Your logo is a visual representation of everything
your company stands for. Think of McDonald's golden arches or the
Nike swoosh--these two impressive logos embody these companies
well. But many companies still skimp on developing this key
identity piece.
Ideally, your company logo enhances potential
customers and partners' crucial first impression of your business.
A good logo can build loyalty between your business and your
customers, establish a brand identity, and provide the
professional look of an established enterprise.
Consider Allstate's "good hands" logo.
It immediately generates a warm feeling for the company,
symbolizing care and trust. With a little thought and creativity,
your logo can quickly and graphically express many positive
attributes of your business, too.
Logo Types
There are basically three kinds of logos.
Font-based logos consist primarily of a type treatment. The logos
of IBM, Microsoft and Sony, for instance, use type treatments with
a twist that makes them distinctive. Then there are logos that
literally illustrate what a company does, such as when a
house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its
logo. And finally, there are abstract graphic
symbols--such as
Nike's swoosh--that become linked to a company's brand. Simple
Logos
"Such a symbol is meaningless until your
company can communicate to consumers what its underlying
associations are," says Americus Reed II, a marketing
professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School,
who's conducted research on the triggers that lead consumers to
identify with and become loyal to a brand. But building that
mental bridge takes time and money. The Nike swoosh has no
inherent meaning outside of what's been created over the years
through savvy marketing efforts that have transformed the logo
into an "identity cue" for an athletic lifestyle.
Growing businesses can rarely afford the millions
of dollars and years of effort required to create these
associations, so a logo that clearly illustrates what your company
stands for or does may be a better choice. Even a type treatment
of your company's name may be too generic, says Placitas, New
Mexico, logo designer Gary Priester, principal of gwpriester.com,
the Web arm of design firm The Black Point Group. Priester
believes customers should be able to tell what you do just by
looking at your logo.
Getting Started
Before you begin sketching, first articulate the
message you want your logo to convey. Try writing a one-sentence
image and mission statement to help focus your efforts. Stay true
to this statement while creating your logo.
But that may not be enough to get you started.
Here are some additional tactics and considerations that will help
you create an appropriate company logo:
Look at the logos of other businesses in your
industry. Do your competitors use solid, conservative
images, or flashy graphics and type? Think about how you want to
differentiate your logo from those of your competition.
Focus on your message. Decide what you
want to communicate about your company. Does it have a distinct
personality--serious or lighthearted? What makes it unique in
relation to your competition? What's the nature of your current
target audience? These elements should play an important role in
the overall design or redesign.
Make it clean and functional. Your logo
should work as well on a business card as on the side of a
truck. A good logo should be scalable, easy to reproduce,
memorable and distinctive. Icons are better than photographs,
which may be indecipherable if enlarged or reduced
significantly. And be sure to create a logo that can be
reproduced in black and white so that it can be faxed,
photocopied or used in a black-and-white ad as effectively as in
color.
Your business name will affect your logo
design. If your business name is "D.C. Jewelers,"
you may wish to use a classy, serif font to accent the letters
(especially if your name features initials). For a company
called "Lightning Bolt Printing," the logo might
feature some creative implementation of--you guessed it--a
lightning bolt.
Use your logo to illustrate your business's
key benefit. The best logos make an immediate statement with
a picture or illustration, not words. The "Lightning Bolt
Printing" logo, for example, may need to convey the
business benefit of "ultra-fast, guaranteed printing
services." The lightning bolt image could be manipulated to
suggest speed and assurance.
Don't use clip art. However tempting it
may be, clip art can be copied too easily. Not only will
original art make a more impressive statement about your
company, but it'll set your business apart from others.
Avoid trendy looks. If you're redesigning
your old logo, you run the risk of confusing customers--or
worse, alienating them. One option is to make gradual logo
changes. According to Priester, Quaker Oats modified the Quaker
man on its package over a 10-year period to avoid undermining
customer confidence. But don't plan to make multiple logo
changes. Instead, choose a logo that will stay current for 10 to
20 years, perhaps longer. That's the mark of a good design. In
fact, when Priester designs a logo, he expects never to see that
client again.
Watch Your Colors
One thing you need to be careful of as you
explore color options is cost. Your five-color logo may be
gorgeous, but once it comes time to produce it on stationery,
the price won't be so attractive. Nor will it work in mediums
that only allow one or two colors. Try not to exceed three
colors unless you decide it's absolutely necessary.
