I wrote an article about the importance of branding the other day.. I wanted to elaborate more on the importance of a logo in any business branding.
A company’s business brand is critical to long-term success and growth. The brand identifies what your business stands for and elicits an emotional connection between your company and its consumers. A strong brand is enough to get people to drive out of their way to buy your running shoes when another company is located closer by. Connectivity to your business brand will result in loyal customers becoming some of your business’s best advertisements possible.
Logos that fit well with a business’s brand only serve to strengthen it. Consider well-known logos, such as Apple’s apple, the swoosh mark that everyone associates with Nike or the golden arches that symbolize…well, we probably don’t even need to say. You already know. How does your logo measure up in terms of increasing brand awareness? It it’s not leading to the results you hoped for, it might be time to re-examine your logo.
Important Considerations in Logo Development
- Font and Color. The font and color of your company’s logo are prime factors for how well it’s received by the public. There are four top colors used for logo design, blue, red, black and yellow. Likewise, fonts in the Serif family, Modern and Script versions are amongst some of the most popular used.
- What’s Your Message? How do you want your audience to perceive your company? As progressive, traditional, nerdy, fun? Your logo conveys a message. Ensuring that it’s sending the intended message is vital to your business’s success.
- Who’s Your Audience? Demographics are involved in the foundation of every successful marketing campaign. Your logo’s message will work to its full potential when you know who your intended audience is and isn’t. Knowing this will help you select the font and color you use, as well as any other aspect of your logo. If your target audience is teenage girls, a pink logo might be perfect. But you won’t use that same color to target an audience of 35 – 54 year old men.
- Consider the Context. Where will your logo be seen the most? On a store shelf, the internet, on the side of a box or cup? This is an important consideration to make because you want your logo to look as good across the top of a 3-inch square box as it looks across the front of an 8-inch wide catalog or 20-foot billboard.
- The Role of Graphics. The swoosh and the golden arches are logo graphics that immediately identify the company to the viewers. Not everyone uses a graphic. If you do, the rule of thumb is to keep it simple.
Logo as Part of Your Company’s Identification
To the consumer, your business’s logo is part of the company’s personality. A logo that looks aesthetically pleasing isn’t enough in today’s market. Like your business brand, your company’s logo must elicit connection between you and the consumer, and it must evoke feelings. People who see the Nike swoosh mark think of athletic performance. Those that see the Forbes symbol think of intelligence and power. What do consumers think of when they see your company’s logo? For maximum effectiveness, you want to ensure that what they see is exactly what you want them to perceive.
