A good logo requires more than just an eye-catching design. As the visual ambassador for your brand and business, your logo needs to represent not just your products and services, but also your brand’s specific personality. An effective logo should be able to accomplish the beginning legwork of communicating to your potential customers who you are and why they should do business with you, because when a logo isn’t up to snuff, business can suffer.
If you’re trying to successfully market a business, your logo is an essential part of that process. Whether you’re revamping an ageing website or you’re simply embarking on buying promotional pens for your logo, here are a handful of considerations to seriously ponder so your business will run with the best look possible.
Authenticity
While it doesn’t make every logo design company’s top 10 list, developing an authentic-looking logo is an initial test of the viability and honesty of your business’s mission statement and raison d’etre. Beyond that, it is the window through which all your potential customers will first view you. So, your current brand isn’t authentic, it needs to be retooled. How do you tell if your logo is authentic or not? Ask yourself the following questions:
- Does the design ring true with the products or services my company is offering?
- If I were encountering this design for the first time, would I have any sense of what the brand behind it believed in or offered?
- Is this design derivative, or am I borrowing unfairly from another place?
- Does this design balance the realities of my business with the persona I am trying to project in a fair manner?
Simplicity
Logos are not pieces of art, and as such they should avoid being overly complex. A clean, simple and straightforward design will allow for quick recognition that draws the audience’s mind immediately to your brand and business. A good logo should function as a place-holder for your business and an arrow that points the way to your product. It should be the finger pointing to the moon and never the moon itself.
Timelessness
This category is a tricky one. How do you really ever know if a logo design is timeless or not? While it certainly isn’t something that you can guarantee accomplishing completely, there are a few ways in which you can guard against a logo that will look dated in a short amount of time. The best way to head toward a logo that has timeless qualities is to avoid using any trends that are dominant when you’re in the design phase. Is everybody serif crazy, right now? Stick to a font that lacks any embellishment. Choose colours that can be subtly tweaked over the years to reflect a current mood or look without losing any of the original colour scheme. In general, the simpler a design, the more timeless it will be.
Is it Memorable?
While a logo shouldn’t be something that anyone necessarily oohs and aahs over, it does need to be a piece of design work that is memorable. Because you want your logo to function like a visual word for your company (think: the golden arches or the bit-into Macintosh), the more memorable it is, the more successfully it will accomplish its ends. Your logo needs to be memorable so that it can become a part of a visual vernacular that allows your customer base to think of your brand and products when they see it.
Scalability
The most practical of all your logo concerns, make sure that whatever design you choose looks good on a promotional pen and on a billboard. Without a design that can be scaled successfully to numerous sizes, as well as used in a variety of media — print, television, virtual and more — your logo’s functionality will suffer. Again, it’s the simplicity of a design that lends itself to easy scalability, so if you’re firing on all cylinders in the simplicity department, you should be in good shape.
Your business is a lot more than the products or services you offer. It’s the sum of your own and your customers’ expectations regarding your brand. If your logo isn’t pulling its weight in helping you visually represent what you have to offer to the world, it’s time to remake it.
Photograph by Evobrained