Featured Design Contest: One Six – Investment Company Logo

Sometimes clients come to Hatchwise for an entire logo redesign. Other times they come in hopes of solidifying their first logo, and other times clients are looking for a simple, refreshing take on an existing design. For One Six, the latter is what brought them to Hatchwise.

When One Six started filling out a creative brief, their vision was simple; the financial management firm wanted an updated corporate logo to roll out. Like Hatchwise’s other clients, the brief was all One Six needed to put Hatchwise’s designers to work.

After the contest concluded, and after receiving nearly 80 entries, One Six awarded the winning design, and this design has become the new face of their business.

What Was Requested

Like many Hatchwise clients, One Six wanted an updated logo that depicted what One Six is. As a company that specializes in investments and asset management, it was important for One Six to have a logo that captures that professionalism.

In the creative brief, One Six asked for a logo that only included letters. Some of Hatchwise’s clients don’t specify what color they want their logo designed in, but One Six asked specifically for red lettering with a white background. Choosing these colors would allow for the logo to be consistent with the current brand marketing. 

A Few Entry Comparisons

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This first submission accurately captured what the client requested. The wordmark was designed in a red, thin upper-case font, and the background was white. The designer got creative with the lettering and background.

The “O” features two arrows representing the lifecycle of investment management, and the wordmark sits in a thin red frame. The designer also mocked up this logo on a black background. While this wasn’t requested, it allowed the client to see how this would look on a different background color.

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For this entry, the designer created a third of the logo in red, a third in gray, and a third in white. White was used as the background color, as requested. The other two colors were used for the lettering.

This designer decided to also incorporate an additional element into the logo, the numbers one and six. These numbers sit on top of the wordmark and help to accentuate the brand’s name. While this wasn’t the winning design, it provided an alternate take on what was outlined in the creative brief.

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With this design, the creative delivered a unique take on what was requested. The designer stuck to the color scheme but unusually used the color scheme. The word “One” was designed in a white, thick upper-case block font and sat on a red background.

The word “Six” used the same font but was designed in a gray font and sat on a white background. White was also used to separate the two words. The wordmark was unique because in each word was a cut-out of that numerical number, doubly conveying the brand’s name.

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Rather than get caught up in the stylistic elements, this designer focused on delivering a corporate logo that matched the industry the client operated in.

This entry features a simple wordmark displaying the One Six name in thin, capital letters reminiscent of an Arial or Calibri font. The “X” on the “Six” extends into the border. The border is in red, matching the word “Six,” and instead of being a rectangle, two sides of the border are rounded.

The background is white, and the word “One” is gray, obliging by the creative brief.

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This entry was another submission that opted to focus on delivering a professional corporate logo without too many added components. This designer stuck strictly to the creative brief, electing not to incorporate any other colors beyond red and white.

Many designers also included gray to add depth to the design, but this designer was focused solely on what the client requested, which served as a nice point of comparison. The font in this logo design is thin and outlining the “One” wordmark is a thin red box.

This logo design conveys the corporate environment of the industry and is incredibly versatile for wherever the client chooses to use this design. 

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Sometimes designers are so inspired by a creative brief that they submit more than one entry for the contest. That was what this designer did. For this submission, though, the designer changed the style of the logo.

The lettering was still an uppercase font, but this font is slightly thicker than the first submission. Additionally, arrows were still incorporated. However, the usage of these was different. Rather than forming a letter, the arrows emphasize each word and symbolize how investment management is an evolving cycle.

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While this designer stuck to a similar color scheme as other designers, where the designer got creative was with the lettering. The “E” and the “I” both featured red and gray, with cutouts built into the lettering design.

The “O” is what stands out the most. In the center of the letter, where the cutout typically is, is an image resembling a stock market chart, featuring three bars in varying heights and an arrow trending upwards to the right. This chart symbolizes the variance in investments One Six will make, all with the goal of increasing your assets. 

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Even though other designers incorporated arrows into their designs to symbolize the investment management industry, this designer did it uniquely. Rather than using an arrow symbol, the designer used lines that extended from the “N” and the “I” to mimic an arrow.

These lines extend into each other, forming an almost entirely closed box. The designer focused solely on designing the logo in red and white, but the stylized square added depth to the design.

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At first glance, this design looks simply, but it features a variety of components. The color scheme is red, white, and gray, but the wordmark itself is unique. The wordmark is struck out with a horizontal line that forms an arrow, sitting directly in the left-hand side of the letter “X.”

This line is perfectly placed in the middle of the letters, even forming the middle line on the letter “E.” To help the client visualize this design in One Six’s office space, the designer mocked it up on a wall. 

The Winning Design

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Before awarding this design as the winning one (and awarding the designer the prize of $50), the client reviewed 78 entries. This design stood out for the designer’s take on the creative brief. The logo was not only corporate, clean, and professional, but it built upon what was included in the brief.

The wordmark is a simple, upper-case font, but the “E” and “X” letters are unique. Both letters feature a white cutout and a gray component. The “X” also features two lines that extend out of the letter, forming an almost enclosed diagonal oval. This design can easily be used for a variety of mediums, and that is what One Six is now doing with this design.

Check out other investment company Logo Design contests:

One Realty Group/ One Investment Group – Real Estate company targeting listings. A unique way of selling homes. Within one week or one weekend.

Valorem Investment Partners – Identifies real estate investment opportunities, performs analysis of such opportunities, and raises capital for such investments from high-net-worth investors. The property type will be apartment properties. The target audience is the investors, who we expect to be over 40 years old, financially successful, and sophisticated.

MLT Investment Group – Real estate investments, property management, and buy/sell.

Global Alternative Investment Management, LLC – Global Alternative Investment Management, LLC is a private fund management company that creates and manages private funds that make opportunistic investments in areas such as Technology/Big Data, Social Media, Cannabis/CBD, Specialty Retail, Fintech (banking, crypto, consumer finance), Telecommunications Infrastructure (cell towers/submarine cable-fiber optics), for its accredited (high net worth) clients.

Y-Invest Enterprises – Y-invest is an umbrella holding company for various business ventures including real estate, online endeavors, and other entrepreneurial opportunities.