How to Design a Captivating Logo

Your brand is one of the most important defining factors of how successful your company will be. It tells the story of what you offer, what you represent, and how you distinguish yourself from your competition. It’s the first impression that is left on you potential customers, so you had better make the most of it! In today’s marketplace, you can’t afford to undervalue your branding.

So how do you translate your brand over to potential customers? Through your logo design of course!

Your logo is the backbone of your visual brand. Just think about all the places potential customers will see it – on your website, on your social media platforms, on your packaging, on your promotional materials, your business cards, and so much more. It’s because of this that a strong, well-designed, and visually attractive logo is vital for your business.
Make sure it is clear and easy to understand. Your logo needs to reflect what it is you offer so that customers can quickly and easily make the decision to further explore your company.

Create Consistency

Consumers crave consistency. This not only includes the quality of your products or services but also your graphical designs. Keeping your brand identity consistent – in this case particularly through logo design – develops trust and loyalty within customers. But, before trust and loyalty must come brand awareness.
To begin on your path towards brand awareness, you need to work on your logo design. The logo you decide on should be able to withstand the test of time. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you can never change up its design. Virtually all of the most successful worldwide brands have changed their logo in some way or another. For instance, below is McDonald’s logo from the 1960s and their logo today.

You can easily notice the changes made throughout the years. The reason they were able to successfully change their logo is 1. They didn’t change it too often; in fact, they didn’t redesign it for 35 years and 2. They didn’t make drastic changes to the design. Did you also notice they no longer incorporate their company name into the design? Not every company can do that, but McDonald’s can because they’ve built exceedingly strong brand awareness.

Stand Out From Competitors

Sure, you need to differentiate yourself from your competitors when it comes to products and services, but you also need your logo design to stand apart from them, too.
Before you begin designing your logo and other forms of visual identity, look at your competitors’ designs. What colors do they use? What fonts? What kinds of graphics do they incorporate? Once you know what theirs look like, you can choose elements that stand apart from theirs.

Choose the Right Typography

Most business logos are comprised of two elements: graphics and typography. While you might assume the graphic would have the most impact on the viewer, typography influences them more than you may think. Choosing a font that properly communicates what type of market your business operates in is key.

For example, businesses that work in technology tend to lean towards more clean and simple fonts, while businesses in creative industries tend to go with more whimsical and artistic styles. Combine these with a coordinating graphic and you’ve got yourself a winning logo!

Choose the Right Colors

Every feature in your logo design plays an important role. Each must work cohesively with one another, and never overshadow any one element. Colors are yet another component of logo design that requires some thought.

Certain industries choose particular logo colors based on the color theory concept. Many companies in the food industry, for example, use the color red in their logo design because it’s believed to increase appetite. McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Tyson, and Arby’s are just a few that incorporate this color into their branding.

As we previously mentioned, look at your competitors’ logos and see what colors they’ve incorporated into their branding. Does it align with the concepts of color theory? If not, try selecting colors that do. Either way, do your best to choose colors that stand out from your competitors’ color schemes.

Be Straightforward

Your logo shouldn’t need any explanation. Viewers should easily be able to interpret what it is you’re selling. Use graphics that represent your services. For instance, if you run a lawn care business, consider using a graphic of a lawnmower or edger.

A quick test that you can do to evaluate the effectiveness of your logo is to cover up your company name and simply look at the graphic. Does it accurately represent the products or services you offer? If not, you may need to rework your design.

Consider Appearance on Different Mediums

A common obstacle that arises for many companies is being able to easily incorporate their logo onto different mediums. Depending on the surface or space you want to place your logo, you may need to alter the scale of the image to fit the space, all without sacrificing the quality of the image.

Will it work on areas such as business cards, letterheads, signage, newsletters, uniforms, webpages and social media, etc.? Consider all the places you will be displaying your logo and explore whether or not they will work within that space or surface area.

Benefits of Hiring Professional Designers

Many businesses – especially young startups – choose to design their own logo in order to save money. However, unless you have a graphic design background, you may find the process frustrating and, at times, quite difficult. This is why hiring designers can be well worth the expense. Remember, your logo is one thing you don’t want to cut corners on. But what are some other benefits of hiring professional designers?

You will save time – As a business owner, you’re constantly faced with decisions of what’s worth your time and what’s not. By hiring a designer to create your logo for you, you instantly gain more time to spend on other aspects of running your business. Using a professional designer will have you with a new logo in a fraction of the time it’d take to do so yourself.

You will save money – doing something right the first time will save you considerable costs in the long run. Hiring an experienced professional to design your logo, in the beginning, can save you from paying for, sometimes, multiple mediocre designs. Designers also have specialized design programs at their disposal, which means you don’t have to pay for a program that you may not even know how to use.

Professionals will also know how to format your logo for printing purposes, saving you costs and, let’s face it, countless frustrations. I’m sure most of us can relate to how maddening it can be when you go to print something, only to have it come out completely wrong over and over. Just think of all the wasted costs you could be facing trying to print materials only for the design to be cut off, the coloring to be completely wrong, the sizing being too small or too large, and who knows what else, time and time again. Designers know their way around common errors by understanding terms like:

• CMYK vs. RGB
• Image Resolution
• Double Gate Fold, Roll Fold and Z-Fold
• Plain Black vs. Rich Black
• Crop Marks
• Gloss, Matte, and Flat
• Bleed
• Responsive vs Static
• Stitching
• Outlining Fonts

They can bring your vision to life – Professionals experienced in graphic design will be able to help you bring your vision to life. A good designer will listen to your ideas and thoughts and suggest different types of elements that they’ve found to be effective.

Sure, you could buy a logo from a stock website, but chances are you’re going to run into that same graphic or typography on other businesses’ logos, too. And doesn’t that completely go against the point we’ve made many times now of differentiating yourself from your competitors? When hiring a designer, you’re guaranteed a one-of-a-kind design that is sure to catch the eye of many potential customers!

Your design will be reliable and memorable – High-quality graphic design should provide reliability for the business and be memorable to viewers. When a design is done right, it will be uniform across all platforms in which it’s used. An experienced designer will know how to correctly format the graphic for use on different media platforms and printed materials alike.

A designer will also be knowledgeable in typography, color theory, composition, and the countless other areas of graphic design. Attention to such details will ensure your logo will stay within the minds of its viewers.

Preparing For the Meeting with Your Designer:

Once you’ve decided to hire a graphic designer to create your company’s logo, you’ll need to be ready to provide some information. Having clear and open communication with your designer is essential for a smooth and productive process. Prepare for your meeting by:

Knowing your organization and industry – Because your logo is the “face” of your company, it needs to reflect what you represent. Before you walk into your meeting, make sure you have a clear understanding of what your company goals and missions are and discuss this with your designer.

You should also come ready with information regarding competitors within your industry and what your target market looks like. Knowing this information can help the designer narrow down design elements that will attract your target audience and incorporate elements that are different from your competitors.

Knowing where your logo is going – Make sure that before you go into the meeting that you have some sort of marketing plan in place. Where are you wanting to advertise your logo? Is it going to be on social media? Is it going to be on brochures or mail outs? Your designer will want to know these plans to adequately prepare for the formatting of the final logo.

Hire the US Logo Design Team

Our team of in-house graphic designers love what they do, and they have the experience to back it up. Whether you’re a new business just starting the design process, or you’re an established company looking to re-vamp your logo, we’ve got you covered.

No idea what you want your design to look like? That’s okay! Our designers will sit down and work with you to come up with the perfect design that best suits your needs.
Once you’re design is ready, we can handle all of your printing needs too – from brochures, to tradeshow displays, even to vehicle wraps!

For more information on logo design, check out our blog on the importance of logos here!

Give us a call today at (316) 264-1321 and ask us how we can help with your design needs!