3 Ways To Make Sure Your Logo Stays Focused

Why is it that some entrepreneurs spend more time designing a new company logo than completing a business plan for the next 3 to 5 years?

This may be because entrepreneurs are often closer to an artist; full of great ideas for their company, rather than a business person who spends hours looking over financial statements to ensure every penny is accounted for.

Some entrepreneurs understand that your business will be easily recognised from its logo and therefore an extraordinary amount of time is employed to ensure that the logo is perfect for your business. Essentially, your logo has to communicate your business to your customer.

1.   Designing your logo     

Your logo is a combination of the main icon, the font and the colours that you employ. They must work together to communicate your company name, what you do and how you go about your presentation to customers and potential customers.

The logo that you choose needs to stay with you for a number of years to provide consistency for customers to become familiar with you. For your logo to work convincingly, a simple approach will make your communication stand out just as well as you would recognise a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi logo in a Tesco’s superstore, among dozens of other brands and many other cola imitations.

For your logo to work, the entrepreneur and all company directors must love it. You won’t be able to push your branding, marketing and advertising, if you don’t have 100% belief behind it.

2.   Understanding your logo

You will see some company logos and wonder what relationship there is between the logo and what the company does in business. Sometimes it is better for the customer to see your company’s name and instantly know all the answers to questions about your company, but where the customer doesn’t know you, your logo should supply them with information about the nature of your business.

When you consider the rival logos of companies that transact their business in the same industry, like British Airways, Ryanair and EasyJet, you will already have an informed decision about whether you like the company, would trade with them or look elsewhere for your flights, based purely on seeing their logos. How would this apply to your business and how will your customers understand you from your logo?

3.   The logo you can’t forget

Logos work importantly for your business over a long period of time. Those same airlines all feature the company’s name as well as a symbol that you remember. Nevertheless, there are some companies whose logo doesn’t mention their business name.  This can work well if the company has been in business a long time, but for a relatively new name in the marketplace, you are expecting customers to take a substantial leap from seeing your logo to knowing who you are, if your name is not represented.

Your logo must be memorable, timeless, unique and appealing, if it is to be instantly recognised. It must be scalable so that your business will become familiar when the logo is small on a business card or large on the outside of a building.

Where you cannot present a logo that meets all of these criteria, from your own designs, you should seek outside professional help from expert designers who can prove their success rates from previous work, because the quality of your logo may be the difference between creating an average or a great business.

Chris Jenkinson is an internet marketing and branding expert who writes for RAL Display Marketing.

Image credit: Stefano Principato