18/04/2016
How to Design a Logo for Your Business
If you want a successful business or brand, you’re going to need a great logo design. The right logo design will provide an immediate visual representation of everything you exemplify. It will be the first thing that comes to mind when your target audience thinks about your product or service. We’re all familiar with the most popular logo designs, such as McDonald’s, or Nike, or Apple. But how can you come up with a logo design that will become equally memorable in the minds of your consumers?
Logo designs fall into three basic categories: font-based logos, like Coca-Cola’s; illustrative logos, such as a sundae for an ice-cream shop; and abstract logos, like Nike’s. Each of these has its advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of which kind of logo design you choose, the most important thing is that it must communicate to your audience what is most essential about your company.
With this in mind, write a one-sentence mission statement that articulates your message and will help guide the creation of your logo. Define your brand, and decide whether your logo design should skew more silly or more serious. Who is your target audience? What will read best to them? Then follow these strategies as you refine your logo designs:
Take a look at your competition.
Do similar businesses use bold graphics? Or do they tend towards more conservative colors and fonts? Consider whether it’s to your advantage either to follow the general pattern in logo designs, or to break from it entirely.
Choose your colors wisely. Don’t underestimate the importance of color.
First, familiarize yourself with the associations we tend to make with certain colors. For example, green suggests an organic product or an environmental service, while white signifies simplicity and purity, and red represents passion and energy. It’s best to use no more than three colors in your logo design. Color is expensive to reproduce, and a five-color design might look beautiful at one size, but illegible at another. Keep in mind, too, that logo designs should translate just as beautifully in black and white as they do in color. Depending on your brand, you may choose to work with just black and white anyway.
Keep it clean.
Legibility is key. Your logo design should function just as well on a business card as it would on a billboard. This is why photographs and clip-art are almost never good ideas for logo designs, as they’re bound to become indecipherable if scaled too small. Whether you’re working with a logo designer, or designing on your own, it’s crucial that your logo design can be reformatted and made available at any size.
Don’t forget to use your name.
Make your brand or business’s name a key element in your logo design. Think about how your company name can lend itself to a particular color, image, or font.
Focus on what’s most important.
Yes, it’s as obvious as it sounds, but it’s amazing how many businesses fail to follow this strategy. Your logo design should illustrate what’s best about your service or product.
Don’t fall for trends.
The best logo designs are those that can outlast trends and endure for decades – think about the GAP, which launched in 1969. Especially when redesigning a logo, don’t fall victim to trends that will alienate your core customer base. GAP got ridiculed in 2010 when it tried to change its logo design and used Helvetica font.
If you’re still stuck, hire a logo designer.
Hiring a logo designer is less expensive than you might think. There are many independent designers who will charge per hour. But before you hire a designer, do your research. Check out their portfolio, ask for previous client testimonials, and go with someone who has created logo designs for your field and knows your competition. Logo designers will also have a more sophisticated knowledge of graphic design, and will be able to think about subtleties you may have overlooked, such as clever ways of using negative space – the classic example is the FedEx arrow.
