What makes a good logo?

A logo is more than a nice icon, it’s the heart of your businesses branding.

A good logo has several key qualities that make it effective and memorable. When designing your logo it’s important to consider what you want your logo to say about your business. After all, for many potential customers it will be the first point of contact for your business and the thing they will remember you by. If you get your logo right, you’ll be well on your way to effective branding.

Consider the imagery in your logo.

What do you want your logo to say about your business? What kind of ideas or values do you want to convey about your business? Once you’ve determined this, you can start to figure out how to effectively incorporate this into your logo. For example, if we look at the Fed Ex logo (a popular example), while it’s not incredibly obvious, it has an arrow in the middle of it. This conveys forwards movement, which for a delivery company, is ideal.

Make your logo easily recognisable.

You want your logo to be unique to your business as it is how people are going to recognise you. If your logo is boring or has been done before, your business won’t stand out with your branding. Or worse, your branding will get confused with a rivals.  The battery bunny is a famous part of Duracell branding but did you know that Energizer has also used a bunny for their marketing campaigns?  In fact, this went to court and now Duracell has the rights to use the bunny everywhere apart from USA and Canada and Energizer can only use it in USA and Canada (confusing right!). Get creative with it and come up with something unique to your business and brand.

Make sure your logo is relevant to your business.

If you’re a law firm, you want to reflect the kind of business you are, and the essence and values of your brand. And make sure that it is not misleading.

Simplicity.

Don’t overdo it. Aim for a logo that says what you need it to, in the simplest way possible. Most likely, people aren’t going to study your logo like art in a gallery. It’s important that you have a clear and straightforward design that can be easily understood and remembered at a glance.

Remember that your logo is going to be displayed in various sizes and in different media. You don’t want it to be overwhelming when scaled up or for important details to get lost when its scaled down (such as in embroidery). Avoid too many colours and over detailed graphics. Take a look at logos from other successful brands for inspiration. You’ll realise that less is more.

Aim to make your logo timeless.

Every so often a brand refresh is necessary. If you look at the progression of the Starbucks logo, the original differs a lot from the one we know today. However, you don’t want to be changing your logo frequently. Your customers will find it hard to keep up and lose that important familiarity with your brand. Avoiding adding trendy elements to your logo will help ensure that your logo will stand the test of time.

Balance.

You want to maximise the space you’ve got to work with, but don’t overdo it. Give your graphics and text enough room. A cramped logo can be overwhelming and visually unpleasant. Use the space wisely but don’t over fill it for the sake of it.

Make sure your logo is versatile.

Your logo is going to be used in many places to represent your business so it important to make sure its effective in different sizes and situations. A well-designed logo should be equally effective when displayed on different platforms, such as websites, business cards, signage, vehicles or on mobile apps.

Your logo is incredibly important. It’s the main visual identifier for your business, so it’s essential that it works for you. It’s a great opportunity to tell people about your business without having to say very much. You can say a lot though imagery and colours, so make sure you are saying the right thing.

Branding your business can be one of the most important decisions you will ever make.

At Lundie Media, we have worked on quite a few branding projects over the years. From start up companies to the rebranding of established businesses; we take them from initial consultation to concepts to final design. We don’t stop at just doing the design either, we can also sort out all the printing and implementation to make your life a little bit easier and generally increase the effectiveness of your brand as a sales tool. If you want to know more about how we can help you with your brand, why not get in touch.