It is a point of pride that our logo is distinctive, but people often ask the hidden meanings behind all of the elements in it. I'd be happy to explain. I'm Mike, CEO of Maka Connect and while I don't usually write blogs in the first person, this story is personal.
It Starts with a Ship.
No, the ship in the middle of our log is not the Titanic though this is a popular guess. When our original founding team sat around a table discussing our brand identity, we decided that first and foremost we were about helping people break the ice. I remembered a story from my childhood that was in the news for days about a family of grey whales stuck in the Alaskan Ice and being rescued by icebreakers. You can read the full story here. Of the two ships involved, the Admiral Makarov was the more pronounceable. It is the source of our name and the ship depicted in the middle.
Why Penguins?
No, penguins are not my favorite animal. I'm rather more partial to wolves, This decision was more academic. I was sitting in a marketing class shortly after we decided we were officially in singles events. My professor asked us to list adjectives that described our core brand values. I chose classy, tolerant, dependable, effective, etc. The professor asked what animal immediately comes to mind when you think of these traits and it was the penguin. Turns out, it's a really perfect fit for the traits I wanted. They mate for life, always wearing a tuxedo, and don't seem to have any problem with gay penguins. They also fit the icey aesthetic. Penguins went from mascot to logo when I saw a picture of two birds facing each other, beaks down and my imagination saw a heart.
Field of Blue
The heart-shaped penguins with our friend-ship in the middle just felt incomplete. That's when I filled in two lines along the contour of the birds and saw another heart in the middle. Using color psychology, it was originally the red of fiery passionate lipstick and it was universally hated by my team. Instead, we decided blue better conveyed our desire to be reliable, rational, and effective, and better fit the icey theme. Our parent company Maka Social had a sapphire blue and a softer blue in its color palette. We blended them in a gradient to fill the center and it was done. We had a masterpiece that would set us apart from any other company in speed dating or singles events.
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