bullseye fan:).

When allowed to build a brand from scratch, I knew I needed to inject some of that passion into what VoiceSignals would emulate in the brand, and pulling from some of my favorite comic book titles; I developed some of the primary colors for our marketing design system.

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What about the LogoMark?

When you think about the name VoiceSignals the obvious thing that comes to mind is sound and voice and the idea of communication. A beacon or sound idea shows we are listening and the noises humans make to interact with one another. However that felt a little too obvious. We needed something that felt softer more natural.

Finding a way to not be too literal but also something that would tap into our teams experiences. The name speaks to communication and listening but also consistency and pattern. Finding a balance with the science and emotional connectivity.

However, the concept that kept coming up with us was a wave and the organic emotion that waves and surf have. A driving force in the upbringing of our CEO who grew up in Hawaii, was the cultural significance of the ocean and the waves of the many famous breaks. Being able to align our personal experiences to the melodic nature of the ocean felt like a harmonious union of what we want VoiceSignals to stand for.

“Gleaning deeply personal insights from voice to uncover and detect early bio-markers and predicting human behavior is much like extracting the truth below the hard, busy surface that humans project. Like the quiet, calm and clarity that exists below the noisy surface of rough ocean waves. This is our attraction to the space - that the truth, often lies beneath the surface. We can find it, and extract it from the noise in a compassionate way.” Ryan Herman ~ VoiceSignals CEO

A logomark is a logo centered around a symbolic image or icon. The wave element needed to be able to stand alone and capture the essence of VoiceSignals. Something that felt iconic. We played with the extenuation of the wave but eventually the dot felt more defined and usable. It wasn’t too literal but gave your eye a frame of reference for where to start. A waypoint for the science to begin.

Well what about Font?

We only have a handful of tools to communicating online, really. Words, images, colors, and composition are the usual suspects, but the legibility and resonance of the typography can turn a simple logo into a thing of beauty when done right.

If you use an existing typeface in a logotype, particularly a near-ubiquitous one such as Helvetica, there is often more pressure on other touchpoints, such as imagery, colour palette, tone of voice and so on, to develop and enhance the brand’s personality.

We wanted the typeface in the logo to carry that emotional and data driven theme. The typeface and logomark needed to play a little bit off of one another. Feeling modern but also to use Dieter Rams quote “Form should follow function.”

We looked at our standard logotypes - San Serif typefaces are pretty standard these days for tech / new companies, and while it can feel a little played out, I do love me some San Serif fonts. Gotham, Flama, Mulish (insert similar typeface) all had a nice clean look. But the sterility and monotone in them felt obvious and safe. We needed something that had nuances and fun elements.

We then began looking at some more playful fun typefaces to add more levity Bazouk, Rezland, Chromia, even a typeface I love IBM Plex and one that resonated Bauhaus.

"ITC Bauhaus was designed by Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso in 1975. Inheriting Herbert Bayer's universal's simple geometric shapes and monotone stroke weights, it includes separate upper and lower case characters. Five weights of Roman fonts were made for this family. Unlike the earlier ITC Ronda, the letters have open instead of closed counters."

The 'e' in the Bauhaus typeface brought that bit of fun to the logo. We are injecting a divergence from a linear process. Because that's where we want VoiceSignals to be as a company. Our goal is to build a platform that, while based in science, allows people to experiment, try things, use what you have available but experiment and explore. We are only cracking the surface to understanding human voice. We want to be a catalyst for that understanding.

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