The Dos and Don’ts of Selecting a Winning Logo
In business branding, especially in today’s world of high-speed, easily-accessed Internet, it’s more important than ever to have an impeccable logo. While a logo doesn’t have to be the actual brand, it still has to represent it well. Think about sports teams, fast food chains, huge tech conglomerates and others in multi billion-dollar industries. It’s not their logo that made them rich, but having a great logo certainly helped these companies to become household names, recognizable around the globe.
From McDonald’s and Apple to the New York Yankees and Wal-Mart, an impeccable logo is truly priceless when it comes to branding a business correctly. Choosing the right logo for your business is really a make-or-break proposition, and it’s something that requires your full attention and creativity.
Below, we will go over a few crucial dos and don’ts in logo creation. Following these tips will help you to create a winning logo for your brand.
Logo Creation: Dos
Do Keep it Simple
Simple is more than sufficient for most logos. Just think about some of the best logos in the world, like Apple, the NY Yankees, and other big brands. Not only do these logos accurately represent the brand in question, but they’re also incredibly simplistic yet extremely powerful.
Do Research the Competition and Niche
Market research is imperative for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, you don’t want to mistakenly use a logo design that’s similar to anyone else. Secondly, you want to see the types of businesses within your niche that are doing well, and you subsequently want to see how these businesses brand themselves. You’re looking for inspiration, not imitation
Do Make it Stand Out
Your logo needs to be eye-catching. Think about using recognizable colors, only making them bolder and brighter. Think about a design—whether it’s a symbol, slogan or any other design—that draws people in when they see it. It’s hard not to notice those golden arches or those big blue letters.
Do Convey a Message
The best logos out there tell a story, even if it’s a short one. They call to mind the brand behind the image, and thus simply seeing something like a silver apple with a bite out of it makes people think about iPads and apps. The imagery of your logo needs to be strong enough that those seeing it will instantly recognize your brand and instantly relate your logo to what your business is about.
Do Use Your Creativity
Creativity is crucial in the logo design process. You might burn through dozens of designs before landing on something, and that’s perfectly okay. Your goal should be to create something simplistic, colorful, to-the-point, and bold enough to capture attention. Brainstorming ideas within these parameters is not only common but often a necessity.
Logo Creation: Don’ts
Don’t Use Clipart or Photos
Using art and photos is not the best idea for a logo. Even if you own the art or photo, these artful logos usually fail miserably and do nothing to promote a brand. They make for great headers on a Facebook page or on a blog, but as a business logo, which will go on business cards and pamphlets and other materials, detail and size are important, and photos and clipart don’t scale down well.
Don’t Modify Existing Logos
A lot of individuals like to modify existing logos of little known businesses. For instance, a logo like IBM, which simply consists of the company’s letters, is often used and copied in terms of font size, shadowing, etc. This isn’t as egregious as stealing actual design elements, but it’s still too much parity for your brand. Think originally.
Don’t Go Crazy with Effects
There’s a lot you can do on the web these days, like creating moving GIF files, overlapping and introducing multiple elements through Photoshop and other editing programs, and other graphic elements that can be introduced to a design. But don’t get carried away here. Remember: Simple is usually better.
Don’t Box Your Logo In
This isn’t dealing with metaphorically boxing your logo in by way of the design creativity; it means don’t box it in by way of an actual box. Your logo doesn’t need to be enclosed. It’s not out of the question, but start by seeing how your logo operates without being bordered. You may like the results.
Don’t be Inconsistent
The size, scope, shape and style of your logo should be consistent across the board. Don’t change your logo’s elements on different mediums. It needs to be designed in such a way that it’s consistently scalable. If you have to change it to post a larger version on your website and a smaller version on your business cards, then your logo is wrong.
Creating a logo isn’t difficult. Catching lightning in a bottle, on the other hand, is definitely hit or miss. Just remember to follow the dos and don’ts from the list above, and then you’ll at least have a bigger chance to get that hit.