Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
If you’ve ever looked at a collection of logos from various float centers, they can start to look a little similar. How do you avoid this when designing your own float center logo? Is it a big deal?
Graham and Ashkahn dish on logo design, the importance of simplicity, and a not so subtle reminder that the “don’t be an asshole” rule exists for a reason.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: All right. Hey everybody.
Graham: Hi there.
Ashkahn: Welcome.
Graham: Hi.
Ashkahn: How are you today?
Graham: I’m doing good.
Ashkahn: Oh, great.
Graham: Yeah, and speaking for the audience, I think-
Ashkahn: I think they’re doing good.
Graham: I think they’re doing great.
Ashkahn: I think they doing good now, is what they would say. Like, doing good now.
Graham: Yeah, better now.
Ashkahn: Right.
Graham: That you guys are on. Am I right?
Ashkahn: Thanks. I appreciate that, all of you.
Graham: Nudging the person next to them.
Ashkahn: I picture everybody listening together in a giant room. Is that what you’re picturing?
Graham: I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. I’m Ashkahn. Is that how you say that? I’m Ashkahn.
Graham: You didn’t, no.
Ashkahn: No.
Graham: You just started talking-
Ashkahn: I did yesterday.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: All right.
Graham: Today’s question is-
Ashkahn: Yeah, what is it?
Graham: “I’m working on logo design for my new center, and I’m worried that it looks like a bunch of other float center logos, including yours. Is this a problem?”
Ashkahn: Well, yeah, there are a lot of logos that look-
Graham: And a lot of them look like ours, too. We’re gonna take them to court.
Ashkahn: Well, yeah, or ours look like other ones do. I’m not gonna go ahead and claim we are the first people to come up with …
Graham: A face floating?
Ashkahn: A face, I think that would …
Graham: That’s the old FTA logo even kind of looks like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s a lot of face, there’s a lot of-
Graham: There’s a lot of face.
Ashkahn: There’s a lot of kind of lotus flower.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: There’s a lot of sort of drop, water drop sort of thing is very common.
Graham: The-
Ashkahn: They’re all blue.
Graham: Some of the letters, or all of the letters kind of floating.
Ashkahn: Yeah, especially the O.
Graham: In something. Yeah, yeah, the O floating.
Ashkahn: The O floating, or something going on with the O.
Graham: It’s very centered and-
Ashkahn: The float conference is the same thing.
Graham: It just, it works really well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s an O.
Graham: That sort of design, yeah.
Ashkahn: It’s a good letter.
Graham: Theta, like a theta kind of design.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Like the float conference logo, for example. Which a lot of people ripped off.
Ashkahn: This episode is a warning that we’re coming after you.
Graham: So, design it like any other center’s logo except ours. Oh, Anicca, it looks like our logo but four times.
Ashkahn: Multiplied and bigger?
Graham: Or our logo looks like theirs, but one fourth of it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it’s all just blues or green, mostly blue. It’s pretty much all blue.
Graham: Lots of blue.
Ashkahn: Lots of blue.
Graham: We realize this when you do all of the Helm customers or something like that for software and lay them out next to each other. Just like, oh, these all just kind of look like the same center.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s just a lot of similarity in the names, too. The word float is in almost all of them
Graham: 90%, yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: Or REST, or, you know what I mean?
Graham: So, should you worry about it, I guess is the question, right?
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s more perceptive to you and us than any of your customers.
Graham: Yeah, I kind of think that ship has sailed where anyone should be worried about float logos looking too similar. Don’t copy something exactly.
Ashkahn: Yeah, well, yeah.
Graham: Of course.
Ashkahn: That would be weird of you to do that. Why would you do that? But specifically, unless in your mind you’re immediately thinking that you’re about to open a nationwide franchise, I would be most concerned about the other float centers around you somewhere.
Graham: Yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: Try to look a little distinguished from the places that literally in the same city as you, but no customer is gonna look up, is gonna know that your logo looks the same as some other float center’s logo in a different state thousands of miles away.
Graham: Especially although there are a lot of similar logos, and there are a lot of similar names, obviously don’t, if someone shares a name with you, you’re really close. Make sure you’re not doing both, because having almost the same name and almost the same logo as someone sounds a lot worse to me as well.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s just like, don’t be weird about it.
Graham: The no asshole rule is kind of in effect.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It’s like fashion. There’s a lot of similar trends in everybody’s winter coats, but if you sit down next to somebody and you’re wearing the exact same thing as them, they’re gonna look at you and be like, “What are you doing? Why are you dressed just like me?”
Graham: Especially if that’s their coat and they’ve been wearing that coat around for three years.
Ashkahn: But there are just a lot of similarities in the world.
