Clixbee: Identity

Clixbee had started as a way to pick the single best photo from a recent batch. Once I added the ability to choose the best photo from a chosen seletcion of photos, the name began to feel too narrow. Picd described one action. The product was shifting toward something closer to selection.

I went back to basics and started brainstorming names. I used ChatGPT to generate variations built around click, select, and pick. One of the candidates was Clixby. It felt distinct and modern enough to check availability. I ran it by my daughter and she said, “Oh, I thought you meant Clix-bee, like a bee.”

Connecting the App to Bees?

Bees are efficient foragers. They evaluate color, light, and subtle signals to find the richest flowers. The metaphor was direct without being forced. The app evaluates images not too dissimilar from how a bee evaluates flowers.

We did a quick pass to make sure the name was not already in use and then I hired a freelancer to explore early logo concepts. The first drafts leaned more literal. Full bee illustrations. They were strong starting points but too expressive for the product.

I combined the logotype and integrated the callouts to bees and flowers. Then I pulled the color and shadows out of the bee illustration and brought it closer to my hand drawn sketch. I wanted an identity that could exist without leaning on a full mascot. The logo should signal the idea with a little bit of grace. I have leaned on my own handwriting for personal projects in the past as well. It's slightly awkward and organic which I like as well.

The tagline quickly wrote itself: “Let Clixbee do the picking!” It described the behavior plainly and was a nice callback to the original Picd name I had come up with during prototyping.

Color decisions followed the same rule. The app interface remains black and white so the photos carry the visual weight. The only strong color will appear in the app icon and UI highlights.

Highlighting Your Top 5

UI exploration happened in parallel. Early layouts felt too modular. Grids and bento experiments added structure but distracted from the images themselves. The design eventually shifted to emphasize the highest rated photo as a hero image. The brand identity supports the photos. It does not compete with them.

Clixbee kept the scoring engine from Picd but the identity evolved into something with legs or should I say, wings.