Every business needs a logo to market itself and what they do.
It’s important to understand how a logo can affect how your audience perceives your business and what you do. It should unpin your values and missions, and reflect who you are as a business. Having a good logo will also build brand loyalty – if you are recognisable and memorable, then people will come back again and again.
Sometimes your logo will be the first thing a potential customer will see, so it should instantly reflect what you do and how professional you are.
It’s also important to stand out from the crowd and promote your USP: for example, the skewed “E” in the “DELL” logo makes it stand out from others but remains easy to read. It also fed into founder Michael Dell’s vision and story – he said his aim was to “turn the world on its ear” and change things with his company, so embedded this goal into the logo.
What is a good logo?
A good logo is when it aligns with your business values, is appropriate for the industry you are in and builds trust with your audience. It’s important that your logo gives the right feel for your business. You want your customers to understand how and why you do business instantly, while creating the perfect first impression. This in turn helps create brand loyalty and sets you apart from your competitors.
It’s the foundation of your branding, enabling you to build content around it. For example, if you look at Starbucks’ Instagram page or any advertising, it uses the logo within the piece – not just as an added extra but to stand out from other coffee shops. It doesn’t need its name featured; the logo and iconic green is enough for its audience to instantly recognise Starbucks coffee.
It’s important to consider:
- Your industry – is it appropriate?
- Colour – does it fit with your values and business?
- Size – will it still be effective as a small icon?
- Your business values
Why do you need a professional logo?
Having a professional logo will ensure it ticks all the boxes – a designer will know what’s on trend, but importantly, will also future-proof the design.
Let’s look back at Starbucks again: they’ve had the same logo for 50 years! It’s been tweaked, but fundamentally the same siren iconography has remained. This enables true brand recognition and will spark an emotional response from your audience to maintain brand loyalty.
A professional designer will also do the research on your competitors and industry to ensure you stand out from the crowd, but also strike the right balance within it. They will ensure it portrays your professionalism. Importantly, this will encourage customer trust, being the first signal that you are able to deliver on what you promise.
How to start
When deciding what it is you want from your logo, we advise that you start with your story – it’s understood that your audience will connect more strongly with you, rather than facts about your product. So what makes you stand out?
Then, how does this story feed into your audience? How does it reflect their interests or needs? It’s good to relate it back to your potential customers: will they like it? Some brands will even conduct sample group testing to see which logo they prefer over another to get it right.
Brand identity and guidelines
Once you have an amazing logo, this acts as the foundation of your brand. You can then create an identity pack and brand guidelines – together, these will outline how to use your logo, the breakdown of fonts to use, as well as colours.
This information will all be tied into the story you are trying to tell, and will in turn support your in-house team or outsourced resource to quickly understand how to market your brand and maintain a consistent feel. Without them, your business can end up looking confusing and unprofessional – everything you don’t want it to!
To see how we can help your business flourish, talk to our team today 0116 319 10 17 or email us.
