Logos are some of the most valuable properties any business can have. Untold hours and maybe even hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of labor go into painstakingly crafting each company logo you see in a magazine or out in the street. You may be wondering why businesses invest so much time and effort in designing their logos, but they have very good reason.
For example, according to studies, over 90 percent of the world’s population can identify the Coca-Cola logo. That is a staggering amount of recognizability, the kind that represents millions of dollars of revenue. A good logo doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars to achieve this sort of appeal and recognition. It just needs to be designed the right way.
If you want your business to have its own instantly recognizable logo, you should follow these design tips. Doing so can help you come up with a logo that gets customers into the door and cash into your registers.
1. Highlight the Uniqueness Your Company
You cannot design a great logo without first gaining a deeper understanding of your business. Remember that each company has a different field of expertise, different story and each will have a unique take on what they do.
A mortgage company will have significantly different answers to these questions than a retailer of natural preservatives for cosmetics. Consider these factors and think about what your company represents.
Note down anything unique about your company. Is it the way you operate, your clientele or your services? What are your values and mission? These will be helpful when you are conceptualizing a logo and will guide its design and appearance.
2. Keep it Simple
Logos are meant to be replicated across dozens, if not hundreds of different formats. This means that they need to be easy enough to copy accurately across these formats. Simple designs will work the most effectively in this regard while complicated logos will take more money to reproduce.
There’s also the chance that a complicated logo won’t look appealing at all. Think about Apple, McDonald’s and Nike. These companies have huge revenues, but their logos are some of the simplest in the business. Understand that simple yet memorable logos will always be more effective at capturing consumer attention than overly complicated designs.
3. Combine Different Elements
A logo is a complete expression of your business and as such combines different design elements. While simple designs like the iconic Apple logo exist, they were also developed alongside other facets of their brand. For example, Apple has their own recognizable serif front that accompanies all their ads and is used exclusively in their digital devices. The Nike swoosh can stand on its own but is most often accompanied by the bold and italicized block font. Uniting these different elements into one logo coherently is key in creating a design that works on multiple levels.
4. Aim for Timeless
Certain colors and design elements are only fashionable for a short period. For example, Instagram pink was all the rage a few years back, but it has quickly fallen by the wayside as people have moved on to new shades. The same goes for rose gold and minimalist approach to design.
When you are designing your company logo, forget about what’s trending and focus on timeless elements of your logo. Some colors will always be in style, such as black and white. Other design elements are classic because they may more sense, like always using sans serif fonts for logos. Instead of pandering to temporary fancies, your logo’s goal should be to remain appealing and effective for years and years.
5. Look into Color Symbolism
There are countless variations to each color and each shade can carry different connotations. Identifying the meanings of these different shades and applying the most appropriate colors to your logo’s design is a skill and could take weeks of deliberation.
For example, red is often associated with hunger, danger and passion but other shades of red can be associated with beauty, romance and warmth. Green is associated with nature but, depending on the shade, can also be used to indicated health and medicine.
Be very careful when you’re selecting which shades of colors to employ in your logo. Keep your business’s goals and traits in mind when you do and you will have an easier time choosing the perfect colors schemes for your design spread.Logo design is an art as much as it is a science, and you need to blend these two disciplines together. Combining marketing principles with design tenets is the only way you can accomplish your goal and create a timeless and appropriate business logo.
