BRAND IDENTITY

ScoutLocal Brand & Logo Redesign

Neither the original logo nor the agency's redesign was quite right. The old one felt dated, and the new one looked too close to Airbnb's mark. I saw an opening to build something better, so I proposed starting fresh. Over one week, I developed a new brand direction, including a logo system and color palette, to support ScoutLocal's upcoming homepage redesign.

TIMELINE

1 week, running alongside homepage redesign strategy.

TEAM & ROLE

Me (lead designer), founder (product direction), 1 designer (concept review)

RESPONSIBILITY

Research and trend analysis
Concept sketching
Vector exploration in Figma
Color palette testing
Final logo system delivery

KEY RESULTS

Logo approved by founder
Works across all digital platforms
Delivered within one week
Supports homepage redesign rollout

BACKGROUND

ScoutLocal is an AI-powered startup that helps people discover local shops, makers, and events nearby. The experience is built to feel simple and approachable, so anyone can find handmade, unique, and high-quality products without feeling overwhelmed.

The brand needed a visual identity to match. The original logo was outdated, and a previous agency rebrand didn't land either. The colors felt off for the product, and the mark itself reminded people of Airbnb. The founder never approved it.

When I noticed the mismatch while working on the homepage redesign, I offered to take a look at the branding. The founder said yes, and we got started.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The original logo had some clear usability problems. It used a light blue background with a baby blue icon and text, so there wasn't enough contrast to read it easily. It also didn't scale well. Whether horizontal, stacked, or used as a standalone icon, the mark lost clarity at smaller sizes.

The symbol itself was a small store inside a map pin, which felt too generic. It looked more like a command icon than a brand mark.

The agency version had a different set of problems. The loop inside the house shape reminded people of Airbnb, which made it feel borrowed rather than original. The teal and yellow color combo didn't help either. Yellow tends to read as a warning color in digital products, and teal is closely associated with healthcare brands. Neither fit what ScoutLocal is trying to say.

Underneath all of this, the brand simply lacked personality. It didn't communicate what ScoutLocal stands for, and the visual identity felt disconnected from the product experience.

With a homepage redesign coming, the team needed a clear brand direction first. Everything else depended on it.

The original logo felt generic and was hard to read because the colors had low contrast.

The agency concept felt too close to Airbnb and the teal color palette didn’t work well in the product UI.

Project Goal

We wanted a logo that actually felt like ScoutLocal. Something friendly and approachable, but also modern and trustworthy. Since the product connects people with local artisans, makers, and small shops, the brand needed to reflect that spirit of community and care.

The new identity also had to work hard. It needed to hold up across the website, product pages, marketing materials, email campaigns, and vendor promotions. A clear, recognizable symbol would give the team something consistent to build everything else around.

Design Process

My process was simple and collaborative. Quick research, sketching, and exploration, then refining the strongest idea with the team.

01. Discover & Research

I did a quick competitor scan to understand how other companies and platform handle local discovery and handmade communities. Yelp’s brand feels bold and super easy to recognize, but it doesn’t really highlight small handmade shops. Google Maps is great for location searches, but it is not the best for finding unique local makers or hidden creative spots. Nextdoor is local, but it tends to feel more like neighborhood discussions than a curated discovery experience. Eventbrite helped me see how people browse local events, and their new abstract “E” logo shows movement and discovery in a fun way. MadeIt has a very human, artsy feel with its handwritten “m,” which matches the handmade community really well, although the platform can feel a bit heavy to use. And Etsy has a clean, modern look with strong product cards, but it focuses mainly on online selling rather than helping you discover local shops around your city. This quick scan helped me see what works, what feels too generic, and where ScoutLocal can build a more relatable, friendly brand for real local businesses.

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Also, the founder shared about her vision, she shared a rough sketch of a map pin swirled into an “L.” She liked the idea of using a pin with a thinner, more whimsical “L.” She also showed sketches from another designer but felt the heart concepts were not unique enough. She was not concerned about tying the icon to the wordmark and wanted a strong standalone symbol.

