Choosing Your Logo: Play It Safe Or Stand Out From The Crowd?

A logo is the visual representation of a business, it incorporates everything a company stands for and forms this into a simple, easily identifiable shape or image. While a logo might seem like a small consideration but for businesses looking to create a significant brand identity, a well-designed logo is crucial and can make a huge difference. 

Realistically a logo needs to enhance first impressions of a business or organisation, a badly designed logo can make a business look a lot less professional, whereas a good logo can help encourage brand loyalty, establish a brand identity and overall appear much more professional. 

Selecting the right design is important, choosing the first idea that comes to mind doesn’t work most of the time, instead, business owners need to carefully consider their business and the connotations of the logo. This takes time and patience but is necessary when it comes to deciding on an initial logo concept. 

Logo Types 

There are a number of types of logo, typographic, illustrative and graphics, each of which offer their own benefits and options. 

Typographic logos are font-based logos that consist of a typeface or font, for example, Sony. Font based logos feature distinctive fonts or fairly standard looking lettering with a slight alteration which helps them stand out. 

Illustrative logos literally illustrate what a business does, for example, a company that offers painting services, using a logo that clearly shows a paintbrush or paint palette within its design. 

Finally, there are abstract logos which show symbols and more graphic design based, for example, the Nike Swoosh or Apple’s apple logo. These logos are often more about just having an iconic logo, rather than showing exactly what the business does. 

Ask The Important Questions

Beginning the process of logo design isn’t easy and there are many questions business owners need to ask themselves in regards to how their logo will be developed. Here’s a list of the more significant questions you need to know the answer to: 

• Who is the target audience?
• Who are the competition? 
• How is my business different to competitors? 
• What feelings should the logo evoke? 
• What is the tagline?

Asking these questions means that business owners have more of an idea of what they want before they head to a designer. It can be difficult for a designer to 100% understand their clients business, even with extensive research, nobody knows your business like you!

If you already have a solid idea of what is needed or at least what the message should be within the logo before speaking to a designer, this allows for an even better, more specific result. 

Go With A Professional

When it comes to a logo, businesses shouldn’t skimp on cash, while there are hundreds of basic logo generators online and plenty of ‘free’ logos available, these aren’t enough. Many of these logos are often generic shapes and have very little meaning when it comes to designing a logo, it needs to be something that’s been created just for your business. 

This is why hiring a professional designer is so important, not only does a designer have more of an understanding of how to actually create a logo, they can create something that is unique and applies specifically to the business and its specific needs. 

Creating a logo is no easy task, it’s not something that can be done overnight, from the initial idea to the final product there’s a lot to consider. The process needs to be challenging in order to come up with something relevant, innovative and unique, work alongside a designer and get it right the first time! 

If you’re looking to take your business to the next level with a brand new or updated company logo, why not contact our team today?