Your Logo Sets the Standard for Your Business

The creation of a successful brand starts with the logo.

Your company logo is the first point of consideration for every single person that comes into contact with your organisation. This needs to be taken into account when it is being conceived and designed. Without a unique, clear identity your business will not make a mark.

The instant someone lays their eyes on your logo they are actually looking at a whole range of possibilities.

A good logo not only communicates the name of an organisation, it establishes:

- Quality

- Standard

- Trust

- What you do

- Sector

- Industry standing

- Corporate Colours & fonts

Simplicity Is Key

Sometimes, I like to play ‘Spot the DIY Designer’ as I drive between appointments. It’s sad, I know. But with almost 30 years of experience behind me I can easily spot when someone has ‘had a go’ at just doing it themselves - or they have paid an enthusiastic relative or back street supplier to ‘throw something together’ for their logo. Over the past 10 to 15 years, this has become rife as computers and software have become easy to use and accessible. Everyone is a design expert now, aren’t they? Actually, no they’re not. Logo design and branding is a highly specialised area that requires knowledge and expertise. The evidence is all around us actually. Our high streets, industrial estates, banners, posters and company vehicles sport a wild and wacky range of messages and creations that, if you analyse them properly, can actually make the eyes bleed. There are garish colours, boring colours, illegible fonts, swooshes, swirls, drop shadows, glows, emboss effects, rainbow vignettes, vague straplines and clip-art cartoons as far as the eye can see.

All of these overused techniques and effects are employed by DIY designers to try to stand out, or to ‘look fancy’. Invariably, the businesses that do stand out and last in the memory are the ones that provide simple clarity through their branding. People are now so used to seeing a mixed bag of overly decorative devices that in general, our expectations and standards have dropped. That’s the sad part. The good part is that this means if you have your logo designed and produced properly, you have a great chance of being recognised and remembered.

Cross-platform consistency

With the explosion of Social Media and online media in general, your brand needs to work hard across more platforms than ever before. For example, it needs to work as well in your Twitter icon as it does in your signage. Icons and logo devices need to work well across all media; mobile and desktop websites and apps, video and animation, social media as well as offline materials use such as print work and advertising.

In order to set and maintain brand consistency, the designer should take all of this into full consideration before putting pencil to paper - or finger to mouse.

Pushing the Brand

We have established that your logo needs to look good and work hard as a device, but the accompanying words and messages around it need to work equally hard to be welcoming. For small and startup companies in particular, there is no room for ambiguity in what you say through your marketing.

Playing fast and loose with your brand is fine if you are an established household name. Think of these obvious ones; McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Sony. You already know what they provide, so they afford to introduce some clever touches. For example, you only need to hear the five-note melody in a McDonald’s ad, and it encourages you to complete the phrase “I’m lovin’ it” in your head or out loud – only because you’ve heard it in many a high-profile campaigns previously. Coca Cola is etched into our very existence from birth simply because they keep investing in their brand with 100% consistency. Think of Sony in relation to TV’s, Gaming, HiFi’s, Phones and other electronic devices and you will most likely have a reassurance of quality through experience or reputation.

Small businesses and startups do not have this luxury. The split-second people lay their eyes on your logo or hit your website, you need to help them to understand who you are and what you do. And that all begins with your logo.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Contact Big Red and we can assess and develop your logo and branding. We can also help to establish new growth areas for your business through Digital Marketing, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and we can discuss further.

In the meantime, have fun playing ‘Spot the DIY Designer’.