LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT US:

Logo name for company: Swikee

Tagline: Freedom to explore your world (in Japanese: )

Language learning is a huge business in Japan, but it still remains a challenge for students to find private teachers. Our goal is to encourage and facilitate language learning by connecting language students(mainly Japanese) with quality instructors(mainly westerners). Swikee will be a headache-free, monetarily free, place for learners to quickly and dynamically find great instructors. And teachers can show students what they have to offer. At first launch it will be just for languages, but we plan to open it to all subjects: music, math, business, etc., and to add social networking features.

HERE IS WHAT WE NEED:

Logo design info

Overall we'd like to deliver the message that learning is possible, necessary, and it's time to stop thinking about it and do something to make it happen. A feeling of possibilities connected to the user's reality. With most of the users being Japanese women, a nice balance of classy and elegant, yet fun and vibrant can hit the spot as they are sophisticated shoppers, but eager for a different learning atmosphere than they had in their rigid school system. It seems that softer colors are in now in Japan. This site being one of the most popular now in Japan it may give you an idea of this:

http://mixi.jp/help.pl

http://mixi.jp/about.pl

Feel free to replace typography with tangible items that the mind uses to fill in the gaps and still read the message. Ex: Using a hand print to replace the letter W. But if you go this route Swikee needs to be clearly spelled below/nearby. The usage of character elements for websites is strong in Japan, and users resonate highly with these personalities. A lot of of foreign companies such as Aflac have emphasized and integrated these characters into their sites to appeal directly to this market. While it's not a requirement if you have an idea for an online character that might work for this type of site and target audience we'd love to see it.

Here are some adjectives for the site's spirit that we hope help:

vibrant and engaging

professional and reliable

fun and modern

innovative

possible

After a logo is selected (or perhaps even concurrently) we will be posting for the website design as well. The information below is mainly for that but should also help with logo ideas as well. So this can be a long-running engagement. If you can work on both logos and website design, you can mention to us how you envision your logo and the overall design can fit, as that could influence our decision. If you aren't participating with the logo perhaps you'd like to help us choose one of the logos that you would love to see and work with later!

Site design info

The design of this site needs to strike a balance between professional and fun. The learners need inspiration and excitement to get going, but they also want to feel that the site is reliable and the teachers are dependable. The competitor sites are messy and lack a professional presentation. One of our selling points is that we are delivering a much more professional site, but we'd also like to project that this is something new in the student-teacher matching space, a new model of efficiency and features. There will be a lot of dynamic (ajax) features and it will be able to cut across cultures, as users will be both westerners and Japanese.

Perhaps most interestingly is our idea of integrating both English and Japanese on all pages to enhance the idea of togetherness rather than differentiation; one world. So we need a careful, yet innovative design that allows the user to make either English or Japanese the visually prominent language while the other is visible but much less prominent, until switched.

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE IS:

Japanese users who have some English ability and who are probably looking for a new/better job, overseas travel, or to maintain language skills they learned while abroad. Teachers who have full or semi-full-time teaching jobs and who are looking to augment their salary. The breakdown is roughly:

75% Japanese women between the ages of 20-35

10% Japanese men between the ages of 20-30

10% Westerner men between the ages of 20-40

5% Western women between the ages of 20-30

WE LIKE THESE DESIGNS:

We like both elegant and playful designs and are willing, and would like, to explore both options. As slick and elegant as Cartier or as playful and fun as Zoho. Surprise and wow us.