The Face of Your Brand... Your Logo

by Jessica Cwik

While a brand is much more than company’s name and logo, it is still common knowledge that a logo is one of the most important aspects of a marketing plan to help achieve brand recognition.

While it may be an easy route to simply throw some font and graphics together to make a logo for your business, it would be more effective to consider many other elements to help you stand apart from your competition and to really state who your company is.  Ultimately, it should be a good-sized piece of your marketing pie that helps your goal of drawing in new customers and keeping current ones.

Some of the main elements of a strong logo include:

  • Branding
  • Memorability
  • Aesthetics
  • Usability
  • Timelessness

Branding
Before diving into the development of your logo, you need to ask what type of image you want to project.  If it is a conservative, highly-professional image, then you probably don’t want a logo that gives off a more comedic or light-hearted feel… you may not want to come off too stiff either.   A strong logo needs to encompass the feel and philosophy of your company… making sure it matches the company personality if it were a single person and not a collection of employees.

Memorability
To enhance recognizability, a logo must be memorable to its audience.  At a glance, a logo that is highly recallable to customers will have a much stronger impact than one that is too simple, or too cluttered.

Aesthetics
Imagery coupled with type/fonts need to meld together in a way that comes off clean and evokes a positive emotion to the viewer. Aesthetics that don’t resonate with your audience… and, for lack of a better word, are ugly, will get you nowhere.  They leave a bad first impression and can be a major detriment to gaining new customers. It is also important to make sure that your logo is going to look pleasing to the eye whether it is in color or black/white.

Usability
Strong logos need to be versatile. They should have the ability to be used on letterheads, business cards and print ads as well as websites and digital mediums. Too much detail can be lost when the logo is shrunk down to accommodate the smaller elements and color can prove tricky if there are too many in small areas. Both can cause problems when printing. Restraint must be used when deciding on the final design.

Timelessness
Logos should be timeless. It’s easy to fall into trends and choose logos that look good at a certain time, but then quickly become dated. A good logo should be able to stand the test of time.  If a facelift is needed, your original logo should be strong enough that an updated version will still have most of its initial elements.

If you find that The Face of Your Brand… Your Logo is something that your company would like to know more about, feel free to contact Central States Media at info@centralstatesmedia.com or on the phone at (309) 693-2345.