Considerations when creating logos

Let me just start by saying, there are a lot of things to consider when creating your logo. I’m going to cover what they are and why they matter, so let's jump in and have a look!

First, let’s talk about what a logo isn’t. A logo is not your brand, although branding, in the visual sense of the word contains your logo. Your logo is a physical thing, created to represent you or your business in the world and online. It is a symbol to be recognised, and one that your values, familiarity and trust are slowly built upon.

Brand is who you are, what you do and how and why you do it, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos describes it as "what people say about you when you're not in the room" - a logo on the other hand, is a badge that makes you instantly recognisable your field of business.

Your logo needs to work hard, in a lot of places and it needs to convey the right ‘feeling’ about your business too. The choice of font, the colours and the style of any graphic or icon will play a part in determining how your company is perceived, as such, there are some things to consider when creating your logo (or having it created).

Make it simple

“How difficult it is to be simple” – Vincent Van Gogh

It’s surprisingly difficult to create a simple logo that is original and captures the character of your brand. Your logo should be clear and easy to recognise wherever it is seen and at whatever size it’s used. Good use of space, colour and type that captures the characteristics of your business are essential, but always with simplicity in mind. When creating a logo I like to start with a sketch, in black and white. It is much easier adding colours and texture to a mono logo than trying to reverse engineer something that looks great in glorious technicolour but doesn’t work at all in a single colour.

Make it memorable

A lot of people think that to be recognised in their industry, they must feature a product of their industry, but this is not true. If you think of the biggest brands in the world, how many of them feature the product they sell? Not Apple, not McDonald’s, IBM or Starbucks. They simply have a logo that represents them as individuals, and by doing so, they stand apart from their competition.

Of course, we’ve all seen these logos thousands of times and so we’ve come to associate these icons with the products they sell. The same is true for you and your business. By creating something clean and original that becomes associated with the thing you do over a period of time you have a much greater chance of standing out vs. your peers as your brand becomes more widely known.

Make it timeless

It can be tempting to jump onto the latest trend when creating your logo, but following the crowd of what is popular “right now” can lead to you having something that is out of date in no time at all. Keep your logo clean and simple and save the trends for your marketing efforts if you choose to infuse the latest crazes into your marketing. That is not to say your logo should be boring or safe! When designing your logo look instead at your peers, see what they’re doing and how you can differentiate from them whilst keeping that simple, clean and legible mantra in your mind! By focussing on appealing to your audience instead of trying to fit the latest craze you’ll likely produce something that stands the test of time. The longer something goes unchanged the more exposure people will have to it, and the deeper the association to your business will become.

Make it versatile

Your logo is the siren, badge and hero icon of your business, and as such it has to work in numerous places both on and offline so it needs to be adaptable and look great wherever it is seen.

When creating your logo, think about how icons work with any words in your logo. How the logo looks when it’s on something narrow, or something wide, on a dark background, how it looks if the icon or wordmark appears on its own, the list goes on. You can tackle this by creating a responsive logo design, that is a design that changes slightly to fit the space you have to work in, whilst retaining legibility and recognition as part of your brand. This is another reason why simplicity is key. The more simple something is, the more versatile it becomes. Your logo should work in black and white, with no added whizz bangs. If it does this, then you’re probably on your way to making a memorable logo.

We recommend creating at the very least a master version of your logo in full colour and single colour, as well as icon only (if applicable), wordmark only (if applicable), and social media versions.

Make it scalable

We speak to a countless number of people who have had a logo designed, and they’ve been supplied with a single file, in JPG format that’s only suitable for use online at one specific size. When creating your logo, I recommend having it created in vector format. Vectors are scalable to any size so whether you’re advertising on a stamp or a billboard, your logo will look tack sharp. When we create logos we supply them in various forms so that whatever you requirement, you have the correct logo file type to use.

A final thought:

I’ve banged on about simplicity a lot in this article, the thing you’re aiming for is recognition and identification. We can’t ignore the thousands of logos that are more complex and are equally as identifiable in their space but it is my view that the simpler you go, the more flexible and versatile your logo becomes.