Many business professionals do not understand the importance of why a logo, especially a professionally designed logo, is important for their company. Another underestimated aspect is the cost to design such a logo. Let's take a look at the incredible impact a logo will have on your company, your customers, your prospects, and your competitors.

 

 

The Definition

According to Wikipedia, a logo is a mathematical element (ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon, sign) that, together with its logotype (a uniquely set and arranged typeface) form a trademark or commercial brand. Typically, a logo's design is for immediate recognition. The logo is one aspect of a company's commercial brand, or economic or academic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are different from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify organizations and other non-commercial entities. Lets expand on this definition a bit.

 

Here are 7 elements/principles that make a logo iconic. A logo should be:

• Describable
• Memorable
• Effective without color
• Relevant
• Simple
• Versatile

 

Describable

When you are in the process of designing a logo or having a designer make one for you, you will be asked a series of questions about your company, mission, values, and the way the business runs. This is because all of these elements help create the image within the logo. It helps the designer to incorporate everything your company stands for. It should describe what you do and how you do it. It may not be obvious while looking at a logo, but in some way it should incorporate what your company is behind the scenes.

 

 

Memorable

When I say a logo should be memorable, what company do you think of? More often than not, these three come straight to mind with virtually every person I have told this to: McDonald's, Nike, FedEx. What makes these three logos exceptional is the fact that they follow all of these 6 principles. Especially memorable. This is pretty self explanatory. I will let you stare and study these logos for the time being…

 

 

Effective without color

Yeah, your logo looks sweet. But how does it look without color? What does it look like with only one spot color? These are important questions that should be raised before a logo is finalized. Believe it or not, every logo does not look good without color. A professionaly designed one will. This should be important because of the different promotional collateral and advertising avenues that you may take on that will only allow for single color/no color printing processes.

 

Relevant

It is common sense, but over looked. Your logo should be relevant to the industry you are in. If it is old and out-dated, it should be updated to current trends and standards to be competitive with others in your niche.

 

Simple

An effective logo has to be simple in design and composition. This is because it has to be memorable and quickly recognizable. If you saw a busy logo that was complicated and hard to understand, you would be remembering it for the wrong reasons, if at all. Keeping it simple will allow the public to recognize it quickly as well. By this, I mean if your logo was on a billboard, they would know what it is within that 3 second time span while passing it on the freeway.

 

Can you see the arrow in the FedEx logo?

 

Versatile

Versatility is important and should be kept in mind while designing a logo. Here's why:

1.Your logo should be in vector format. This is a term that designers reference to, and should be making your logo in, as being scalable without any loss of quality. If you are working with a designer who is designing your logo in rasterized programs such as Adobe Photoshop—RUN! The program of choice for 99% of logo designers is Adobe Illustrator. This will enable your logo to have the best quality (smooth lines and transitions) no matter how big (billboards and posters) nor how small (pens and business cards) your logo will be sized.

 

2. Your logo should work in both vertical and horizontal format. You may not realize it at first, but the more mediums you use your logo on to promote and create brand awareness, the different layouts and formats will enable you to make the most out of the printable or displayable space provided.

 

Click here to see the evolution of 20 different brands over the coarse from when the company started to now. Very cool (and long)!

 

Conclusion

If your company and designer follow these 6 logo design principles, think outside of the box, keep your mind open to others' ideas and opinions, and brainstorm ideas until you can't see straight anymore, you are more than likely going to be able to come up with a logo that will inspire trust and communicate to clients, customers, and your target market. As long as you are selling products that people want or services that people need, your logo will create that lasting impression that is necessary for brand awareness.

 

My Plug

You knew it was coming. If you didn't, you should have. You may have been referred to my website by a search engine, friend, or another blog of some sort. Feel free to look around my website and get a feel for the endless amount of possibilities we can come up with together as a team for your business. I specialize in graphic, logo, and website design and can help your business with whatever design problems you are facing. If you are in need a logo for your business, you've found your designer. Just click on Contact, fill out the Design Brief, and I will get back to you with a quote.

Tags: Brand, Business, Identity, Logo Design

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 5:43 pm and is filed under Logo Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.