A logo is your company’s first impression for potential clients. It is like a “profile pic” and used by consumers to decide in a matter of moments if they want to learn more about your company or move on to something else. According to a publication by Google AI, it takes someone 50 milliseconds or less to form a first impression about a brand’s visual appeal, their awareness of the service or product offered, and whether or not to engage.
Before you create a logo, decide on and be aware of the following concepts:
- What makes your organization different or better?
- What is your organization’s style? Is it fun or serious, classic or modern, free-flowing or mathematical?
- Understand the emotional effect of colors and the meaning of shapes so your logo portrays the company style and uniqueness without sending the wrong message.
- Consider text spacing, design simplicity, and scalability across all media.
Singularity
Knowing your organization’s unique qualities will help you develop a logo that sets you apart. Do some research on your competition for ideas and make sure your logo will be unique. Consider if your service is more reliable, has more options or serves a wider demographic. This will be a great starting point for choosing a logo. For example, consider a local consulting firm versus a global one. One might use the local city skyline, while the other could use a globe.
Organizational Style
Font choice, artistic form, and shape showcase the style of your organization. Consider the style difference between a bank and a nightclub. One may represent security, strength or longevity while the other could portray fun, energy or excitement. If a font is used in a logo, a bank might choose a classic serif font (with small strokes on the ends of each letter) like Georgia or Times New Roman, while a nightclub might choose a bold sans serif style (without strokes on the ends of letters) that conveys the energetic atmosphere of the business, like Gotham or Impact.
Color Association
The meaning behind colors may be subtle and, even if not realized, become popularized by other successful company logos. The color red is associated with excitement and may stimulate appetite. The color yellow is known to bring on feelings of joy by causing a release of serotonin. Green can bring about feelings of prestige and wealth and blue may cause people to feel calm and trusting. These qualities make them good choices for bank or insurance company logos. Regardless of color choice, consider including three colors or less in your logo along with one and two color versions for print.
The meaning of shape
Shapes carry baggage, just as colors can. Perception is the reality, so it is important to be aware of basic meanings behind common shapes to ensure you send the right message. If your organization is trying to market reliability or order, a square could send this message. For a feeling of harmony and wholeness, choose a circle shaped logo. With triangles, octagons or other commonly used signage shapes, you should consider their universal meanings of direction or warning.
Scalability
Once you nail down the style and unique qualities of your organization and consider colors, fonts, and styles that reflect these, imagine how your logo will appear on all forms of media. Think about how your logo will appear on a widescreen TV, smartphone, billboard or social media profile picture. Scalability is making sure your logo quality is retained when it’s made larger or smaller to fit any of these differently-sized spaces. All of this advice on how to design a logo that works well across all platforms can be put into practice with a user-friendly service like FlashMarks.
Spending time considering these areas of logo design will help make that 50-millisecond first impression an impactful representation of your company brand and encourage potential clients to engage rather than move on.
1 comment
Nice article for all designers thanks for the information. A logo is an identity of any business and it must be unique and attractive so these points should keep in mind when design.
Like it. Thanks
Comments are closed.