Before having your logo designed or redesigned it’s a good idea to understand what makes a good logo and what you should consider before committing.
Simple Logo Design is Better
A simple logo design is more memorable and easier to reproduce on the web, printed materials and promotional pieces than a complex logo. A simple logo design will better ensure your brand is recognizable as well as memorable. Think of a famous logo or brand. Is the first one that comes to your mind a simple design? Our brains tend to remember and recall simple design more so then complex images.
Logo Size Matters
Your logo design will need to be reproduced in a variety of sizes and should look the same when printed on a pen and on a billboard. Overly complex logos can become a blur of ink when reproduced as a small image. The simple design of the Nike swoosh allows for it to be recognizable when stitched on a shirt sleeve and when pasted on the side of a bus.
Color isn’t Everything
Colors are important but so is gray scale. Make sure you are as happy with your logo in black and white as you are with it in color before final approval. Cost should also be considered when selecting your logo colors. Three, four and five color logos may look terrific but the cost to reproduce them may not be worth it. Two color logos are more common due to their simplicity and cost effective print production. Varying shades and tints of your chosen two colors can make a logo appear dynamic while still keeping costs down.
Symbols are not a Direct Representation
A logo doesn’t have to convey what your company does and frequently they don’t. McDonald’s golden arches doesn’t include hamburgers or french fries. The FedEx logo doesn’t have trucks, planes or envelopes. Google’s logo doesn’t include a computer, a mouse pointer or anything else to do with the internet. Yet all of these are recognizable to most people. While sometimes having a logo that portrays an element of the company is appropriate, it’s often better to have a simple logo. Keeping your logo simple will allow you to adapt to unforeseen directions your company may take.
Metaphors Don’t Mean Much
While it’s nice for your logo to actually mean something try not to write a novel with ever dot and line. Color and images can mean something but the most memorable logos are also simple and lack subliminal meanings. Dots and lines may have profound meaning to you but they are rarely perceived by the viewer.
Logo Aspect Ratios
The relationship between the height and width of a logo is critical. A logo that is too tall and skinny, or too wide and short is not visually pleasing. Odd aspect ratios will create all sorts of layout issues when it comes to setting up your logo in artwork, business cards. A logo that is close to the aspect relationship of a business card is much more pleasing and more adaptable to different situations. Square and circle logos are also visually strong and have been made more popular by social media sites that allow for square profile images.
These are a few things to consider when having your logo designed. Keep it simple and you will be happier in the long run. If you need help designing or redesigning a logo, the creative team at Brand Identity would be happy to help.
