Top 401k team leaving Wall Street Firm and we need your HELP!

The Maresh Yoshida 401k Group

The Maresh Yoshida 401k Group is a financial services company that focuses on corporate retirement plan and affluent personal investment management clients. Although the two principals (Maresh and Yoshida) each have over a decade of experience at a major Wall Street Firm, we are breaking away to send the message to our clients that our goal is to serve them, not GREEDY BANKS WHO RECEIVED BILLIONS OF BAILOUT DOLLARS. Over the last 10 years, we have built a national presence for 401k consulting by winning several awards and getting every advanced certification in fields such as finance, 401k management, and even human resources. We're coming to 99designs to get a young, professional(simple), progressive, and trustworthy logo. I've noticed that J.P Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citi have all "modernized" their logo in the last 6 years and we want that combination of professionalism and simplicity. Other successful 401k consluting groups have principals that are 20-25 years older than us, so we want to separate ourselves(since we are already a generation apart anyway) with a younger, but still very professional and simple logo. 99designs advised us to get the logo first, then use that to tie into the website design and print materials. Help us start something that is already 10 years in the making. Thanks for reading.

1. Primary target audience will be the decision makers(C-level executives, Benefits directors, Finance executives) and Business Owners at companies that have annual revenue between $5 million to $500 million that sponsor a corporate retirement plan(typically a 401k plan). The average age is between 40 years to 55 years old, 65% male/35% female, average household income in excess of $150,000, college educated.
2. Second, the target audience will be what we term "mass affluent individual investment management clients." These will typically be individuals(50% male, 50% female) with liquid investable assets between $250,000-$5,000,000 and come from all industries/job types with age range between 35-65. About 30% of these are already retired from their careers.
3. Third, the target audience will be our industry counterparts/contacts. We are involved on a national level through industry trade magazines, trade shows, industry conferences and we need a visible, memorable, simple logo to represent our company at these events/media outlets.
4. Fourth, our target audience will be the employees in our client companies and anyone who looks for us on the web.

Domain name will be http://www.my401kgroup.com and we want to give you the flexibility to go with font logo, icon logo, or incoporation of MY initials. I'll comment as the contest goes on to guide all entrants and narrow the direction(again, at the advice of 99designs). I want you, the designer, to have fun with the project by having flexibility in your design. What's the point in hiring you if I already know exactly what I want, right?

1. We prefer a limit of one or two colors(to keep future printing costs down).
2. The logo should express a professional, yet young and progressive feel.
3. Logo font should be readable as it will be used in a variety of ways: trade show stands, business cards, brochures, stationery, website, etc..
4. We will need high quality JPEG, GIF, and PSD formats for the winning design that can be used in the above listed mediums.
5. Design should be a balance between simple/elegant and professional(as if I hadn't put that on here enough times already). I like to think "classy/cool."
6. Probably more pertinent during website phase, but no stock photo/image.
7. 1 star for FONT, 1 star for COLOR, 2 stars for being "Classy/Cool" and 1 star for "I just like the overall look."

We'll review designs as quickly as possible and will indicate in the comments sections which elements listed above the star rating corresponds to. Thanks for considering our contest.