Have you ever seen a big brand without a logo? No? That’s because there aren’t any. A logo has a major impact on how your customers will perceive your brand. So naturally, you want your logo to be outstanding. But how do you get there?
Brand Name does matter, and so does the Logo
When developing a brand, you might have heard about the importance of the brand name. Well, your logo should also be in harmony with your brand name. The easiest way to check if it is? Think about your logo from a customer’s perspective. If they are able to figure out they are looking at your logo, it’s good. If not, go back to the drawing board and find that right balance between “clever” and “confusing”. Also note that a great logo does not necessarily mean a company name in the logo itself (see below).
Think about why you create a logo
First, think about your purpose for this logo. A logo is not for decoration; you have to have a reason for creating it. For example:
Much like we need oxygen to live, many companies need a brand identity to work and create business.
A brand identity system can be defined as the total combination of all visual elements (logos, fonts, colours, etc… ) that are part of a company’s existence.
The system will include:
- Logo/s (ex.: Coca-Cola’s “Coke wave” or Ferrari’s prancing horse); – your colours and their meaning (ex. : red, meaning passion and power in Ferrari’s logo); – Fonts and their characteristics (ex. : bold, clean but yet powerful typeface for Coca-Cola’s logo); – Taglines and how they are presented (ex.: “The Real Thing” at the bottom of the Coca-Cola logo);
- your typography (ex. : Helvetica Heavy used in Ferrari’s corporate identity kit);
-Icons, such as a symbol or a mascot (ex.: Michelin Man or Uncle Ben’s rice).
These visual elements must be consistent on all marketing vehicles, be they stationary, packaging, commercial ads or website. The goal, as you can see here, is to be remembered by customers, who will identify your brand as a strong symbol.
So now you have to decide those elements that best represent your company. For example: let’s say a company’s goal is to create high-end luxury products. Its mission is to deliver the best quality and make the customer feel special. To achieve that goal, this company could choose dark colours for its colour palette and make sure that elegance is part of its branding system (see pg 2). Let’s take another example: let’s say a company has ambitions of being the best in its industry and its mission is to stay innovative with new technology. Its goal is to be recognized and remembered by customers. This company could choose bright colours and simple shapes for its colour palette, keep typefaces very simple and straightforward, use only the necessary amount of detail on its logos to not clutter them.
The logo itself is a reflection of your brand characteristics, but it’s only part of your branding system. That’s why you need to think about how all elements will be consistent with each other.
More Facts about Logo
Your Logo Will Not Be Alone
Your logo will be seen on business cards, promotional collateral, and other printed materials. It will be seen on your website, in ads and campaigns. It will be seen on t-shirts and coffee mugs. Your logo must look great under a variety of conditions. The logo must work in black and white as well as in colour, should scale well from a small size to a large one and it should reproduce well at both 100 dpi to that of 4,000 dpi (see below).
Everyone Can Make A Logo
A logo can be created by almost anyone with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop (or any other program). You simply create a logo with shapes, colours, fonts and maybe an image or two. A logo does not have to be complicated. So don’t try to put too much effort into your logo design. It doesn’t matter how fancy your logo is if it doesn’t look great when shrunk down and printed on promotional items at 300 dpi.
A great example of this, again, is the famous Coca-Cola “Coke wave” which was a simple yet effective design. There are certainly other logos that are more complex but still are very recognizable and can be easily recognized by their shapes and colours.
Bottom Line
So what are your options? Here are a few things to consider when designing your logo.
Make Sure That Your Logo Will Print Good at 300 DPI And At 80 DPI on Multiple Sizes (cms). A font that is versatile enough to be used for all purposes could be Helvetica Light since it can be used in many situations as well as it has a great quality. In addition, you can also use some fonts that are family friendly like Gill Sans (below) or Lucida Hand . This Logo Design Tutorial comes with guides for designing logos.
While picking Fonts Go through different fonts and download the one that you like the most from FontSpace .
