Branding by the Book: Things Every Winning Logo Must Have

Every logo needs a certain look, a certain feel. At the end of the day, you want your logo to be awesome and a “game-changer.” Here’s how to make it happen.

Make It Simple

The simpler, the better! Why? Because, your logo and brand needs to be reproducible across multiple mediums! Making it easy on the eyes is also consumer-friendly. When you make people think too much about your logo to “get it,” they won’t. Consumers, by and large, want a simple aesthetic that’s easy to recognize.

It should look great in full color on a business card, but also on black and white, and in 3D if you ever design a sign or a billboard or use some other structure incorporating it.

Keep It Consistent

Your brand logo will communicate multiple things about your company, so make it consistent across all mediums. Usually, this means using a vector graphic for the logo, so that it can be resized regardless of where or how you use it, and it won’t become distorted.

So, for example, vector graphics could be applied to business cards from companies like Moo, or these frozen yogurt spoons from Frozen Dessert Supplies, or in the Wall Street Journal, where you might not want to use color at all.

Make It Memorable

How do you make a logo memorable? This is the $64,000 question, of course. In principle, your logo should help customers remember that you exist and what you stand for. Without being too cutesy, your logo should reflect your brand’s feel and communicate a message that can always be associated with your company.

Make It Remarkable

Remarkability is what makes a logo worthy of a remark. It also makes it trademarkable. In general, this means making your logo something truly unique – arbitrary or fanciful logos work best. If it can be defined by existing reference or context to your brand, it’s probably not strong enough.

For example, Pepsi uses a logo which is unique its own. It doesn’t really look like anything. Burger King uses a logo that sort of looks like a hamburger bun, but then it’s encircled and its name placed in the middle. It’s arbitrary – no one would ever be able to use something like that or associate it with anything but the company.

Apple uses an apple, which is an already existing thing, but it’s taken out of context, thus making it a unique and remarkable logo.

Nike has an interesting logo: the swoosh! What is it? No one knows really, but it is reminiscent of the goddess herself. NBC uses a multi-colored peacock as its logo. What does a peacock have to do with television? Nothing! That’s why it works. Do you get the idea yet?

Test It

Test your logo in the real world. How does it perform? Use a service like Mechanical Turk. Put together a study and have people rate it. Find out what potential customers say about the logo. Is it too heavy? Too light? What message does it convey?

Karl Olivieri teaches sales and marketing. He also enjoys sharing his insights on the web. You can read his articles on many sales and marketing websites.

Image credit : Logo Design