Case study
Building JNVSTS
How our own brand went from a circuit-board J to the Orbit in four rounds, with a trademark search before every decision.
Where it started
The first JNVSTS mark was a J built from circuit traces. It said “tech”, but so do thousands of other logos, and it didn’t feel like a company that could grow into more than one business.
Round one: the Loop
A bold, uneven loop with a hint of a cursive J. It had the flow we wanted. Then we searched the trademark register and found marks already on file in our industries built on the same idea. A logo you can’t own isn’t worth building on, so we let it go.
Round two: the Signature J
A J written in one stroke: cap, stem, one loop and a rising tail. It cleared the search, but it read like handwriting, and JNVSTS is a technology company.
Round three: six sketches
We stepped away from letters and sketched abstract symbols. One stood out: an orbit, something in motion that keeps going.
Round four: making the Orbit ours
A plain ring with a dot was already taken, so we tilted the ring into an orbit, gave the trail a comet’s taper, and let the dot lead. Then we refined it: a sturdier tail, a slightly bigger dot, and optical centering so it holds up at 16 pixels.
One mark, a whole system
The final kit covers logos for dark and light backgrounds, app icons, favicons, social images, and a color for each future JNVSTS business, all from one mark.
Trademark searches shown here were preliminary searches of the USPTO register, not legal clearance.