The idea of the logo was to portrait some kind of entrepreneurial and creative mindset. There are several thought behind it, although it leaves room for interpretation and inspiration

Here a blog post that I wrote for umnandi:

In our last workshop we were asked, why we chose this logo. There are several thought behind it, although it leaves room for interpretation and inspiration.

The shape around the tree is derived from a lightbulb, which symbolises innovation, ideas and of course something elementally as light. The tree allows us to grow – us as umnandi, us as people, us as a community. It starts small, but it can grow into a big tree. It can last for centuries or be sawed off and used for other purposes. It can grow in different directions and be shaped externally.

Thus, it contains the most basic philosophy of our teachings: Start from where you are. Use your means. Utilise your partners (there is quite some evidence that trees communicate with each other). Develop your idea. Try different things. Spread out. Measure what works and what doesn’t. Then reshape your idea based on your findings. Sell your products (leaves), provide services (air-cleaning) and if your business is worth a lot at some point, you may decide and sell it. And if it is sick, saw it off and plant a new tree somewhere else.

Everyone has the potential to turn into a light, to develop a successful business. You don’t need electricity. You, as a tree / seed / flower / human have what it takes to grow and shine. You may need some basic elements: Water (skills), sun (energy), air (determination). But if you have some fertilizer (motivation) and some tools (practical and mind-based) you certainly can speed up the process.

And then we put the tree into a box – but that was not on purpose. Let’s think outside ;).

The questions are stored in a mySQL database. A javascript then requests the questions via a php script.

Nothing too hard, but I didn’t know how to do it… until I did it.

Logo

I designed this logo based on some inspirational pictures compiled by the client. Windpferd is German for wind horse. The wind horse stems from shamanistic traditions, where it is an allegory for the human soul. The logo was set out to capture this tradition and philosophy, while also being modern and appealing to customers.

Website

The Website is based on Wordpress. It contains a general information, the philosophy, an overview of the available brands, contact form etc.

Please find the website here.

Some screenshots:   

The App

Who of Us is an app I build a couple of years ago. Inspired by a card game, I set out to build a digital and better version of it. The whole app development was a great learning process for me. I hit many walls, but could mostly avoid to hit the same wall twice (I guess that’s what you call learning). The design is very basic, so is the functionality. It’s more of a prototype version that needs to be designed and developed further. Also, I brainstormed all these cards together and translated them (app is available in German & English).

Get it here: Who Of Us by Simon Geldner (this link deprecated)

The rules

You need to gather some friends, maybe some wine or other drinks; then you read out a question, e.g. “Who of us is the laziest?”. You give everybody time to think about a person to choose. Then you count down 3, 2, 1 and everybody points at the person he choose (to the best of his knowledge) – certainly you can point at yourself. The chosen one is allowed to defend him- or herself (if he wants to try). Unless the group accepts the defence, the chosen one has to take a sip.

• The game includes more than 400 cards
• There are various packs (standard, girls-only, guys-only, adults only
• Exclude cards you don’t like
• Favor cards you like

What I had planned for V2.0, V3.0… (but never implemented)

• Improved Design
• Move database online and fetch changes automatically (currently local DB)
• User ratings of questions (like, dislike) are uploaded to the database. This insight is used to influence, which questions are displayed
• …

Financial outcome

Besides all learnings, what happened on the financial site wasn’t great. Not that I expected to make huge returns on it, but I wasn’t even able to sustain my iTunes Developer account, which is $99 annually.

The app has now been in the app store for three years. Overall, the app was downloaded 2.400 times. The In-App purchases for more cards make a total of $57, from which apple forwarded $34 to my bank account. Meanwhile I transferred $297 to Apple for my dev account…

One nice thing I want to add

It wasn’t only friends who bought my app, but I had several international purchases and one day I received an email from a user with suggestions for improvements for the app and plenty of ideas for new cards. Thank you

Zitate 2.0 by Simon Geldner

Home

Website

simple. one pager. inspirational. informative. www.umnandi.com