David, these are some excellent designs and show awesome enthusiasm, but amytheplanarshift is right, the marketing aspect is so important and you have to get it right. Additionally, you haven't set any parameters for the logo, e.g:
-Palette - what colours (and also does it need to match the website, because at the moment it doesn't)?
-What does it have to achieve/say/stand for? What is the message?
-Goal - does it have to be instantly recognisable by a wide audience at a point-of-sale? Are you looking for buy-in from payment processors? In which case simplicity and bold colouring maybe win?
-What does it have to look like as a mobile app? Where do you see the logo being used?
These are all things that you have to think about. I do believe that the re-brand is the right approach however (considering recent events), but maybe think about a professional designer?
I really don't want to rain on anyone's parade because the enthusiasm is really good to see (and I will be the first to admit I am rubbish at marketing) but you need to get this right. It needs to be professional and to set the right message.
Well, Steve was the one to start the competition. So the palette, I really like the original light blue and teal pallets. I think that we don't want to get confused.
As for logos, I'm a big fan of symbols. Apple has the "Apple", facebook has the "f", etc. Many successful brands have two syllable names and some form of universal symbol. Even in religion, many religions are represented by a basic sigil(the cross representing self sacrifice, the star representing magic). So my use of the "Halo" in my personal brand was a way to "make any coin honest/pious". The Halo was an "honor amongst thieves" and was branded to assume that anyone can be trusted and become trustworthy as long as they are secured in a double deposit. It also represents the cross-platform nature I wanted my software to take. I just simply hated the fact that all crypto was so ruthlessly competitive and wanted them all to have access to a universal trust system and unite between differences. As for NightTrader I used the owl for judgement and wisdom and the idea that if you trade at night you would be a "Night Owl". It also was in parity with "Daytrading" which is common with penny stock holders but also gave the credence to Bitcoins dubious past.
So thats how I think when it comes to branding.
As for bitbay, I think the "B" just as in Bitcoin can be the symbol but represented in a unique way. Its funny, the original logo had a chinese feel to it which I actually liked. However, the markets may be international if successful. And its always good to have a logo to encompass your future vision. I think payment processors is not the target market. The target market is consumers who want to be connected and part of a stable growing economy. We should target everyone to stop by Bitbay. I like the idea of crossing oceans and uniting barriers. As if you would connect with someone anywhere in the world in their international bazaar harbor. If there is any target market in businesses then it needs to be people who want to be part of the "E-Bay of Bitcoin". So we should also target merchants who want to be in Bitcoin but didn't know how. The stability with pegging will really excite them. The double deposit aspect is the selling point that "nobody can possibly scam you and profit". So it also seeks the "adventurous", "pirate-bay" type merchants who want to explore new and revolutionary ways to sell their products. Being able to set up show with us is a million times more important than have a decentralized market anyways. The decentralization aspect must only be good for not having a server. And I think that gives it an Alibaba international feel too.
So thats the brand i can conceive in my mind. I'm a bit of a Don Quixote so I know that will probably never be reflected in a brand. So we have to be modest right now and accept the nice gifts the community is bringing. They are having fun and thats is by far more important to me right now than running before we can walk.
Mobile apps are complex. I'm in the process of negotiations with somebody to take on the Halo mobile platform. Bitbay mobile would need a server which would mean its not decentralized (which is fine for mobile and my idea for Halo markets was to have two methods of markets). I could easily code a custom parser for any blockchain with what i know now, but my time is extremely limited and even writing this post means im "on break"
The site would need a redesign too. I certainly think thats a good place to spend as well. Again, I would need a project manager to assist in it. I would love to find designers willing to go under BitHalo contracts. I'm very picky now with employees since I just wasted time training devs in SE Asia(although I have yet to try India and may do so).
The thing about websites is its hard to design with your vision in mind and then when you have to scale it because of advancements in the community the site would need constant updates and rebrands. That is exactly why I proposed so hard to BLK that I wanted a "community portal" in the main site. An interactive visual representation of a live community chat and a portal to all of their projects. Most sites are crap. Even my own personal Halo sites could use a major overhaul! So its a work in progress. This is a great place to start with the community.
One thing to consider, if the community is designing logos, they feel like they are a part of something. I love Blackcoin for that. Its like the Doge community always volunteering ideas. I hope they know I'm still very much personally interested in their success and my loyalty always is with the communities I'm involved with. Bitbay was like a major exception by the way I was brought into it. But now that I'm starting to take the community under my wing a bit more, I'm happy to get all the milestones done.
And consider Doge for a moment. They didn't have fancy "artwork" in fact a lot of the art was lazy cut and paste doge memes. But they were successful because it was a sigil and the community felt represented.
Again, I'm always looking for people to hire. Perhaps the next bounty will be for "finding me people and interviewing coders/web/manager". And im willing to offer good money when that moment comes.
Although realize, the coin is still small because the market cap is only 200K and we will probably only be able to get 200-300 BTC in the dev fund since the other parties have left. Unless, we do see a price increase and then our Bitbay would be worth more. I'm willing to help the community and work with what we have. That is one of my specialties in my old businesses which was working in insanely tight budgets. I had a decent commercial package which was very successful that I used to run for a 200 dollar budget and usually made 50% markup and I used to be pretty good at datamining and automation. I've not gone into "marketing mode" too much because I prefer to have a product to market before doing that. So I'm in "developement mode" for Halo, NT and now BitBay. So basically, I'm pretty reserved when it comes to budgeting unless I can find someone who excels at it to assist me. I really want to save as much as possible if any developers are needed once my projects are complete. Of course that doesnt mean there isn't funds set aside for marketing. Obviously there is. However marketing is by far the most expensive part of being in business so it has to be approached with great care.
As stated before BitBay was a clone of BlackHalo, so the great thing is, any work done in one can easily be put into the other and they will always have the unique differences of NT belonging to BlackHalo and pegging belonging to BitBay. And i think that works well because pegging makes the coin stable and is a very complimentary feature to markets. (people want to buy an item knowing that the price will not fluctuate much)
Hope that helps.
