The main purposes of a logo are to be instantly recognisable and to create a positive association between it and the company. They are a visual representation of a business or brand and everything it stands for or has to offer.
If you are in the process of designing the logo for your new business, you can start by looking at these logo design ideas for inspiration. It is important to make sure that whatever logo you ends up being memorable enough to fulfil its purpose.
The following article will discuss what exactly makes a business logo memorable and what aspects are worth making note of if you’re designing a logo for your business.
Become Familiar with the Brand
It is important to have clarity over what the brand is and what it represents before starting the creative process of designing a logo. Have a look at competitor logos and consider how you can take elements from those whilst remaining unique.
It’s also a good idea to set out with a vision for what you want your logo to say. Note down a short list of things you would like to communicate and design around those.
Make it Stand Out
This may sound like obvious advice, but it is worth mentioning. There needs to be something that is unique to your logo and makes it easy to link to your business. This can be a difficult thing to come up with as there’s no formula for coming up with something that will work. Nevertheless, it’s important to keep this in mind throughout the design process.
Colour Choice
Colours convey meaning and as such, picking the right colour palette for your logo is very important. You can’t simply pick your favourite colours and expect it to work. There is a lot of information out there on colour theory that will help inform your choices.
Type of Logo
Picking a suitable logo to match the type of business you have can be a tricky task. Companies with unique names often use their name within the logo such as Coca Cola and Samsung whereas more common names may opt for a symbol-based logo.
Among the types of logos you can choose from are lettermarks, pictorial marks, mascots, wordmarks, and emblems. Have a look at what each of these entails and how it may represent your brand if you used that type of logo for your business. Consider your brand’s personality and whether your choice of logo communicates that or not.
Simple Yet Quirky
Some of the best logos in business are also some of the simplest. Simplicity does not equate to dullness, so do not go overboard trying to add too many different elements to your logo.
With that being said, you can include a few elements without complicating the logo. A great example of this is FedEx which uses the negative space to create the shape of an arrow without overwhelming the logo.
Enduring Design
This is a very difficult design aspect to nail but could save your business a lot of money in the long-run. Avoiding design trends will allow your logo to better withstand the test of time and remain relevant for years to come. If your logo can achieve this, it negates the need for a rebrand further down the line.
Black and White
Your business logo may be full of colour, but it should be able to work in grayscale too. Logos are used in many different places including in black and white copy. If your logo can maintain its impact in black and white it will be more versatile and more useful.
Photocopies, newspapers, and sometimes merchandise will appear in black and white so being able to adapt to all these different mediums will make your logo a winner. Keeping the number of colours to a minimum and having high contrast is a good starting point for achieving this.
Does it Scale?
This is a similar principle to black and white logos. Scalability is important because your logo is likely to appear in many different places and in various different sizes. Details of the logo must be able to be presented in both very small forms and when blown up on large scales in order to be effective.
Feedback
This is perhaps one of the most important parts of logo design. Getting feedback from experts, people who are part of the business, and the general public is a great way to gauge whether or not a logo works.
Find out what people like and what they don’t and use that actionable advice to make some changes and tweak your logo or even start from scratch so that your business logo is as impactful as it can be. You may have designed what you think is the best logo imaginable but if the feedback isn’t positive, you will likely need a rethink before pushing ahead.