How To Create A Killer Logo
Never underestimate the power of a strong business logo.
There are so many steps in getting started with business that it can be easy to overlook some of the most important things. Many entrepreneurs find that they get so caught up in the business plan side of things that they breeze through the design of their logo without much thought. In fact, some of them have even been known to design them on a napkin in a bar. But let’s take a moment to think: what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about McDonald’s? The golden arches, right? How about Nike? We only need to see that giant swoosh, almost like a check mark, to identify a product of the sports giant.
Your logo should visually represent your brand, as it will be on all of your business documentation. That means it could be a stand-alone image, a header on marketing materials or a go-to shortcut button on your website (and don’t forget any uniform shirts you’ll maybe hand out to staff!).. So how do you design the strongest and most attractive business logo possible? There are a few things all of the best logos have in common, and we’ve outlined three of them below for you:
Simplicity
So let’s try and identify one more brand by their logo description: a blue fish on an orange background with rectangular bubbles and pink and brown seaweed in the background? No ideas? Exactly. Logo lesson #1: keep things simple. As Albert Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself”. Keep this in mind when developing your logo, as it should represent your brand succinctly and explicitly. Think Apple, whose logo is, rather appropriately, an apple.
Versatility
As we mentioned earlier in this post, your logo will appear on all of your brand documentation, both B2B and B2C. Your logo must be attractive and recognisable in print; digital; large and small scale; black and white and full color (should you choose to use color).
Remember that it may also appear on many different items from t-shirts to coffee mugs to social media icons, so you want to be sure that it will be appropriate on – and translate clearly to – many surfaces. This again leads back to our first point simplicity: many colors and shapes might not look so great when thrown on a beer koozie or bumper sticker.
Relatability
Much as your customers should be able to relate to your brand’s personality (this should be covered when developing your brand DNA), they should relate to your logo as a representation of your brand. Think: will your logo contain your business name? Or just a static image? If you’re going to use words or symbols, make sure you do your research into whether or not they have symbolic meaning elsewhere which your customers could relate to (or indeed be offended by). The Nike logo remains a great example. A check mark is synonymous with good performance, which Nike hope to bring to their customers with their product.
Make sure you get feedback from consumers on your brand logo as you go through the design and development process. Try to avoid feedback from anyone who may have emotional investment in your business (yep, that rules out your Mom!), so as to get good quality impartial advice on the direction to head with it.
If you don’t love your logo at first, give it some time. Phil Knight, Nike founder, paid Caroline Davidson a whopping $35 to design it in 1972. He later admitted he hated the ‘swoosh’ design at first, but that it eventually grew on him.
Think you’ve got your logo nailed down? It should be featuring heavily on your business website; get started on yours today with our website builder.