As anyone who works in the design industry knows, is that not all  logos are created equal & not all logo design companies create the same types of design. Our team at HedgeCo Websites has specialized in creating web designs and logos for hedge funds for the last 5 years. In that time period we’ve worked with hundreds of hedge fund managers to create logos and web site designs for their various funds.

One of the things that is often overlooked is that the choice of the design firm is almost more important than the design itself. Science has proven that if someone throws enough logos at you, you (eventually) will find one that you like. Even though you may find a logo that you like, the fact is that it will not portray your company the same way a logo designed by industry professionals will.

We are very proud of our work and, obviously, hope that you select the HedgeCo Websites team to help you with creating your hedge fund logo as well as your website and general branding efforts. Having said that, we have put together a few tips that will help you when choosing the designer to create your hedge fund logo.

Does your Logo designer understand your core audience?
Your logo and branding efforts identify you and your hedge fund to your investors. You need to work with a designer who understands what investors associate with, and what imagery/designs/typography they will respond positively to.

Our team has seen cases where a hedge fund manager works with a designer who is not familiar with the hedge fund industry to create a logo which may have been liked and approved by the hedge fund manager, but contained imagery or symbolisms which portrayed a negative image with perspective clients. Once a hedge fund has committed to a logo, it’s expensive and difficult to re-brand themselves.

Does your logo designer must understand your strategy & hedge fund goals?
To understand the specific needs of a hedge fund logo and branding, the designer must understand the strategy that the hedge fund employs. A logo for a forex hedge fund will use different typography/imagery than a logo for a natural resources fund. The designer’s color palette will change from the Grays and Blues of wall street’s funds, to the greens and blues & yellows of natural energy, and the maroons and browns of Natural Resources Funds, and obviously in between.

Your Logo must be part of a larger branding effort.
Does your logo designer understand the bigger picture and branding needs of your hedge fund? Are they looking ahead and creating a logo that will work well in a 2-color business card, or integrate with a website?

One of our clients requested that his logo be formatted so that it not only looked good on his letterhead, business cards and website, but also on the sail of his yacht. Thankfully due to the flexibility of our designs, we were able to work with the fund to create a branding effort to work well with all their advertising efforts.

The colors that are chosen by your designer are critical to the success in branding your fund. Are the colors they are choosing meant to reflect well on the entire branding effort of you firm, or are they just throwing a design in front of you which will make you happy enough to approve the design and get them some quick cash, leaving you with a quick design that you will not be happy with in the long term.

In Conclusion
At the core of the issue is finding a designer who communicates with you through every phase of the project, then based on his understanding of the industry creating a logo that portrays your company’s goals and strategy.

It has been quiet on the HedgeCo Websites Blog over the last year. We apologize for the silence, but we have all been working hard on the latest and greatest version of the HedgeCo Hedge Fund website platform.Some of the new featuers of Version 3 of the HedgeCo Website Platform are:

Multiple Fund Aware: The new version of the platform has built in support for multiple hedge funds. This means that when you add a new Fund to your product our team can have it enabled the same day.

Fund type categorization: As part of the multiple fund functionality, funds can be categorized based on type (master, feeder, currency class, manager previous track record, etc.)

New Graphs: Risk / Return Graphs, Performance during up/down index months, distribution of returns, and more.

Multiple Benchmark handling.

Email your investors using powerful templates.

New quantitative and return statistics

Permission based access settings.

This new version has already been implemented on dozens of sites ranging from Fund of Funds to CTA funds and more.

Asset Alliance Corp is a privately held hedge fund investment firm. With a large number of products in their portfolio, their combined assets are over $5billion. With plans of developing new retail products, Asset Alliance needed a flexible and more cost effective website platform on which they could showcase their products as well as manage their investors.Our initial work focused on enhancing our multi-fund platform and the changes that it would need to support the number of products that Asset Alliance was offering. The project also required several unique back-end features.DeploymentThe initial project had a short deadline. To meet this deadline the HedgeCo Websites team focused on the front-end features and design elements. Once the deadline was met and the website deployed, we focused on standardizing the backend and developing the enhanced features.The HedgeCo websites team is continuing to work with Asset Alliance to develop new technologies which will enhance the user experience for Asset Alliance users as well as add another exciting technology to the HedgeCo Website platform. More information will be announced shortly.

Tuttle Asset Management is a Registered Investment Advisor firm that works with multiple companies to market its products.

Prior to working with HedgeCo Website Creations, the existing website was a static html site which was updated with PDF files of the various products. There were several issues other than the website design that needed to be addressed in the relaunch.

