5 design tips for creating your brand’s logo
Every single brand has a logo, however big or small the company may be. Some logos are world-famous and become even more famous than the brand name. However simple they may look, an incredible amount of time, skill and creativity go into creating a logo that will last with a company for the rest of time.
More and more new companies are popping up around the globe. That means the competition is ever fiercer and so, in the last ten years especially, logos have been used as a particularly powerful tool to enable brands to stand out from the crowd.
How can you ensure you create a logo that will help you do this whatever the age of your business?
1.Make sure your logo reflects your brand personality, impressions are crucial
Your brand’s personality encompasses your company’s values, its overall image, its voice and its characteristics. You need to know exactly what all of these are before you create your brand’s logo. Then you can have them all in the back of your mind when creating the design.
Try thinking of your brand as a character in a film, or even someone you know in real life.
Try thinking of your brand as a character in a film, or even someone you know in real life. What characteristics do you want people to think of immediately when they see your logo? If you were designing the logo for an energy drink, for example, you would probably want the logo to be exciting and in your face.
The logo for a meditation app, on the other hand, would be reminiscent of someone who’s quiet, calm and relaxed.
2.Choose the right font
It may seem like a minute detail, but choosing the incorrect font can give the totally wrong impression of your company.
If, for instance, you selected a playful, childish font and put it on a serious logo for a solicitor’s company, it would probably look quite strange.
You must consider your company’s personality when designing your brand logo.
Just like with the overall logo design, you must consider your company’s personality when you pick the logo’s font.
3.Keep it simple, do not over complicate the power of a simple logo
Think about some logos you know for a moment. It’s quite likely that the ones you remember have very simple designs.
Nike can easily put the logo on all the equipment and clothing without the logo becoming distorted or unrecognisable.
Take the Nike tick for example. You couldn’t get much simpler than that and yet it’s incredibly effective.
Nike can easily put the logo on all the equipment and clothing it sells but it also aptly reflects its catchphrase, ‘just do it’.
4.Colours and their connotations
Like font, colour is an extremely important consideration and can make all the difference to the feel of the brand. While red is reminiscent of danger, yellow is usually associated with happiness.
Green is often associated with health and McDonalds are trying to appear healthier.
Consider McDonald’s recent change in brand colour. It kept the yellow ‘M’ but changed the background from red to green, subsequently changing much of its associated products and outlets to green too.
Why? Because green is often associated with health and McDonalds are trying to appear healthier so they appeal to more people.
One thing to think about is whether the colours you have chosen will look equally good in print as they do in their digital format.
5.Make sure it is scalable for a website – does it work on small and large formats
Similarly, your logo must be able to fit on anything and work in all sizes.
Starbucks logo is recognised any form of medium, from coffee cups to billboards and stickers.
Coffee giant Starbucks had to do this. Their logo needed to fit onto small espresso cups and tiny packets of coffee, as well as looking attractive on a blown-up display.
This display is identifiable on the outside of their cafés, and even for big billboard advertising and marketing on the sides of buses.
By following these design tips, you can be sure to create a memorable logo that will stand the test of time. Create something unique with personality, make it timeless.