The right logo says everything without uttering a word. It expresses feelings of trust, integrity, honor, pride, and excellence. It creates a bond between a brand and its community of fans, friends, critics, and champions. A brand logo is about how it captures your attention, whether you’re a current or potential customer.
Since a logo carries significant responsibility, startup founders and their marketing executives may view the concept of logo design with dread, thrill, fear, pride, and anxiety. Fortunately, there are elements of a good logo to guide the design process.
A good logotype consists of several elements, depending on your brand identity, design principles, and the intended use. But, typically, a logo has four basic components:
Whether you seek professional brand design services or have an in-house team, these seven logo design best practices will help you create an effective visual identity.
Time and again, new businesses create complex logos. It’s easy to think that your logo needs to be complex to stand out. Yet, the best logos — the ones that convey an immediate and clear sense of you — are simple. A good example is Apple. The tech giant ditched its original, highly detailed logo for a simple one that took the world by storm.
Source: Quora
Simple logos work because:
The rule of thumb is that your logo should be memorable enough such that people can easily draw it onto a piece of paper when prompted. After looking at your logo, a person should immediately describe its basic elements.
Consider Nike. You can easily describe its logo as a “Swoosh.” Similarly, you can describe Pepsi’s logo as “a circle with a wavy divide.”
Source: Nike Source: Icon-Icons
To test memorability, ask your customers to describe your logo to you. If they struggle with the description, your logo might need some improvement.
Your logo shouldn’t look old-fashioned ten years from now. So, instead of chasing fast-changing trends in your industry when designing your logo, dig deep and stay true to your own ideas.
That means you need to express your brand identity and image in your logo. Take time to consider any symbolism, colors, shapes, fonts, styles, and brand personality and how they relate to what you want people to think when they see your logo. If you’re using fonts, avoid trendy options, as they’ll feel dated in a few years.
Take Coca-Cola, for example. The company’s logo has stood the test of time and hasn’t changed by much since 1887.
Source: Coca-Cola
You’ll use your logo in many ways and across different contexts:
Imagine how the logo below would look on a pen. Some of its elements would be lost, making it harder to recognize and less effective as a branding tool.
Source: Bourbonnais Township Park District
In your design work, consider the future of your branding. Create a logo that retains its integrity regardless of size or use.
A good logo maintains a symmetrical balance among different design elements. Keeping color, typeface, icon, shape, and other elements in proportion creates aesthetic appeal and communicates quality. Ideally, you should use the golden ratio, which popular brands like Google use when designing their logos.
Source: YouTube
Create a logo you can resize without losing quality, legibility, or clarity. A scalable logo can adapt to different media such as web, mobile, print, and social. It also allows you to create icons, favicons, or badges consistent with your brand identity.
To make your logo scalable:
IBM’s logo is a great example of scalability, as it maintains clarity and impact across all sizes and formats.
Source: IBM
Color is one of the most powerful elements of a logo design. You can use it to suggest emotions, associations, moods, and meanings. The colors you pick will communicate your brand’s character, its intention, and its worth. But how do you choose colors for your logo?
First, audit your brand and decide the statement you want to convey. Then, investigate the instinctive emotions people associate with different colors.
For instance, red often symbolizes passion, energy, and urgency, making it ideal when you want to communicate excitement or prompt immediate action. A good example is Netflix’s bold red text logo that conveys excitement and passion.
Source: Netflix
On the other hand, people associate blue with trust, professionalism, and stability, which is why finance and tech companies use it. An ideal example is Bank of America.
Source: Yelp
The colors in your logo go beyond aesthetics, so be strategic and use them to create a visual shorthand for your brand personality and value.
Great logos are easy to design if you focus on elements that make logos effective. If you pay attention to simplicity, timelessness, and versatility in your design process, you can establish the foundation for building a powerful and more relevant logo.
At PixelPocket, we can take the hassle out of your logo-designing process and ensure the final design meets your branding needs. We’ll revise your logo design with you — unlimited times — until you’re satisfied with the final submission representing your brand. Book a call today to discuss how we can help you create a powerful logo that makes your brand memorable.
