Creating A Logo? Consider These Best Practices

When you launch a company, you have a lot of responsibilities to check off your list, but among the chief concerns should be creating a logo. This will help demonstrate who you are and what you stand for, both to customers and investors. Branding tells the story of your firm and connects you to your audience in a strong way.

The simplicity or complexity of a logo can impact investors’ funding decisions, and the design characteristics can “considerably impact consumer behavior and brand performance,” according to a research study published in the Harvard Business Review in September.

Use the following guidelines when determining what type of logo you plan to choose that will represent your firm.

Consider Integrating Descriptive Elements

Consumers more favorably perceive brands that have “descriptive logos” – or those with both textual and/or visual design elements, according to the study in HBR. Think of Burger King’s logo, which includes both the words and a hamburger in the logo. “If you are about to open a bookstore, make sure you choose a logo that features a book,” the study authors said.

About nine percent of global brands don’t include the company name in their logo, while 41 percent use text only. The other half of brands use both text and images. Create a few prototypes with text, images, and with both, to see which logo speaks to your brand the most effectively.

Color Considerations

When you see red and yellow, you think of McDonald’s. Red and white evokes the thought of Coca-Cola’s iconic logo. What do your color choices say about your brand? Possibly more than you think.

The big brands appear to have studied this, tending to use similar colors to their competitors. For example, one study discovered that more than three-quarters of credit card brand logos use the color blue, while red is used in over 60 percent of retail branding logos, despite the fact that red is rare in apparel logos.

Some consumers equate particular colors with certain categories. For example, many see yellow to be associated with optimism and friendliness, while green evokes images of nature and the outdoors.

However, when you choose your colors, keep your audience in mind. What’s considered an inspirational color with one country’s population or with one gender/age group may be seen as a negative with another. For instance, a recent survey asking about 10 colors showed that women selected purple as their second-favorite color (behind blue), and 23 percent of women ranked purple as their number-one favorite color. Zero men, however, cited purple as their favorite.

Among the 100 most valuable brands worldwide, the color used most is blue at 33 percent, followed by red (29 percent), black or grayscale (28 percent) and yellow or gold at 13 percent.

Shape up Your Shapes

If you were surprised that consumers have certain opinions about colors, you may be even more interested to hear that shapes have the same impact. While triangles can evoke a sense of excitement, squares and rectangles offer consumers the vision of strength and reliability. Spirals convey creativity, while circles can lead to feelings of mystery, according to research from Tubik Studio.

Of course, you can branch away from any of these preset shapes and feel free to design your own. McDonald’s is known for its “M” arches, while NBC’s logo incorporates the feathers of a peacock.

Ensure That Your Logo Is Timeless

Recently, marketers have reported that retro colors – those inspired by the 1950s and 1960s – have been popular in 2019, as have vivid purples and pinks, particularly when the target audience is comprised of female millennials. Other hot colors this year are deep browns and olives, as well as other earth tones, contrasted with coral and electric yellows.

Having said that, it’s possible that using these colors might “date” your brand. Coral is the color of 2019, but will it be popular in 2029? You want your brand to be around for a long time, and your logo should endure for just as long. Updating your logo occasionally isn’t a terrible crime, but it can be expensive and time consuming – not just in the design itself, but also in reprinting all of your collateral and educating the public about the switch.

Ideally, your logo will represent your brand for decades to come, so try to avoid trendy colors or fonts when you create yours.