Your logo can appear on a variety of media:
signage, advertising, stationery, delivery vehicles and
packaging, to name just a few. Remember that some of those
applications have production limitations. Make sure you do a
color study. Look at your logo in one-, two- and three-color
versions.
Hire a Designer
While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a
crucial step in creating your business image, trying to create a
logo completely on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the
best way to avoid the high costs of going to a professional
design firm, which will charge anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000
for a logo design. Be aware, however, that there are thousands
of independent designers around who charge much less. According
to Stan Evenson, founder of Evenson Design Group, entrepreneurs
on a tight budget should shop around for a designer. "There
are a lot of [freelance] designers who charge rates ranging from
$15 to $150 per hour, based on their experience," he says.
But don't hire someone just because of their
bargain price. Find a designer who's familiar with your field .
. . and with your competition. If the cost still seems
exorbitant, Evenson says, "remember that a good logo should
last at least 10 years. If you look at the amortization of that
cost over a 10-year period, it doesn't seem so bad."
Even if you have a good eye for color and a
sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still
consult a professional designer. Why? They know whether or not a
logo design will transfer easily into print or onto a sign,
while you might come up with a beautiful design that can't be
transferred or would cost too much money to be printed. Your
logo is the foundation of all your promotional materials, so
this is one area where spending a little more now can really pay
off later.
Using and Protecting Your Logo
Once you've produced a logo that embodies your
company's mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to
protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a
trademark at the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office Web site.
Then, once it's protected, use it everywhere you
can--on business cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads,
your Web site and any other place where you mention your company
name. This will help build your image, raise your company's
visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.
Creating a logo sounds easy, doesn't it? It can
be. Just remember to keep your customers and the nature of your
business in mind when you put it all together. In time, you'll
have succeeded in building equity in your trademark, and it will
become a positive and recognizable symbol of your product or
service.
Compiled from articles written by David
Cotriss, Kim T. Gordon and Steve Nubie previously published on
Entrepreneur.com
One thing you need to be careful of as you
explore color options is cost. Your five-color logo may be
gorgeous, but once it comes time to produce it on stationery,
the price won't be so attractive. Nor will it work in mediums
that only allow one or two colors. Try not to exceed three
colors unless you decide it's absolutely necessary.
Your logo can appear on a variety of media:
signage, advertising, stationery, delivery vehicles and
packaging, to name just a few. Remember that some of those
applications have production limitations. Make sure you do a
color study. Look at your logo in one-, two- and three-color
versions.
Hire a Designer
While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a
crucial step in creating your business image, trying to create a
logo completely on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the
best way to avoid the high costs of going to a professional
design firm, which will charge anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000
for a logo design. Be aware, however, that there are thousands
of independent designers around who charge much less. According
to Stan Evenson, founder of Evenson Design Group, entrepreneurs
on a tight budget should shop around for a designer. "There
are a lot of [freelance] designers who charge rates ranging from
$15 to $150 per hour, based on their experience," he says.
But don't hire someone just because of their
bargain price. Find a designer who's familiar with your field .
. . and with your competition. If the cost still seems
exorbitant, Evenson says, "remember that a good logo should
last at least 10 years. If you look at the amortization of that
cost over a 10-year period, it doesn't seem so bad."
Even if you have a good eye for color and a
sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still
consult a professional designer. Why? They know whether or not a
logo design will transfer easily into print or onto a sign,
while you might come up with a beautiful design that can't be
transferred or would cost too much money to be printed. Your
logo is the foundation of all your promotional materials, so
this is one area where spending a little more now can really pay
off later.
Using and Protecting Your Logo
Once you've produced a logo that embodies your
company's mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to
protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a
trademark at the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office Web site.
Then, once it's protected, use it everywhere you
can--on business cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads,
your Web site and any other place where you mention your company
name. This will help build your image, raise your company's
visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.
Creating a logo sounds easy, doesn't it? It can
be. Just remember to keep your customers and the nature of your
business in mind when you put it all together. In time, you'll
have succeeded in building equity in your trademark, and it will
become a positive and recognizable symbol of your product or
service.
Compiled from articles written by David
Cotriss, Kim T. Gordon and Steve Nubie previously published on
Entrepreneur.com
