How To Choose The Successful Logo For Your Startup
Did you know that leading brands use powerful psychological tricks in creating their logos? Why do they do that? Is it just a waste of money or do they know exactly what they’re after?
Some people tend to underestimate the role the logo plays in their business, which is a huge mistake. A logo is not just a trademark or a sequence of letters. Logo design is essential for the company’s progress. It’s an extremely important element of the corporate style. A logo is supposed to represent the high quality and features of the products and services on offer. It’s a symbol that carries whatever meaning it has been imbued with.
A logo enables you to:
- announce your presence
- stand out among the competitors
- increase customer loyalty
- establish proprietary rights
We would like to tell you how you can use your logo to convey the information you need.
The logo as a mental impression
It may seem strange but a logo can draw an emotional response. A small image means a lot to how customers view a product, a service, or the company itself. A powerful logo is often very simple. But there’s nothing simple about creating an effective logo. Just seeing the logo should ignite a causal chain in the customer’s mind, i.e. need — logo — thought (“This is a high quality”) — action (“I’m buying this”).
How do you achieve that? This is where visual impression tools come in handy.
- Shapes
Different visual shapes trigger different subconscious responses. Experienced designers know how to make a shape convey information. For example, the Nike logo speaks of dynamic movement, ambition, and power. It broadcasts modernity, lightness, and rational minimalism. The Nike Swoosh is also associated with a bird in flight and a completed task (checkmark), which produces a feeling of gratification in our mind. Today, this logo is firmly associated with sports culture.
Every shape has its own message.
Circles, ovals, and ellipses are perceived as something positive. A circular logo promises community, friendliness, and affection. Rings are associated with union and partnership. Curves represent femininity.
A straight-angled logo (square or triangular) gives the impression of stability. Straight lines and clear shapes represent power, professionalism, and efficiency.
- Color
Understanding the psychology of color is essential in creating an efficient logo. People recognize colors much better than shapes, sizes, or other features of an object. Marketing research shows that color increases brand recognition by up to 80%.
For over 50 years, the MasterCard logo comprised two overlapping circles and the company name. Now the name has been removed because people recognize it without words. In this logo, red is the color of leadership, power, and activity. Golden is associated with the sun, finances, and prosperity. The orange in the middle is a symbol of Mercury, the god of trade, and is seen as a positive and optimistic color. The overlap between the circles represents the interconnected union of the customers, the companies, and institutions.
Properly selected colors can emphasize the advantages of your business and attract the necessary audience. A wrong color palette will have the opposite effect.
Nobody knows your brand, its features and objectives better than you. Obviously, an auto-parts company and a baby-food producer will use different color palettes. A logo should be associated with particular feelings and emotions.
- Symbolism
Historically, logos were born out of heraldry. The images of powerful logos and emblems contain special meanings and symbols. In creating a logo, the designer forms more than one layer of meaning. The designer doesn’t have to know what they’re working with, they just follow the customer’s instructions to use specific images or colors. Thus, company mergers, a change of ownership, or rebranding are often conveyed through color. In these cases, the designer cannot let his or her imagination run wild.
If the designer is only concerned with the logo’s esthetics, it’s a recipe for failure. A logo should carry a weight of meaning, from the business owner’s reputation to a targeted effect on customers.
How to choose your logo
You know the concept of your business like no one else. Before commissioning any logo designers, do some preparations. Here are some things that will help the designers create your logo:
- What your company does or produces, who the target audience is.
- Make some sketches on paper: keywords, drawings.
- The emotional idea behind your logo: the message you want to address to your customers.
- The fundamental idea (if any): the message to your partners and competitors.
To choose your own logo, you should first learn the main types of logos.
Classification of logos
All logos, regardless of their theme, belong to one of the three categories:
- Text (wordmark or letterform)
- Symbol
- Combination (symbol + text)
A text logo uses its own font:
These logos use symbols or emblems:
Combination logos are the most popular:
There are also mascot logos, which can be an efficient marketing tool for engaging your audience.
The formula of success
Of course, the trademark in itself does not make your product or service better. However, as we mentioned earlier, a logo can draw the attention of the target audience, trigger positive emotions, and trust the brand. The perfect logo doesn’t only encapsulate a hidden message but makes the brand more recognizable, affecting conversion and sales. Similarly, a badly made logo can drive away consumers and create mistrust for the product.
Logo requirements
A logo must be eye-grabbing and conservatively simple. It is the embodiment of quality. A logo should be informative, compact, and associative, as well as esthetically pleasing.
Here are the main requirements:
1. Uniqueness and individuality
Make sure the consumer does not associate your logo with other familiar logos or trademarks. This will help you avoid possible claims by third parties and register it as a trademark.
2. Attention grabbing
A logo should grab the attention of potential customers. You can evaluate how attractive it is by doing a small survey. Don’t base your evaluation on the judgments of your employees, friends and family, since they are likely to be biased.
3. Crafting an image
A logo should inform the consumer of the company’s image, its mission, and specific activities. This should be easily understandable. First and foremost, the logo should be customer-oriented instead of reflecting the company owner’s ambitions.
4. Readability
A logo should be easily readable and legible even when it’s tiny. This should be taken into account in designing fonts and other imagery.
Logo redesign
The marketplace is not static, and what was fashionable yesterday may look outdated, quaint, or archaic today. Customers want the company they have known for a long time to keep up with the times. Otherwise, the company risks losing them. Rebranding, and logo design, in particular, is absolutely essential for those who want to stay in the game.
There can also be other reasons for logo redesign: for example, if you come to believe that the existing logo is not memorable, illegible, or produces unwelcome associations in consumers.
Design & development
Whether you are designing a new logo or redesigning an existing one, it’s a task better left to the professionals.
What we do is study the information provided by the customer and help them fill out a brief. Then we draw up a technical task emphasizing all the key issues. Our customers now only have to confirm that we’ve understood their requirements and wishes correctly. We also do marketing research, if it hasn’t already been done by the customer. We look at logo design or redesign through the eyes of the consumers, looking for that special something that will attract the kind of people you’re after.
The logo design process goes through the following stages:
- Filling out the brief in cooperation with the customer;
- Marketing analysis;
- Drawing up a technical task and establishing deadlines;
- Brainstorming within the group;
- Selecting the color palette and style;
- Creating three fully realized designs;
- Agreeing and approving the final logo;
- Development;
- Presentation.
The more detailed your wishes, the likelier it is that the designers will satisfy your expectations and create an effective and memorable logo.
Conclusion
The logo is an essential part of your company and business, so its design should be approached with utmost seriousness. The logo’s objective is not only attracting consumers and being recognizable but also conveying the company’s features, its idea and message. You can walk this path together with us, from your idea to our design. We hope it will be an easy and pleasant journey!
