The FinFolio logo contest at 99 Designs wound up last week and I’m very happy with the results. The contest ran for seven days, and we ended up with at least twelve logos that would have made us happy. Our final selection:

Logo design packages start at around $1,500 from reputable companies. We signed up for one with my last company, Techfi, and were not happy with the results. But the 99 Designs competition only cost us $350, and I was impressed with the quality of submissions. IMHO, we had several world-class designers working on it and there were several logos that were relevant to our company, clever, and professional.

I assume that anybody looking at our logo/web site already has an idea what FinFolio does, so a financial logo doesn’t send a helpful message. We went with the open lock logo to emphasize our open development philosophy, which is how we differ from the other portfolio management companies. I’d love to show you the ones we rejected, because they’re as good as our final selection–however, I didn’t pay those designers for the right to use their logos. But they’re still available on our contest site if you’d like to view them.

I would highly recommend 99 Designs for anybody needing a corporate identity. Even if you already have one, I’d consider starting a contest with a modest prize amount, just to see the possibilities.

There’s a new player on the advisor blogging scene, one that may deliver on some predictions I made in my Kickstarting Advisor Blogs post. Andy Gluck just launched Advisor Blog Central, a site that gives a consolidated blogging platform to selected financial advisors, consultants, and other industry pundits.

From his inaugural post:

I’m writing this blog to tell you myself about the marketing products [Advisor Products] offers financial advisors and explain the ideas driving them. … In addition to marketing, I’m also going to use this blog to write about ideas that don’t get into my column.

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