The logo is an essential part of a strong brand strategy for any business, however, designing one that is representative of your brand and visually appealing requires a tactical approach and dedication.
You must strive to create a logo that is able to incorporate your entire brand and highlight the values of your company without being too exhaustive and losing its visual appeal
What is a logo?
A logo is a combination of text and visual images that has two purposes. You tell people the name of the company and create a visual symbol that represents your business.
Some logos have a powerful symbolic association connected to the memory of people. For example, the golden bows of McDonald’s are so familiar that they no longer need the text “McDonald’s” for you to recognize that this symbol represents McDonald’s.
Why do I need a logo?
Having a professional and well-designed logo generates confidence.
If your logo seems designed in Microsoft Word, people will wonder how it will do the rest of your basic business products/services and there are many tools where you can get well-designed logo fast and free.
What should a good logo contain?
- Make the text part of your logo super clear and readable
What should a good logo contain? While many small businesses believe that their brand will be the next Coca Cola or McDonald’s, in reality, when you start creating your logo, one of the most important features is that the text of your company’s name is clear and easy to read from a distance. , as it may appear on the vehicle’s signage, building signage, signs or any other place where the logo can be seen from a distance.
- Use it consistently
create a logo – documentation when large global brands obtain a designed logo, they often prepare large brand documents (Brand Manual), dozens of pages deep. These brand manuals cover points such as:
- Guidance on the different variations of the logo and where they should and should not be used.
- Guidance on the modification of the logo and what should not be done with the logo.
- What should and should not appear near the logo.
- How the logo should appear in all kinds of different scenarios.
Although this level of documentation is excessive for most small business logos, these large brands understand that, if brands are inconsistent in the way their logo appears in different situations, it can be detrimental to trust. So be really consistent with the way your logo is used.
- Simple colors: think about the different situations in which you will use
different situations in which your logo will be used your logo can appear on screens, business cards, letterheads, drop-down banners, vehicles, store signage, product packaging, newspaper ads, just to name a few.
It is much more likely that the logos that have degraded colors, many fine details, many different colors or photographic content look quite different in these different situations because many of them use completely different printing technology and makes it difficult to match exactly the colors.
This is the reason why the most powerful brands in the world generally stick to a simple palette of less than 3 main colors. They also use solid colors instead of gradients.
- Have something visual/memorable
While it may take a few decades to become the next Coca Cola or McDonald’s, it’s a good idea to have something memorable about your logo.
Some companies do this by using interesting text or modifying part of the text in the logo so that it is not just a standard font.
Other companies do this by adding some kind of illustrated icon next to the text portion of the logo.
One useful aspect of having an icon is that you can also use the icon for yourself in some situations. For example, the Nike brand can appear with or without the Nike text.
Although originally Nike’s tic would have meant nothing if it did not appear next to the Nike text, a visual memory association has developed over time.
If you want a minimalist and elegant logo, just using a modern font with a touch of accent color is a good option.
