How we found our designer

And almost did not hire her:

One of my mentors once told me: “Good design is no longer a USP for internet products. It is table stakes”. We’ve believed in this all along and have wanted to build the best possible experience at Musicfellas. A major role in that has been of our designer, Sneha Patel. This is the story of how we found our designer and almost did not hire her.

It was a Saturday, the day of the monthly Startup Saturday meet. As a newly turned entrepreneur, I thought it would be wise to meet some of the people from the startup community. So, I went for what would be my first and only SS meet.

But before that, let’s turn the clock back a few hours: In the morning, I get a call from a newly opened Dentist chain called MyDentist. They offer me a free consultation. I decide to go because it happens to be close to the venue of the SS event as well. 

Back to the SS. I got late at the dentist’s and thus reached the event a little late. Sweating and panting, I signed up and paid the fees. Suddenly, someone asked for people who were going to make a presentation about their startups. I had no idea why, but I raised my hand.

The presentations began, and they were full blown powerpoint presentations. And I obviously didn’t have one. I just didn’t know that you were supposed to actually bring a proper presentation. So, I decided to just swing it.

I tore up two pieces of paper and wrote MUSICFELLAS across them. Holding it up in front of the audience, I spoke. I spoke about music. I spoke about the independent artists industry. And I spoke about design. I must have spoken a lot about design because at tea break, a girl I just said hello to said she was looking for me. I had no idea why. So, we just spoke a little bit about what we do, exchanged cards and bid goodbye. I did tell her that we were looking for a designer and she happened to be one. She was a self taught designer, who had just recently started out on her own and we would have probably been one of her first few clients.

A few days later, I got an email from her saying she would like to discuss where we left off. I checked her portfolio and honestly, I wasn’t impressed with the website designs she had done. What we were looking for at the time was a website designer but her expertise seemed to be in identity design, which by the way was pretty damn good. So, I told her so. And, that was that. 

A few days later I got an email from her with an attachment — Musicfellas — website design. And I was completely blown away. 

Musicfellas - Original website proposal

The rest, as they say is history.

Key Takeaway: Never discount first timers. Never take things at their face value. And most importantly, talk about your startup. And I mean really talk, communicate. Let your passion reach out and touch others. Because the best people see a good fit when they see one. You are the biggest evangelist of your startup, behave like one.

Oh and why the dentist story, later I got to know, that our designer was also the identity designer for my Dentist chain. Happy coincidences.

The crazy, twisted story of a logo

Rome was not built in a day. Our logo was built in one (month). There’s been some talk about our website design and the logo. And we are glad you all liked it. We have spent a lot of time working on it and it feels good to see some appreciation.

Today, we give you an inside view of how our logo was designed chronologically. None of the earlier versions was perfect but we learnt from each one of them. Apart from the ones mentioned below, there were loads which were discussed, created and scrapped. But, for the sake of this discussion, we’d like to share just these few.

1. The Pacman lookalike

This was the first one we came up with. The idea was to resemble ‘fellas’ as some character. This looked cool to us especially since we could do a lot of avatars of it - like one wearing a headphone or a hat or even one which looked like a girl. But, the music element was missing. And of course it looked a bit too much like pacman which was the reason we eventually had to scrap it.

Key Takeaway: Avatars could work if done well with a unique, well conceptualised base character.

2. The elegant circle

Simplicity, minimalism and elegance were always at the top in our list of words we wanted to associate with our brand. We’ve been fans of clean design and this appealed a lot to our senses. But the restrictive little that could be done with this design led it to be passed over as well.

Key Takeaway: The green to blue gradient which could be seen in our website design. Typography, which was retained for the final logo.

3. The cliched music tones

This was an attempt to make a play on the initials M and F. The element of music was of course front and center but we wanted to go for something more subtle.

Key takeaway: Retain the element of music in the logo but make it more subtle.

4. Complicated headphone + moustache

For some reason, we were very impressed with that crazy #LikeaSir moustache and wanted to put in the design resembling ‘fellas’. The music element was there with the play on the name resembling the headphone. But, we felt it was a little tacky and hence scrapped it.

Key takeaway: The moustache was a good way to resemble ‘fellas’.

5. Giraffe + Elephant

This was the one on which we spent the most hours on. How could you say no to a cute little fat elephant hanging out with his buddy giraffe and listening to music :)

Endless hours in a coffee shop were spent making the elephant’s bum a little broader, giraffe’s neck taller and the tails together. It was hard to let go of this logo. But eventually, common sense prevailed and we scrapped this.

Key Takeaway: Nothing - this logo was perfect. *Sob Sob*

But seriously, don’t get too attached to your designs. You lose the sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.

6. The final one

The final version looked perfect to us - of course not at first. Lot of different versions were tried, eyes were inverted, mole was added, borders removed etc. But, as time went by - it started growing on us and we are so glad we decided to stick with it.