I'm loving quote.fm

I'm going to add : http://teamtreehouse.com/ and http://mailchimp.com

Solid branding. Especially MailChimp and their "How to" ebooks.

Are we talking overall brand or just cool logos?

If it's the entire branding effort, it seems like Simple and Square have done the best job I've seen in a while.

My answers have been covered already:

Art.sy Wantful Wander Mavensay Everlane Skillshare Squarespace Coursekit (pre-Lore) Want (i.e. Svpply)

I like Karma's branding. https://yourkarma.com/

Wrapp has a great branding - https://www.wrapp.com/se

https://squareup.com/

Icons down to their knowledge base....well executed

I'm surprised Simple hasn't been mentioned yet.

http://simple.com.

Even the package they sent you your card in is beautiful.

Path Wander Branch

No one mentioned Kickstarter (http://kickstarter.com) yet.

I believe their strong community clearly proves how strong their branding is :)

I've been wondering about this a lot recently. Thanks for posting, Eli.

I really like Skillshare's branding. (by Ed Nacional http://ednacional.com/skillshare/ )

Airbnb and Square. Design is a two companies which has focused on design from the beginning. And when I mean design, I mean product design but also branding and art direction.

I think these two companies are part of the most creative nowadays.

I guess we can consider Pinterest as a startup? I like how the handle branding.

I always loved Lore's logo (previously CourseKit, which also had a great logo). Their story of how they switched to a new name and logo is also great. http://design.lore.com/identity

Square is a classic example of solid branding for a start-up. Fab has a great brand as well. Uber and Path also have have recognizable and clear branding. I am also a fan of Warby Parker and TaskRabbit in terms of branding and messaging.

As much as its kind of self-service for me, I think we at HotelTonight have an extremely strong brand.

Uhh, duhhhh! http://layervault.com

Those are some great brands!

I had a potential client a few months ago with a company that should remain nameless, anyway - I didn't understood their perspective on what type of company they were until I mentioned them being a start up. Well, long story short - the marketing director got a bit offended and made it clear that they weren't a start up anymore. My questions is, when does a company make that leap from being a start up to the next level? Don't mean to steer attention away from the original thread, I was just wondering if anyone had any input.

Also, Square has a great brand. SquareSpace has been lukewarm.

I think www.wantful.com has done a pretty good job establishing a visual identity for itself, particularly because they budgeted for high quality photographers/photography in their aesthetic.

Startups in general seem to rely pretty heavily on computer-generated brand components, so its nice to see a company make good photography an integral part of their look. Obviously there's more to it than just good pictures, but I think the notion of real, physical things creates personality that vector can't.

Square's branding is also masterfully executed. It speaks to trust, clarity and convenience. I've seen non-native english speaking Korean bodega owners and semi-shady appearing gypsy cab drivers using square without a hitch. To reach that type of end user, close the sale, and have them use it on a continuous basis while raving about how great the product is — that takes a lot more than a cool little chunk of hardware and a clean app. Square is a great product but the marketing and branding of it is the unsung here.

Art.sy has a really strong visual language to their brand. It's minimal, austere. It works for their clientele — older, wealthy art buyers who associate high priced art with the gallery culture and aesthetic.

Gumroad has pretty good branding. https://gumroad.com/