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neteffects' original logo from May 1995 - Jan 16th, 2015[/caption]By: Jack Bader"You'll know it's the right one when you like it so much, you'd be willing to get it tattooed on you."Those were the words chortled by our marketing person, ultimately tasked with helping to rebrand neteffects - now in our 20th year of business.Going through a rebranding is akin to having someone come into your home and redecorate. Only this wasn't a simple changing of paint colors and refreshing of decor, this was a complete renovation and remodel. We had one of St. Louis' best branding firms assisting us in our efforts - providing the creative vision and graphic design to bring several iterations of "what" our new logo could look like.After being presented with 8 options from which to choose (and several of them being strong contenders), I was leafing through the logos after having let my team know that I just wasn't "feeling" any of them. I recalled what our marketing person had said. It was back to the drawing board - literally. And so, we invited our branding partner to come in for a creative brainstorming session. Pen in hand, and sketchpad.We talked about neteffects - and what we hoped to convey with the new logo. We talked about providing direction to people, and the need for direction when we feel professionally lost. (So much of what makes a brand a brand that is human and relatable is understanding how a consumer thinks and feels; putting yourself into their shoes and learning from that insights as to how you can really be of value to them.)Something that came to mind while we discussed the feeling of being lost, was what was needed to have direction. That brought us to navigation, and how the one consistent way to always know where you are anywhere in the world, is to look for the north star. Thinking of this, we connected the "n" in neteffects to North and our other initial - "e", which brought us to the word "East". Tying those two things together, our artist drew up a simple globe shaped figured , where the 'path' was shaped as a capital "N". Immediately, I added a compass point to the end of that path - pointing northeast or as I saw it "net-effects".This little sketch tied so many things together and did something unexpected - it made me smile. I liked it a lot....and not just because I had a small part in creating it. I don't know if I would ever get it as a tattoo, but I certainly like it enough to be the new identity of a company that I and so many other people helped build over the past 20 years.Our new logo is more than just a fancy graphic design. It is a reminder to all professionals, that if you're feeling lost in your career, or faced with a business or technology challenge and are looking for direction, neteffects can be your navigator.