Most business owners know that nothing means more to your business than your brand. It’s essentially your bread and butter. It’s the way you get noticed and attract business relationships. It says what type of clients or customers you want. It lets people get a feel for your brand’s personality. Very little can be done without a good brand presence.
In brand-building, there are a number of key elements that are extremely important to make sure you pay attention to and invest a lot of time and money into establishing. One of which is a good quality logo. Your logo is a small, long-standing digital representation of your business for years to come—especially if you’re reaching for longevity. Here are a few key elements to create the ultimate logo for your business.
Understand your Brand
Before designing your logo, you must understand your brand. It’s tempting to just go with whatever comes to mind first, but you’ll want to do some deep thinking about the story your brand is telling, who your business serves, and how you’ll want your business is perceived in the future. This will dictate much more than you can expect about the design of your logo. Is your brand more serious like a financial firm or a law firm? Or is it more playful like a gaming business or creative consulting firm? Are your clients less likely to take you more seriously if you go for bright colors and fun designs, or will they think you’re too cold and disconnected if you go with straighter lines and a muted style? This will have a lot of say in the design you choose and the colors you choose for your logo.
Make sure you have a consistent Brand theme
When considering a new logo, make sure it’s something that will translate well on all marketing platforms. Although this tip is more about your brand as a whole rather than your logo specifically, it’s still an important element when deciding on a logo design that will stand the test of time, while still being engaging, and being able to communicate your value proposition to prospective customers or clients. Make sure that it is something that is succinctly connected to what your business stands for and the services you provide. Your clients should be able to tell what type of company it represents just from looking at it.
Keep it simple
In design, we know the key to timelessness is simplicity. You’ll want to make sure your logo is as simple as possible, while still delivering a message about the business. Try not to use too many colors, as this complicates things such as printing and digital transferability. Make sure your logo contains clean lines and isn’t too complicated to look at. Make sure the font you use is clear and bold enough to be seen from far away. Stay away from digital textures such as glitter or sparkles. These tend not to layer well on most designs—both digital and print. You can either design your own logo with a logo designer or have a professional do it for you. Either way, you’ll always want to keep in mind that simple logos leave lasting impressions.
Stay away from trends
Another way to ensure you’ve chosen a timeless logo is by making sure you stray away from trendy elements. For example, certain plants, patterns, and animals that may be trendy to use in digital marketing today such as monstera leaves, alpacas and unicorns should stay out of your logo unless directly related to your brand. Your logo is meant to last the test of time. So, when these elements begin to go out of style, so does your logo. Instead, keep your logo simple and consistent with your brand.
Make sure it’s transferable
This tip is one of the most important design tips. To make sure your new logo is useful at all, you’ll want to make sure it has been designed with a transparent background. This format is called a vector format or a PNG file. Having a transparent background means you’re able to layer your logo on virtually anything seamlessly.
Along with this, you’ll want to make sure you either have a logo that will be seen if layered on black backgrounds, as well as white backgrounds. If you find this difficult to do, it may benefit you to create two different versions of your logo. One that works well with dark backgrounds and one that works well with light backgrounds.
As stated before, logos are one of the key elements of a brand that let people know who your company is, what it stands for, and the type of clients or customers you want. Because of this, it’s important to make sure you invest the proper amount of time and resources into making sure it fits your brand properly. You’ll be happy you did.