After almost five years of blogging, I figured it was time to put a new face on the old site and become a bit more professional. So I recently commissioned a contest for a new Free Money Finance logo and the new design you see at the top of the blog (as well as the icon to the left on this post) is the result (FYI, I used 99designs and loved them. I also had the Best of Money Carnival done there too). I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 designs submitted (some were versions of other designs, so they all weren't unique), and this was the winner.
Since you may be wondering, I thought I'd tell you about the logo and everything behind it. Here goes:
- The star icon is a new design of my old icon (which was just a generic star) that symbolizes two major underlying thoughts here at Free Money Finance:
1. There is a small number of key/vital/important (thus the star -- to denote importance) steps you can take that will dramatically improve your finances (for examples of this, see my posts FMF Five Principles and How to Get Rich in Three Easy Steps.)
2. If you implement these important tasks, you will grow your net worth (thus the arrow pointing upward.)
- The name of the blog is the same of course, but there was a lot to consider about font, size, caps or no caps, different colors for the words, etc. In the end, the few people I asked liked the "all small letters" look with a simple font as well as different colors to make the individual words stand out more clearly.
- The tagline of "grow your net worth" has been around as long as the blog has been (It's actually a shortened version of my first tagline which was "FREE tips on MONEY and FINANCE to help you grow your net worth". If you look at the capitalized words, you see where the blog's name comes from.) Anyway, these four, simple words state clearly and concisely what Free Money Finance is about -- helping all readers to grow their net worths. A couple changes to it from the original logo: it's now in yellow to contrast with the word "finance" and only the "g" in "grow" is capitalized (all the letters used to be in caps.)
- The colors of green and yellow stay the same for four reasons:
1. They say "money" to me (green for dollars and yellow for coins/gold)
2. I didn't like any of the other color combinations better
3. I wanted to keep the color consistency from the prior design, and
4. I like them. ;-)
- I had several backgrounds designed and I may rotate them around a bit now and then, so don't be surprised if you see different headers from time to time. In particular, I have some backgrounds that are darker that I may feature once in awhile.
The next step for me is to work on some minor site design changes which I hope to complete in the next month or so. There won't be a huge change since I generally like the way the site looks and I don't want to make everyone re-learn how to find certain things on it. But there will be some subtle differences here and there, so keep your eyes peeled.
Looks great!
Posted by: Lauren | January 11, 2010 at 08:38 AM
Noticed the logo over the weekend, but not the entry for it until now.
Yes, I think that's a nice logo. Congrats on five years of successful blogging.
Posted by: Eugene Krabs | January 11, 2010 at 08:53 AM
I like it too, but don't forget to change your favicon!
Posted by: Katharine | January 11, 2010 at 08:54 AM
Love the blog and the new logo!
Posted by: Life Compass | January 11, 2010 at 09:15 AM
As others have said, the new logo looks great!
Posted by: Aron | January 11, 2010 at 11:02 AM
I didn't notice until it was commented on in a post, but I'm the least observant person ever. Looks good!
Posted by: Crystal | January 11, 2010 at 01:06 PM
I like the new look too. And I was wondering where you came up with the blog's name. . . now I know!
Posted by: Christy | January 11, 2010 at 01:42 PM
looks and feels great.
Posted by: Flint Einstein | January 11, 2010 at 05:01 PM
I'm surprised I actually noticed it a few days ago... since my s.o. doesn't seem to think I'm very observant, haha. I'll have to see if I can be the first to notice once you start rotating headers :)
Posted by: J in FL | January 11, 2010 at 06:22 PM
Nice. Be sure to change it on aggregate sites like the Money Tips Network: http://www.wisebread.com/money-tips/
Posted by: atexasgirl | January 11, 2010 at 06:35 PM
I noticed it as well.
FMF, your marketing DNA is starting to express itself! I can tell you are naturally talented at this, both based on the output and the thought process that went into this.
-Mike
Posted by: Mike Hunt | January 12, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Great graphic! I love your choice and rational.
Posted by: Sandra Jensen | January 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM