A Logo By Any Other Name

If Shakespeare’s Juliet believed that “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” I wouldn’t consider hiring her to design a logo.

Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has used a variety of symbols to identify ownership. Throughout the world, coins donning insignia, detailed crests, and instantly identifiable flags have come to symbolize centuries of country pride, family heritage, religious affiliations and political power. From these traditions evolved today's grand symbols of recognition, the modern logo.

Today, logos have come to define modern culture. Mammoth corporations such as AT&T, Coca-Cola, IBM, Apple, Nike and Wal-Mart all have instantly recognizable logos that are synonymous with their respective company's products and services. We, as a society, have come to incorporate logos into culture. Among the most successful of these logos are those that can identify a company without so much as one letter, or no letter, of the company’s name. How does a corporation achieve such a strong identity? Lets take the every popular Nike “swoosh” example. That “swoosh” is such a successful symbol that it can stand on it's own. Why? Because a swoosh denotes speed and swiftness. It instantly tells the brand story.

Logos, like people, can be attractive or heinous. Finding that perfect way to express the meaning of a product or corporation can be an extremely treacherous journey. One way to start is to write your name on paper or type it out to get a feel for it's visual form. Look at how the letters flow. The shapes and weights of a typeface are very important. The same word written in several different typefaces can visually denote a variety of attitudes from calm to aggressive. It is important to study the shapes of each letter to see if there are any ways to exploit the natural shape of the letters to better convey your message. Can any of those letters be molded into shapes? Perhaps if you manufacture tires and you have an “O” in your name, an obvious design sense would turn that “O” into a wheel or it could subtlety understate the motion of a wheel into that “O” shape. A proper logo needs to convey a personality for a company. Adding literal meaning like a wheel into a logo is not the only way to define a personality. Encapsulating typography within a shape or color that echoes the beliefs of an industry is a very effective method. If you’re designing, lets say, within the aerospace industry you may want harder lines and sharp angles to convey a sense of power, cutting-edge ideas, forward thinking and advancing technology opposed to a design for a child’s doll logo where light lines and soft shapes will tell the story of caring, love and kindness.

Whether designing a logo for a fortune 500 corporation, lasted brand of dog biscuits or for a software garage start up, the bottom line is simple: a good logo needs to have as much true personality possible. It’s the designer’s job to create a lasting mark that can represent their client properly. Make sure to keep the product or market place in mind and design within or directly on it’s boundaries. A good logo can withstand the test of time, sometimes outliving the very company it was created for. So make sure it fits you well, because if “ A rose by any other name” happens to look like a skull it might be time to fire Juliet from your design team.