Jenny Jensen of NextJen Mobile is a friend of mine, so when she mentioned she was having trouble coming up with a logo for NextJen, I got to thinking about possibilities. An idea popped into my head pretty much fully-formed and, while I admit it’s a bit cliche, she liked it and ran with with it and I’m happy with it, too.
Sticking with a lot of recent design trends, the logo features an all-lowercase wordmark and a very flat color palette. The latter choice makes it very flexible, as it can be used with a light background or a dark one and is easily reproducible in print if need be.
The word “mobile” appears in all-caps (though significantly smaller) under the “nextjen” text. The tittle on the J in “nextjen” is decorated to look like any of the symbols for radio waves or broadcasting, tying into the “mobile” part of the name. This is what I think is the cliche part of the logo, as NextJen doesn’t actually broadcast anything.
Having completed a primary logo, I put together a smaller version that could be used as an icon, where just the “nj” abbreviation from the “nextjen” text appears, again including the decorated tittle.
With a logo for NextJen in place, I took a look at updating that of their flagship app, MIRide.
The original logo was assembled from clip art. I kept the same basic idea, including the cyclist on the outline of the state of Michigan, but flattened everything out, applying the same colors and fonts as used in the NextJen logo for consistency.
Because “MIRide” is somewhat difficult to read, I put the “MI” part in bold, outside the state outline, in the same color as the state. Then “ride” appears inside the state outline in the opposite color, in lowercase and standard font weight.
As with the NextJen logo, I made a stripped-down version for use as an icon. Apologies to the Upper Peninsula as it was cut to make it fit better, as the UP too often is.
[…] At least it was something though. I figured that I could get the site out there, and figure out a better logo later. Then I got really lucky when a friend of mine, Clark Rasmussen, who is way better at logo design than I am, pinged me saying that he had an idea for my logo. Once he writes up his post on the work he did with it, I’ll link to it here. Edit: He has since written about the design for this logo, and the design of the new MIRide logo here. […]