I started my research by collecting modern logo references and pinning them on Pinterest to spot patterns and trends. I noticed a lot of logos are moving toward clean, minimal shapes with soft curves that feel warm and human. Letter based marks are also popular because they feel modern but still personal. For ScoutLocal, I wanted the brand to feel like local love, appreciating your neighborhood, small shops, and the people who make a community feel real. I had the idea to use the letter S and L to form a shape that feels friendly, approachable and memorable.

02. Exploration

In my sketches, I tested a few clear directions. I explored how S and L could work as a simple symbol, and I also tried placing them inside a map pin since location is a big part of the product. I built on the founder’s early "Pin & L" sketch and refined a couple ideas from another designer to make them cleaner and more memorable. I also tested a compass inspired option, then narrowed down the directions based on clarity, uniqueness, and how well they fit the brand.

I explored several directions based on the hearts, map pins, hand lettering integrations and more geometric compass inspired shapes. Each direction tested a different meaning of the branding. My early explorations focused on simple, approachable shapes like hearts, soft map pins and clean letterforms. I experimented with curve softness, stroke weights, and how tightly the letter should sit inside the symbol. The goal was to find mark that felt friendly, modern and easy to recognize even at very small sizes.

After reviewing the concepts together with the team, our stakeholder and the team were most drawn to the S and L inside the heart. It felt warmest, most approachable, and the most “ScoutLocal”. We removed the freehand, organic sketches because they felt a little too casual for the brand. We also decided to remove the heavier compass style marks and the other variations because they came across as more traditional and didn’t match with the friendly, community driven direction we were going for.

03. Design Decisions

The symbol combines the S and L from ScoutLocal and shapes them into a heart to represent local love, meaning support for your neighborhood, local shops, and small businesses. I chose the heart because it feels welcoming and human, and it communicates connection, community, and care, which fits ScoutLocal’s mission. I explored several color combinations, and the founder shared them with a few clients for real feedback, and the green, sage, and cream palette stood out as the strongest option because it feels fresh, natural, and works well on both light and dark backgrounds. I also kept the mark built from simple shapes so it scales cleanly from a small app icon to larger uses, and it stays clear and readable even at very small sizes while meeting contrast needs for accessibility.

The type direction was mostly in place before I started the logo work. The founder had already leaned toward Nunito during the earlier agency rebrand, but the overall logo direction did not work out. I still wanted to validate the typography, so I explored a few options with the team, including Comfortaa, Source Code Pro, and Source Sans 3, and confirmed that Nunito from Google Fonts was the best primary brand font. Nunito feels friendly, clean, and slightly playful, and its rounded shapes match the soft curves in the icon, so it paired well with the new logo I designed. For the future homepage redesign, I plan to use Nunito for headers and sub headers, Source Sans 3 for body and smaller text, and Comfortaa for quotes and highlighted callouts.

Challenges

I had only a week and a half to complete the logo design, including gathering feedback, making revisions, and making decision with the team. The timeline was tight, so I had to stay extremely focused and efficient. Overall, we did not have any conflicting feedback, but a few color related concerns came up. Some color combinations unintentionally gave a food industry impression. For example, certain brown or cream tones reminded people of ice cream shops or sandwich and café brands. This helped us refine our palette direction. A few early logo variations lost clarity when scaled down to smaller sizes. At favicon size and mobile UI scale, some shapes were no longer readable, so those options were removed.

So, based on these feedback, I added a darker variation of the modern sage for better contrast and flexibility, and I also created a white background version as the standard option. I first tested the heart shaped symbol at the smallest favicon size, and the S and L heart mark stayed clear and easy to read, which made it a strong direction to move forward with. From there, I placed the logo variations into real website contexts like the global navigation and footer to see how they look in the UI. The white background version consistently looked the best because it felt cleaner, more friendly, and more aligned with our marketing goals and the overall site experience, so we chose it as the final design.