Your logo is an essential part of your business’s branding; While it is not the only thing representing your brand, it’s usually the first point of visual contact for most potential customers and audiences.
This makes it crucial to ensure your logo represents your business and brands in a way that your target audiences (customers, donors, communities, stakeholders, partners, etc.) can connect with your brand.
Several aspects go into branding and logo design; here are a few boxes we believe the best logos must check to achieve the purpose for which they are created.
1. Simplicity
Which companies come to mind when you see a half-chopped apple, a swoosh, and a black and white panda? You guessed right: Apple, Nike, and WWF. Simple logos are recognizable and memorable. Simplicity is crucial for creating logos that work. The attention span of today’s audiences is short; if they have to process or understand your logo, they will likely not remember it.
A simple logo will highlight and sell your brand’s unique selling proposition with little use of visual space.
2. Memorable
A great logo should be memorable. Your audience should be able to remember your logo and connect it to you every time they see it again. Your audience and customers should be able to look at your logo every time they see it and say, “I have seen that before; yes, that X.” The litmus test for this is to see your audience’s mind as Time Square, New York. Will your logo be remembered if placed side-by-side with other logos in Times Square?
3. Versatility
A great logo should be versatile -ie. It must be able to adapt to many different functions, activities, and applications. At Pixanow, we encourage our clients to ask the following questions; Can my logo be easily applied on a mobile app, a business card, a billboard, a t-shirt, a website, a printed brochure, a pen, a lapel pin, and still be recognizable?
4. Relevance
A great logo should reflect what your organization stands for and your excellent work. It must take value over volume. The ideal logo focuses on what’s unique about your brand and visually connects your audiences with it. Two good examples to consider are McDonald’s golden arches which have remained unchanged for decades, as has Coca-Cola’s iconic word mark. While both companies have updated their looks, they have stayed consistent with the core of their logos and brands.
5. Scalability
A great logo should look and work great when applied on larger-than-life exposures like billboards and other promotional items and when used on tiny surfaces like the sides of a branded pen.
Conclusion
Good functioning logos are easy to design and launch when you focus on the core things that make them effective and consider all these five checkboxes.