Graham: Logo design itself is about breaking things down to their simplest elements. Good logo design is something that you can identify from a distance, it’s really simple. So, at some point, what do you associate with floating, right? You only have a list of maybe a dozen kind of simple things you associate with the act of floating, and then it’s all variations on that.
Or they just choose a different name, like Puma Flotation, and they have a picture of a puma. As an example.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: We’re looking at you, Puma Floats, really.
Graham: So, I don’t know. Being creative is good, but if it kind of is a face floating-
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: We’re gonna be the only ones coming after you. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Ashkahn: Trying to be very unique is at odds with trying to probably have a good logo for your business. If you’re like, “I’m gonna make my logo red, and it’s gonna have fire in the background”, at that point, your customers are gonna be like, what? “I don’t understand. Why is this your logo?”
Graham: Ra, so, yeah. I guess that’s it.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Don’t be a jerk, but don’t worry about it too much.
Ashkahn: Yeah, don’t worry about it, and just don’t be a weirdo and that’s it.
Graham: All right. If you have your own questions, go to float-
Ashkahn: I don’t know where else you’d find advice like this.
Graham: Yeah. If you want the down, we’ll give you the real-
Ashkahn: We’ll give it. We’re giving it to you fresh.
Graham: Honest, straightforward answers.
Ashkahn: All right. Go to our website.
Graham: To very complicated questions.
Ashkahn: It’s floattanksolutions.com-
Graham: /podcast.
Ashkahn: That’s it. That’s it. That’s the one.
Graham: Okay bye.
Ashkahn: Okay bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Customers Who Overstay Their Welcome (Rise) – DSP 149
Graham and Ashkahn sat down with Mark and Jennifer Gurley at Rise to talk about an issue that can seem scary for float center owners, especially those who haven’t worked in customer service. What do you do about the customer who takes advantage of your generosity and overstays their welcome? How far is too far? And what are the appropriate steps to take when you have someone who won’t respect your boundaries?
Graham and Ashkahn share their experiences from the handful of times it has happened at Float On over the years and how it’s worked out and compare notes with the Gurleys and their float center.
Should I Filter Tap Water When Filling My Tanks (Rise) – DSP 148
Graham and Ashkahn got cornered at Rise with a question from one of the attendees, a float center owner named Gina. And even though the event is over, it’d be a shame to not share this episode. They answer all her questions and concerns about municipal water systems and the levels of filtration that should be done when using water straight from the tap (which probably almost everybody does), they also talk about what you really need to worry about in your tap water.
How do you do All the Things? (Rise) – DSP 147
This episode from Rise comes at you recorded live with another very special guest, Rick from Float St. Louis. Not only does he work in a float center, he’s also releasing a float themed quarterly magazine called Third Wave Magazine. While he was a bit tight lipped about the magazine, his choice of question may speak to just how demanding it has been on him lately.
Listen to him chat with Graham and Ashkahn about how to do all the things and when doing too many things is too much.
Live at Rise Float Gathering! – DSP 146
Graham and Ashkahn are coming at you LIVE (well, recorded live) from the Rise Float Gathering! They managed to wrangle Jake and Kevin, the organizers of Rise and the founders of Float STL in St. Louis. Check out this episode where they talk about bath robes, hosting events, and just how amazing this industry is.
Book Recommendations for Float Center Retail – DSP 145
Lots of float centers sell different books, usually about floating. Float On even publishes a few of them (through our Coincidence Control publishing company).
Graham and Ashkahn give their recommendations for books to sell and provide a list of the ones we have available at Float On. They also discuss how well they sell as well as the tertiary benefit to having them around as resources for your floaters on coffee tables and as conversation starters.
Latest Blog Posts
Back to the Basics
I arrived in Paris a few days ago for a little workcation. Naturally the first thing I did was hunt down a float tank center and book an appointment. Surprisingly, floating seems to be almost entirely missing in France: noticeably more obscure than in Germany, Spain,...
The Profitability of a Float Tank Center
This post is kept for historical purposes, but our current knowledge of float center finances is best found in our Industry Reports. Download them free for real data on float center profits, or ask us about how our Business Plan can help you understand your own float...
Four Simple, but Important Lessons We’ve Learned About Float Room Construction
1 - Put your shower directly next to the float tank. Don't leave even an inch of room. Essentially you want an airlock but for salt- a saltlock. That way they go from their shower directly into the float tank and (more importantly) from the salty float tank straight...
Let’s Go Make a Better World at the Float Conference
For those of you who didn't make it out to the Float Conference this year, I'm posting up the introduction to our program. Although Iwrote this for the conference, I think it will be obvious that the sentiment is industry wide. -- Welcome to the 2nd annual Float...
