Great logo design is difficult to get right, but it’s a job you’ll want done right. Your company logo stands and an instant reminder of what your company stands for. This guide will take you through the basics, help you avoid some of the pitfalls, and give your brand the image it deserves.
Appeal to your target audience
Your first job in designing a logo is to define your target audience. You want your logo to appeal to potential customers, not put them off. Create one or more buyer personas that describe your target audience, include details like age, profession, education, marital status. List the kind of brands they already buy, and look at their logos.
Uniqueness
You want your brand to stand out so you’ll want a unique logo.
Timeless design
The most effective logos are rarely updated, they possess a timeless quality. Classic examples of this include Nike and Coca Cola. There are 4 elements to timeless logo design, follow them to ensure your logo is powerful, iconic and timeless.
- Stylised: Look for strong but clean and simple ideas, complex logos tend to age badly. Focus your search on one key characteristic of your brand
- Font: Choose a well crafted classic font. Use font attributes like weight and letter spacing to change the feel and make it more unique.
- Package: How the icon and text to sit together, your choices here will affect how the logo can be used. Thinks about all the places that you’ll want to use the logo, you want it to be versatile and readable.
- Colour: Limit your logo to one or two colours, one primary and if needed one secondary colour. Choose you main colour and explore different shades. For a timeless feel you’re safer picking a slightly muted shade of your chosen colour.
Be bold, be different
Don’t follow the trends, start one. It’s may be tempting to take your design from one of your favourite brands, but you want to stand out and be different. Being bold and original isn’t easy, but its worth the effort.
Keep it simple
Overly complicated logos can be hard to understand and interpret. You want to send a clear message to your consumers so keep your logo simple and to the point. Focus on one idea and do it well.
Be consistent
You want your logo to reinforce your brand. Start by making sure your logo feels balanced, with the right amount of white space around it. What shape is your logo, round is seen as unifying, complete, and speaks of communities. Square logos show balance, professionalism, and security. Triangular logos have energy, direction, stability, and are seen as masculine. The right choice of colour for you logo can further enforce your brand. Use a font that conveys the right emotion and image. Finally, negative space can sometimes provide an opportunity for clever design.
Be adaptable
Your logo is going to be used in many different locations, from tiny favicons in the tags of your web browser, to large images and company signage. You want your logo to carry its message regardless of size. You’ll also want negative versions, for use on dark backgrounds, and a grayscale version for printing.
This infographic was created by Company Folders.