About
I launched an initiative to redesign the UW PM logo to better reflect the values of UW PM and its identity. This kickstarted the defining of
UW PM’s design systems.
Problem
Results
Originally known as the Product Vision Club in 2014 before rebranding in 2019 to UW PM, the logo established at the time no longer resonated with the current beliefs, values, and image of UW PM. The logo felt outdated, unaesthetic, and did not echo with the team or the audience.
The University of Waterloo’s Product Management Club (UW PM) is a student run organization whose mission is to foster the product management community at the University of Waterloo by providing early exposure and training of product management skills. They aim to decrease the barrier to entry for PM roles, providing access to learn and network with other passionate students who share their vision, regardless of their background.
This initiative led to a brand new logo for UW PM that is still used to this day! It also led to a redefinition of the brand's identity. See the succeeding initiative in the
UW PM design system case study for more!
Solution
Ideation
Before redesigning the logo, I evaluated the logo and took into consideration several ideas.
UW PM Club Identity
UW PM is already a well established club. It was important that the redesigning of the logo is new yet familiar so the audience can still recognize the club’s identity.
Hexagons
Hexagons are a major distinguishing element of UW PM's identity. Leveraging this to ensure the logo resonates with the UW PM audience as part is a good starting point.
Colour Scheme
The colouration used in the logo is another distinguishing trait. Maintaining this colour for identity recognition will be beneficial.
With these considerations in mind, several ideas were generated, created digitally, and were brought to the team for feedback.
The UW PM team gravitated towards the combination logos; ones htat combined the UW PM lettering with some arrangement of hexagons instead of just a symbol itself. The team felt that having the UW PM lettering was important in conveying the club's identity. The team favoured the below logo the most, though, there were still some suggestions for improvement.
I also wanted to address the typeface used for the UW PM lettering. The previous logo used a font that was incredibly thin, bland, and qualitatively “lacked character”. To determine the best typeface for UW PM, I separated fonts into 2 categories; casual and modern, Casual fonts were more round and playful, whereas modern fonts where more straight and formal.
In consulting the team, the
Sen font the most popular. It was unique and stood out amongst the rest of the fonts, reflecting UW PM’s innovative and modern nature. The final logo with all the incorporated feedback resulted in the logo used today by UW PM.
Iteration
Logo Meaning
To iterate, I tested out line widths, colourations, and combinations to help the team settle on more distinguishing traits for the logo.
From this iteration, he team confirmed that the original design was still the favourite as it was simple and effective; it had artistic taste with the overlapping hexagons but not too complicated that the audience could not recognize it from afar. We liked the variation with the thicker lines as this made the logo stand out better. The iteration revealed and confirmed that the maintenance of the white and primary colour in the logo was another core piece that wanted to be maintained. The decision was made to follow through with the following logo:
An area of improvement that needed to be made upon discussion included rounding the edges of the hexagon slightly to make the logo have a more modern and casual feel.
Typeface Selection
The meaning behind the UW PM logo is driven by its hexagons which holds significant meaning regarding the field of product management.
Blending of Skills
Great product managers are multi-talented. This idea is displayed with the use of this multi-sided shape. Great product managers may have to be technically inclined. They may have to work very closely with users and customers. They may have to be design-oriented and be capable of applying design thinking processes to wireframe solutions. They may need data analytics skills to justify decisions that heavily influence a feature or business, and the list goes on and on. As such, keeping the hexagons in the new logo is representative of the diverse set of skills that product managers bring to any team.
Background Diversity
Product managers come from many different backgrounds. Product managers are scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, engineers, mathematicians, designers, developers, researchers, and the list continues. The multi-sided shape represents the diversity of backgrounds of product managers and as such, this symbolism was kept in the new logo.
Interconnectedness
Overlapping hexagons is a new element added to the logo. This was done because it emphasizes the nature of product management. It shares resemblance with a Venn diagram. Product management is a blend of disciplines to connect tech and business. The new logo represents that product management is the middle ground between tech and business, the space where both are brought together to co-exist.
The new logo also represents a chain or link. UW PM’s mission is “To foster the product management community at the University of Waterloo”. By linking the hexagons together, it represents a sense of community and interconnectedness at UW.
Key Takeaways
For UW PM, I hope the new logo inspires the team to innovate and embrace change. I hope it enables the team to feel a sense of belonging and a sense of community. This new logo is a representation of the team’s diversity, hard work, and commitment to the mission of fostering the UW product management community, and I am confident that the team will continue to grow, innovate, and help future product managers!
This was my first rebranding project undertaken and I am incredibly happy with the result and the follow-up items that arose from this initiative. With that, I learned a whole lot about branding and here are some of my key takeaways and lessons
Less is more. This lesson was taken in a variety of ways.
- I originally presented nearly 50 ideas for logos to the team. I found that this distracted the team from the best logo ideas. In future projects, I will limit the ideas I present and instead open the floor to suggestions to ensure I do not overwhelm my audience.
- For logo design, sometimes, less is more. Simple logos resonate the best with audiences, so in designing logos in the future, I will be sure to take this into consideration.
- Consider the logo’s usage. During the design process, I realized that this logo needed to work regardless of colouration of backgrounds, and fortunately, the design I created worked on black and white backgrounds. In future projects, before designing, I would create a list of the logo's usage, whether it be merchandise, posters, social media, websites. I would then compare it with other brands in the same landscape to ensure that my design stands out and is flexible. I will also consider the largest and smallest size the logo would be used for and ensure that its design works in these instances.
- Systemically approach logo redesign. In retrospect, my approach to this logo redesign felt sporadic and spontaneous at times, which may be a good or bad quality to have. This mode of designing allowed for creativity, but in some instances, felt disorganized and inconsistent. In future redesigns, I would take into consideration my mode of presentation and more careful consideration of the process to ensure the best selection is made for the team.
