Over the years, we’ve seen many iconic brand logos: Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Nike, and Apple, most notably. Even if you don’t consume anything from those brands, you’ll recognize their logos anywhere. You can tell their brand name even if the logo doesn’t show it.
Iconic logos prove that they’re more than just a distinct image. They give brands a solid identity. In some cases, a logo can even stir memories. Coca-Cola’s logo, for example, is often reminiscent of Christmas.
Your brand logo can make or break your small business. While there are no fixed rules for creating a logo, following some guidelines is essential, as it ensures that you’re headed in the right direction. Done right, even if your brand doesn’t make it as big as Apple, you’ll leave an impact on your community, at least.
The Purposes of a Logo
-
Creating a Positive First Impression
The logo is the first thing a customer will see in a brand. As the face of your small business, it must leave a positive first impression. Costumers can forget about a brand simply because of its unappealing logo.
Aside from an appealing design, a logo should also possess a personality and convey different traits. For example, Apple’s logo is fresh and innovative. Google’s is fun and friendly. If the market feels the brand’s personality, they’ll form perceptions about it, affecting how they’d feel about your brand for the long term.
-
Making Your Small Business Recognizable
An effective logo is easily recognizable, making your business memorable. This is the reason it’s recommended for brands to use simple logos. Less is more; the fewer strokes there are on a logo, the more recognizable it becomes. Just take a look at Google’s logo through the years; it used to have more strokes, but when it became sans-serif and cleaner, Google just needed to show the letter “G,” and anyone will know that it’s Google.
-
Proving Professionalism
Having a logo makes your business more credible. Without a logo, there is no real business. Indeed, your logo is part of your branding, which defines the long-term impact of your brand. Just imagine this: if Apple never had a logo, iPhones wouldn’t likely become popular. Instead, they’d look like cheap, generic phones.
-
Establishing Emotional Connection
A study by brand strategy and design firm Siegel+Gale found that lesser-known brand logos were more likely to be called “boring,” “tacky,” or “pretentious.” While those descriptions count as first impressions, they can also affect how the brand will be perceived in the long term. A boring logo won’t likely forge an emotional connection. But a fun, warm, and caring logo can.
For example, Starbucks might not have the most minimalist logo, but it never fails to remind customers of their comfortable premises, tasty beverages, and seasonal gifts with purchases. As such, Starbucks’ customers are bonded with them.
How to Design an Impactful Logo
As pointed out above, there are no fixed rules as to how to make a logo. Your logo doesn’t have to convey a special meaning or hint at a secret message. Trying too hard to make a clever logo could backfire on your business.
So instead of focusing on the logo’s message, focus on its overall design. It has to match your brand, its mission, and the products you’re selling. For example, Nike’s check mark logo aligns with its tagline, “Just do it.” True enough, when we’re tracking our tasks, we tend to put a check mark on the ones we’ve already done.
Your logo should also reflect your goal. If you want your business to last generations, it should be timeless and adaptable to new trends. For example, Amazon’s logo has gone through multiple changes through the years, but we only think about its current logo. That’s because the transitions were smooth, as the older logos provided a good foundation for the changes.
Where to Show Off 2Your Logo
Brands normally attach their logos to the products they sell. But if you sell clothes, accessories, household items, and such, it’s impossible to put your logo on all of them. You can put them on promotional products instead, which you can give away for free or include as gifts for purchases.
Popular types of promotional products are:
- Beverage flasks — you can ask laser engraver distributors to emboss the logo on the product yourself or enlist a manufacturing plant to do it for you.
- T-shirt — silk-screen printing or digital printing can easily display your logo on T-shirts.
- Cup covers — since many people enjoy a cup of a beverage while working, cup covers will appeal to them.
When your small business grows and becomes a big-name corporation, the market will only be able to find you through your logo. So design your logo right from the get-go.
