An inside look at logo creation and development using ourselves as a case study.

To begin working on the new FlashPoint Development logo I immediately ran off to the nearest bookstore with pen and paper in hand to begin researching logos. I quickly found a series of books named “The Big Book of Logos” written by David E. Carter, the books where filled with thousands of different logos ranging from charities, spots events, to bands. I sifted through each book, page after page trying to find logos that would inspire me, once I did find a logo I liked I would quickly replicate it in my notebook and write the company that it was from. After edition 3 and 4 I had about forty logos that seemed interesting. The biggest challenge in finding a logo style was that most of them are extremely unique to the company, that it should be, and it was difficult to envision FlashPoint having a logo inspired by the ones I was looking at.

It was clear from the first round of research that not only was the logo going to change, but the complete feel of the company and what it communicates was going to be affected by the new logo. The goal was to communicate FlashPoint as a quick and efficient company. The style that was already in place was the use of typical shapes to create this metaphorical symbol of two halves being joined by the center circle, so this was the idea I needed to communicate. I first began with simple shapes and quickly built up to layers and different tones. I went back and forth between my notes from the bookstore, sometimes simply making a different version of an existing logo and hoping that would inspire a new direction. After the first round of ideation I created many different styles of logos. I started with simple circles that created a hopefully peaceful relationship between each other but showed unity, I was also very inspired by the idea of cubes coming together and different pieces fitting in with different shapes. From the first batch of ideas the FlashPoint team liked the idea and look of the circles revolving around each other. We made dozens of different versions, with numerous colors and tried it in 3D and all different orientations but could not find exactly what we hoped.

After a few days of sketching “blue sky” logos the team wanted to go in a more creative direction. The FlashPoint name should be incorporated and to really convey the idea of things coming together. From this I began making dozens of different versions of old or even existing logos and picked my favorites. I tried to pick the most bizarre and artsy ones possible as I felt that this was a creative group of people and that should be conveyed through the logo. From this round of ideation we had a broad variety of styles. We had more design like logos, simple and to the point, and more artsy logos, logos that needed to be looked at to really understand. Even after our more adventurous attempts we felt that we could go further.

An original drawing was uploaded for the team to see and it shot us into a new direction. The idea of conveying the meaning of FlashPoint was suggested. The definition of FlashPoint being: The point at which eruption into significant action, creation, or violence occurs. This idea of the point of creation was born. This new direction brought about the themes of combustion, fire, flames, sparks, and explosions. I struggled to find a way to incorporate the symbols of flame and fire into the new logo without it looking violent or scary. I drew up many different logos and slowly worked through it with the team and we decided the idea of a flame was the direction we wanted to go in. I wanted to try and create a few different styles. After a few rounds of ideation we chose to go with a more representative approach. The final logo concept is a flame flickering, this is to represent the idea of the flame being just lit and just coming into existence. The inside of the flame is rendered a different color as that is the hottest and originating point of the flame, which is FlashPoint.

We explored different color concepts to enhance the emotional design elements.  After of 15 variations we reviewed and decided on dark blue and yellow.  Once the concept and the color was decided on we looked into adding different effects like shading and 3 dimensional perspectives.  We decided to keep the logo as 2D but kept the idea of 3D for the next phase: lettering and wording placement.  The process of lettering and wording placement is an abbreviated design process because we had already decided on several boundaries throughout the first phases of development.  Several lettering options included different fonts, colors, location of Flashpoint Development and alignment of the wording around the logo. 

At the conclusion of the process we had our new logo which is then integrated into all of our marketing materials including letterhead, presentation templates and business cards.  We loved the new logo so much that it became the focus of our refined company identity in our new and upcoming website.

By Greg Moore, Flashpoint Industrial Designer and Sam Ruback, Flashpoint Development Product Development Manager

Inventors, entrepreneurs, and new ventures are always looking for an exit strategy for their idea. Do I sell my company? Am I an IPO candidate in the future? While those questions for the fortunate few may be asked after several years of sustained, continuous growth – there are two import ‘exit’ questions, which face the new entrepreneur much earlier.  The question is: do I make the product myself or license it? Many inventors and entrepreneurs dream of the easy out : “I have an idea, I’ll patent it, and license it. Simple.” Visions of beach vacations while collecting lucrative licensing fees dance in the entrepreneur’s head. However, the reality is much different. The likelihood of licensing a product or technology in the early stages of development is very small. Many spend copious amounts of money securing patents – ready to license, only to find no one is interested.

But, there is hope out there for the inventor, entrepreneur, and new venture. A company in New Hampshire has been helping people license their inventions to large, established firms. That company is the Big Idea Group, or BIG. BIG started in 2000 to bridge the innovation process between the inventor and the big firm looking to commercialize new innovations. For inventors, BIG offers Roadshows, Idea Hunts, and even accepts general submissions. Their intent is to help find that one in a thousand invention that is perfect for Black and Decker for example. For large, established firms, BIG offers Innovation Challenges where their network of over 13,000 inventors submit ideas on open idea challenges. A recent challenge was held for Staples. BIG helped Staples design a public invention contest for office supplies to help differentiate Staples products from commodity goods, drive traffic into stores, and generate positive PR. In the first year, the contest generated 8500 entries, received national U.S. media coverage, and led to the launch of four innovative products.

