I am frequently approached by entrepreneurs about our logo creation services. It usually goes like this: “I have this amazing business idea, so I got a domain name for it and now I need an amazing logo, like today!”
But the problem with this approach is that in most cases, throwing together random imagery and the name of your website does not make for a good logo, or sensible branding. It may have been okay 30 years ago, but it is not effective in today’s multi-channel, multi-medium marketing environment.
We market to a highly perceptive and interactive market, and creating the appropriate brand perception is part art, part science. While many companies have been plenty successful without sophisticated logos, branding your company intelligently from the start will allow consumers to favorably identify with your brand.
See, when your customers get to know your brand, they like it or hate it because of the quality of the product you provide, your customer service, the value you offer, and a number of other reasons. But until they become customers, they form an opinion about your business based on:
- Your signage, ads, mail, and other messages and visuals
- Limited interaction they may have with your brand
- Your reputation
When you are new in the marketplace and have no established reputation, various content and visual elements determine how your brand is perceived. Remember, people identify and classify themselves based on various demographic and psychographic factors. A sophisticated senior business executive is less likely to associate with a cheap pub that is famous for 2-for-1 Tuesdays and oversized homemade quality burgers, and is highly unlikely to associate with a hip, young adult clothing store. But a community college student who works construction part-time will likely identify with both.
Those same factors allow you, as a business owner, to define your target markets and describe buyer personas that fit those markets. Your buyer personas must be able to identify with the core (or heart) of your brand. In order to accomplish that, you have to project those core values and features through your messaging, your visual brand elements, and through direct and indirect interactions with your buyer personas.
This is why the images, colors, and font of your logo have to originate from your core brand identity, company culture, and even location. Those same fonts, colors, and images have to be consistently used in all of your company messages. As consumers, we come to associate these elements with the feeling that your brand gives us, whether it is comfort, confidence, sophistication, accomplishment, etc. When your company messages don’t seem to fit the brand personality you are trying to project, or various elements of your branding change from one message to the next, we consumers get confused and our perception of your brand is similar to our perception of a neighbor with a split-personality disorder.
Yes, your brand is so much more than your logo, but your logo has to appropriately project your brand. The mistake many start-ups make is failure to articulate their brand and plan their overall brand identity first.
There are many different approaches to branding, some very simple, some complex. One thing is for sure: you need to put together the basic building blocks of your brand, like your mission and value proposition, your core company values, and your desired brand personality before you jump into creating visuals. You need to determine how you want your customers to perceive your brand, what emotions you want to evoke, and what associations you want them to make.
Once that is complete, you can begin designing your logo, which should be a visual representation of your brand identity. Your logo should be simple, memorable, and scalable, and it should work well in a variety of contexts and on different devices.
In today’s digital age, your logo is likely to appear on hundreds of platforms, including your website, social media, email marketing, digital publications, and mobile apps. It’s important to ensure that your logo looks good and is legible on all of these platforms.
So don’t rush into designing a logo just because you think you need one. Take the time to plan and design your brand identity first, and then create a logo that appropriately represents your brand. It will be worth the investment in the long run.
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