1. Easy updating of content (no more HTML editing)

2. Ability to create textual versions of various products and display them alongside the PDF version

3. Flexibility to add new sections, products, and articles.

Because the scope of the project was substantially different than what we deliver with our Hedge Fund website platform, we chose ezPublish as the Content Management System on top of which we could build the Tuttle Asset Management site.

The HedgeCo Hedge Fund Website team has experience with a variety of different Content Management System platforms.

1. Commercial Support: eZpublish has a large support team and will support the platform.

2. Solid Upgrade Path: eZsystems has a solid upgrade path for the eZpublish platform and this includes an exciting next-generation platform which is based on the upcoming PHP6.

3. Flexibility in design: The HedgeCo Hedge Fund Website team prides itself in the ability to create designs that fit exactly to what our clients needs are. eZpublish does not place any restrictions on our ability to do this. The eZpublish platform also provides the programming tools that our programmers need in creating any customizations

4. Personal Experience: In the summer of 2006 I was able to attend the eZpublish Conference in Skein, Norway. During this time I was able to fully evaluate the product as well as interact with the core developers and management team.

Specifications

Following are some of the unique aspects of the Tuttle Asset Management website:

1. Dynamic graphical page headers

2. Flexible Category and Page creation

3. PayPal integration to sell specific products from the website

4. Integration with Google Maps

5. Technical glossary section with terms grouped in alphabetical order

6. Integration with external CRM solution

7. RSS Output

Design Phase

Once the project specification was laid out, we moved into the design phase. Surej was the contact during this phase and worked

Issues

During the deployment phase there were some issues which we faced that pushed back the schedule for the launch date of the site. These issues involved some sections of the specification which had not been given enough attention prior to the implementation phase. There were also issues where eZpublish provided features which were not needed by the website editing team at Tuttle Asset Management, and changes were made to ensure that the appropriate functionality was presented in a way that it would be of most use to the website team.

Initially in the deployment we planned to create highly customized templates for each of the products which were featured on the website, however after the initial round of revisions we settled on two distinct product templates. While customized templates offered a much greater amount of flexibility on our part, it made it difficult for the Tuttle Asset Management team to create new products, as we would need to provide the original designs. Having two templates gave the flexibility that was needed.

Deployment

One of the challenges faced by the deployment of the Tuttle Asset Management site involved the entry of historical data into the new website system. With over 200 specific articles in the “œMorning Cup of Jo” section the converting them to a textual format is not a simple task. For the initial website launch the team focused on a few recent articles, and we will be adding documents for the site retroactively for historical purposes.

Finally I would like to thank Greg Collins and the other folks who patiently worked with us over both the design and website implementation cycles. This was a big project, and we”™re happy with the results.

Financial Times reported this morning that the SEC was suing Philip Goldstein because of compliance issues surrounding his Bulldog Investors Hedge Fund website.

Phillip Goldstein, the activist fund manager who successfully blocked rules requiring hedge funds to register with US regulators, is being sued by officials in Massachusetts who claim he improperly marketed his funds to unqualified investors.The complaint alleges Mr Goldstein’’s Bulldog Investors and other related entities violated US securities regulations for private placements by failing to restrict access to “general advertising and offering materials” on its hedge fund website, according to a statement by William Galvin, secretary of the commonwealth for Massachusetts.Mr Goldstein did not re-turn a call seeking comment.”If the regulators were to do an extensive search of public internet sites for hedge funds and related entities, they would no doubt find a whole host of violations,”” said one hedge fund lawyer. He added that many hedge fund companies were unclear as to what was allowed.Mr Goldstein and Bulldog Investors failed to control access to fund information that should have been available only to password-holders screened by fund managers, according to the complaint.A disclaimer on a Bulldog Investors website said users must agree that information it contained did not constitute a solicitation, according to Mr Galvin’’s statement. Such a disclaimer, it added, did “not constitute an appropriate or adequate control over a publicly accessible website that displays advertising and/or offering materials for securities”.Citing an interview with Mr Goldstein, Bloomberg said the information in question that Bulldog provided to an individual was given based on a misrepresentation of the person’’s intentions.Mr Goldstein scored a big win against the Securities and Exchange Commission last year when he won a lawsuit challenging the right of the regulator to require hedge fund advisers to register with it. The rules were thrown out as a result.

This lawsuit re-enforces the necessity of fully compliant websites, something that the HedgeCo Website Creation team has made a priority of from day one.We are in the process of setting up a compliance section on this website which will serve as a document and knowledge repository for anyone interested in the exact process for creating a fully compliant Hedge Fund website.The HedgeCo Website team, is available at all times to answer questions regarding Hedge Fund Website compliance issues. Contact us at: 561 835 8690