FlashPoint has had a relationship with BIG since 2004. In April 2004 an inventor approached FlashPoint to help try and commercialize his product, a new type of personal flotation device. It was designed to replace the life jacket through a very comfortable and easy to wear automatically inflating belt. It was tested and certified by the Coast Guard – it really worked as promised. Actually a sad story – the inventor had spent his life savings on the project – gone through a divorce, and was living in near poverty, exhausted and desperate. I was sold on the product, and committed to the inventor to work for a percentage on sales if we could get it to market. We developed marketing materials, detailed commercialization plans, and hit the road to try to sell it. We presented the product to BIG and they were excited too. In fact, they agreed to sponsor an airing of 5,000 units on QVC. We were on our way. Unfortunately, when we tried to line up the manufacturing, the inventor’s contract manufacturer did not have the capacity to fabricate the units. We found another supplier but the inventor could not raise the funds for the QVC inventory. We tried to secure angel investment, but we could not get a deal closed. All investors were not happy 7 years had elapsed on the patent, and had concerns with the inventor. So we had to fill BIG in on the bad news. As with many failed inventors and inventions – there are often sad stories behind them – and many what ifs. A lesson to be learned – do not spend all of your life’s savings and run out of funds and energy before you get to market. Have a clear commercialization strategy and do not hope for the best once you have a patent and a prototype. As with manufacturing, once you have a functioning product does not mean it will be successful.

So, check out BIG – if you have the right idea in the right space – your potential for successful licensing may be improved. BIG is currently on the lookout for high-potential micro-businesses.

Welcome to the ongoing development saga of the Stack Master 100 for Paper Pro.  We have done our competitive research, defined the product goals and assembled our team.  Now things are picking up speed, but Will it Work?  What does the customer want? and How are we going to work together?  This post will go through and discuss our answers to these questions.

Feasibility - Paperpro’s one touch system “fires” staples through sheets of paper requiring very little force.  Although PaperPro had an existing stapler that could do 60 pages, we needed to know if the technology would penetrate 100 sheets, if the staplers would deform through 100 sheets, and if staples could close after penetrating.  We didn’t yet have a prototype of the Stack Master, but we did have the 60 page stapler.  So we made some minor modifications to the technology and tested several staple possibilities.  The tests showed that the technology could “fire” a staple through 85 pages and with some design changes, we believed that it could easily go through 15 more pages.  Testing required using what we had, tailoring it to the best of our ability and using many different types of staples.

Customer Needs (in engineering terms)- Now we needed to translate the customer needs into engineering metrics.  This step is used in many product development processes, including the House of Quality and the Pough Analysis.  This step requires taking what the product goals are and aligning engineering metrics and values with the desired outcome.

Design Tools- A team large or small, close or far, experienced or novice need to communicate.  This means using the same software, the same analysis strategies, the same document sharing technology and the same project management matrix.  This needs to be spelled out and agreed upon at the very beginning.  There might be some resistance to for example upgrade Solidworks, but that upgrade cost could be potentially dwarfed by a 10X increase in design hours dealing with the discrepancy.  Organization of the file sharing is critical between team members and needs to be enforced.  The design tools were agreed upon as follows:

• FTP site to share documents
• CAD file revisions sorted by date
• Solidworks 2005 / 2006 for CAD
• COSMOS finite element analysis for Solidworks
• Goodman fatigue analysis where appropriate
• Microsoft Excel project management matrix
• EMS diagrams detailing structural integrity

Just like the other PaperPro posts, this is meant to be a guideline for your invention / product development.  As the times change different document sharing technology exists, (we use wiki’s now) and new CAD software exists but the lesson is getting everyone on the same page at the very begining.  These lessons exist throughout all of these steps, test the technology early with anything you have and quantify your customer needs in engineering terms.

This is the story of a 14 month adventure in which an idea was developed into a production ready product by Flashpoint Development currently sold at Costco, Amazon and other office equipment retailers. The idea was a stapler using Paper Pro’s One Touch™ spring designed system in an ‘executive’ design that could staple 100 pages. Under direction of the VP of Product Development, Flashpoint Development executed the industrial design, computer-aided-design (CAD), prototyping construction and testing leading up to the mold development.

With no previous stapler design experience our staff immersed themselves in competitive products, customer feedback and sales representative input. The market segmentation confirmed the opportunity for the 3000 and defined the product from the customer’s and PaperPro’s perspective. FlashPoint designed a feasibility analysis maintaining the current patent protection of PaperPro which also provided positive results.

The 3000 looked promising from these early-stages and with PaperPro’s approval we began the industrial design. The Heritage design was chosen and the Uber Fusion Curves variation was selected for prototyping. Based on these designs we began the computer aided design that integrated our industrial design with the technology variations from our feasibility analysis.

3000 version 1.0 was prototyped in China with existing partners and was tested under extreme office operation. Enhancements were identified, designed and prototyped leading up to a design that was created into a production mold ready for the market.

For more information on the PaperPro refer to our Product Development Blog as we will go into detailed steps of each major phase of the project, start to finish.