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Your Ad Here – The Genesis of the Marchex Adhere Logo
By David Sumner-Smith | June 16, 2008
The new logo for the Marchex Adhere product was developed in house by Marchex’s designer, Naomi Menahem.
Naomi speaks fluent French and Hebrew and studied art history at the Sorbonne.
In this post, Naomi discusses her work on the Marchex Adhere logo:
When you were sketching out the design for the new logo what words, ideas, images, symbols were you trying to incorporate into the image?
The guidelines (creative brief) I was given to work with listed the name of the new product (adhere). Also, my manager was very specific that she wanted a visual that was very literal. Through all the studies they did in the months leading up to the product launch, they learned that people want to immediately see the connection between the visual and the product - right away. The name “adhere” also is an extremely literal name.
Therefore after coming up with a few options and a few different directions, we opted for this visual of a target. We wanted the word “adhere” to appear in lowercase. The font is bold, modern, yet attainable. The kerning is very tight, giving that sense of togetherness, local, targeted. The direction of the arrow is such that it flows with the word “adhere” from right to left (from the word to the target)… your ad to your target audience.
The words that I kept in mind throughout the process were local, targeted, attainable, friendly, community, stickiness, adhesive, radius.
Although adhere had its own independent look and feel, we decided to stay with the blue color. We wanted somehow to tie it back to Marchex. By using hues of blue, Marchex Adhere stays under the Marchex umbrella.
What ideas do you want the logo to convey to a viewer?
Again, between the visual and the name of the product (adhere), we want the audience to understand right away the idea of advertising, of targeting, and of local.
Did you use pencils, markers, and paper first, or did you compose it all on the computer?
I always start a creative process with my drawing pad and a pencil… Sometimes markers. But I definitely turn off the computer.
Was this your first concept for representing Marchex Adhere, or did you fill up a couple trash cans with rejects first?
We had quite a few options… About 15 different options that I presented, from very literal to very abstract. The very literal won! I had a couple of other ones that I really liked and actually, after choosing this final logo, I was able to integrate elements of the other “final contestants” into the Web site. For instance, all the icons on the Web site live in a square with one of the edges folded. This visual was the background of one of the logo options, giving that “post-it” feel, or the adhesive feel of adhere. I thought that even though that logo was not chosen as the final one, I could still use that element throughout the site. It worked out!
When you completed the current logo, were you confident that this was it, that this was the image that represented the product most vividly?
I like to think that this was a team effort… I like to get feedback from my team, hearing the pro’s and cons. We had to go back and forth, understand what was the most important thing we want this logo to convey visually. I think that the logo answers all of what we wanted it to convey.
What was your manager’s first reaction, did she have to be sold on the idea or did she get it right away?
After her research and studies, after learning that people want just a literal visual, she thought that this logo was THE logo, and she was fairly confident when she sent it up through the chain of command.
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