GlobalSKU Logo v1 to v2

From Figma sketches to being painted on drag race cars, this logo's gone places.

GlobalSKU glassmorphic logo mark with barcode detail

Project Summary

“A logo that reads as global, searchable, and unmistakably ours.”

GlobalSKU is an original Vendidit project that started as one colleague's side effort and grew into a full product. When the company decided to bring it into the brand, it was still running on a placeholder logo — and I was prepping to build the Vendidit website, so it needed an official mark fast.

This logo needed to:

  • Represent the product's functionality at a glance
  • Fit the style of the Vendidit brand
  • Be professional looking
  • Appeal to stakeholders

The design process was a bit of a rollercoaster, and this page walks through every twist and turn — from the first 3D globe render to the glassmorphic revamp it wears today.

Tools Used

Figma

Assemble the logo, apply brand gradients, and finalize layouts.

Blender

Create the 3D globe wireframe used as the base of the mark.

Illustrator

Image trace the globe render and convert it to vector.

Introduction

GlobalSKU is an original Vendidit project started by one of my favorite colleagues. He was working diligently on it for months, and eventually the company decided they wanted to integrate it into the brand as one of our products.

The initial concept was a database containing pretty much every item, ever, trackable with a unique identifier known as the “GSKU”. It ended up transforming into Vendidit's answer to automating the creation of item manifests and enriching product listing data with AI.

Since I was prepping to build the Vendidit website, we needed an official logo for GlobalSKU, as it was using a placeholder logo.

Design Process

GlobalSKU's design process was a bit of a rollercoaster, so I'll outline the process of my thinking.

The Globe

I began with the “global” part of the name, which made me think of our planet. I envisioned the globe with latitude and longitude lines. To avoid something along the lines of the World Bank logo, I wanted these lines to be accurately portrayed in 3D. To get the 3D right, I created a sphere in Blender, enabled the wireframe, and exported a render:

3D globe wireframe render in Blender

Stylizing the Globe

I popped the globe render into Illustrator and image traced it (converting it into a vector) and moved it into Figma. During this process, I decided I wanted a more minimal look anyway, so I removed many of the latitude and longitude lines and went with fills instead of outlines. I was satisfied with how it was coming along.

Stylized globe vector variations

Magnifying Glass

With the “SKU” part of the name, I immediately thought of a magnifying glass since the product involves searching for SKU info. I started with adding a magnifying glass to the globe. It started to feel like a generic global search logo. I was very satisfied with the look of the rightmost version, despite the colors not matching. I kept it as a placeholder.

Globe with magnifying glass concepts

Barcodes

Googling “SKU” yielded a lot of barcode image results (despite barcodes usually correlating with UPC numbers). I ditched the magnifying glass for now and experimented with adding barcodes over the planet. I started to use the subtract boolean operator to experiment with an effect similar to the Nvidia logo.

Barcode over globe experiments

A New Approach

I wasn't very satisfied with the barcode approach. With the barcodes alone, the search element felt missing, so I went back to the magnifying glass. I also began to realize that if the logo was made to be one color, the globe would look like a circle, so I started to move away from the globe lines and applied the Vendidit checkmark gradient to the circle instead.

I started repositioning the magnifying glass around the center and started to like having it in the center. I had the idea to use the subtract effect on the globe and the result started to turn more into a recognizable logo appearance. I was very satisfied with the second to last result. My eureka moment was when it dawned on me that if I removed part of the circle outline near the end of the magnifying glass, the logo began to look like a rotated G. This was the winner.

Simplified globe and magnifying glass iterations

Something Was Missing

I was satisfied with this direction, but it felt too generic and hollow. Something was needed to tie the whole thing together. I thought about how the magnifying glass represented looking something up. So if we're looking up SKU information, then why not put the SKU element inside the magnifying glass. I combined the barcode concept with the magnifying glass:

Final GlobalSKU icon concept with barcode inside magnifying glass

Adding the Logo Text

The text was relatively simple. I already had in mind how it was going to look, but I didn't have time to build anything unique font-wise as the deadline was the next day. As plain as it sounds, I thought the logo looked great in Poppins, especially with “SKU” bolded. Some of the concepts were stacked, but I decided to keep it on one line to match the other logos. Like with the Upstream logo, I matched the text color with the Vendidit logo for consistency.

GlobalSKU logo text explorations

V1 Final Result

I was extremely satisfied with the result I was able to achieve in such a short time. It correctly aligned with the brand design, yet contained elements that made it unique.

GlobalSKU V1 final logo

V2 Logo Update

As our products began taking on a more focused direction, it was time to give them an overhaul. The main goal was increasing the logo quality and differentiation through colors.

From two colors to one

The two-color pastel scheme needed an update. It made making nice ads difficult, and didn't have enough personality to carry the product forward. Because Vendidit's colors were locked in, and we have two additional products, GlobalSKU and Upstream, I thought, why not take both colors and apply them to each product. Upstream got the blue/indigo, GlobalSKU got the seafoam/cyan.

GlobalSKU V2 logo evolution GlobalSKU V2 logo evolution continued
GlobalSKU logo color evolution

Color Upgrade

When I was designing the product page, I wanted to try a dark theme. I decided to use the cyan mixed with a navy blue to create this spotlight glow effect.

This use of cyan as energy and technology was a great fit for the product. It had good reception from our product team as well. I decided to explore the right shade and saturation combinations and found a system that works well.

Final Revamp

I'm still pretty proud of the logo, but while using it I noticed contrasting issues on various backgrounds. Its two color left to right gradient didn't seem to serve a realistic purpose.

Given several FAANG+ design changes lately, some evidence supports the idea of us having a renaissance of gradients (Google logo), frutiger aero (liquid glass), skeuomorphic kind of designs. I wanted to find something that stood out, so I selected a glassmorphic look that had a nice edge glow and look to it, while still retaining the ability to be one solid color.

GlobalSKU glassmorphic logo transformation

The Drag Race Car

One of the most rewarding moments of this project was seeing the mark at full scale.

Our parent company sponsored sponsored Swedish drag racer Ida Zetterström. Used during multiple races, the paintjob designer took my logo and applied it to his design. A couple of tweaks needed to be made to match the dark and light side of it, along with ensuring the logo remains legible given the intricacies of the barcode.

Seeing the logo run down the strip at over 300 mph — a good stress test for a design meant to stay readable at a glance.

GlobalSKU logo on the side of a Top Fuel dragster at zMAX Dragway

Let's build your professional logo.

I'm always looking for new projects, able to learn quickly, and can adapt to any challenge thrown my way. Feel free to reach out and chat with me about any projects you're trying to complete.

Thank you for viewing my project!

Here's some other projects I've worked on:

Upstream and GlobalSKU Logos

Vendidit Product Logos

With only one week to design two product logos, quick decisions had to be made.
GlobalSKU Website

GlobalSKU Website

Designing and building the GlobalSKU product website.
Vulpine Design

Vulpine Design

Creating a personal brand and logo with a theme based on something I love: Foxes.