What we are shouting about!

A logo/brand/identity is a much neglected piece of design for any company. All too often you get asked to design a logo for a company to go with their ad, or they have designed a website and need to place a logo on it. THIS IS WRONG!

A logo is the most important piece of company promotion you can have. It is a simple icon that instantly and confidently tells people what you do and how well established you are.

You see so many bad logos, generally created by signwriters to go on to someones van or by a web designer who doesn’t understand the complexity of print design (I must point out that this isn’t true of all web designers or signwriters, some are very well aware of the important role logo design has on your companies identity. Sorry for generalising.) That don’t tell you anything about the company or the level of service they could potentially provide.

Logo’s are also subconscious, as designers we obviously are constantly looking at everything and analyising, critiquing and breaking it down into its design process, and making judgement. But I feel that is true of most people, they may not know they are doing it but could easily pick one company over another because they look more established or professional, simply because of the logo.

To show you what we think a logo/identity should contain we have broken it down into these elements.

Simplicity: You must keep a logo simple it needs to say 1000 words in one small image, sometimes it will need to fit on a postage stamp or simliar size and it must be clear.

Memorable: If people don’t remember your brand or logo then they aren’t going to remember you, simple as that.

Timeless: You see so many trends with logos, a particular example of this was when people started designing logos for the web with all kinds of shiny bits, shapes, 3D elements and embossing. These logos had a limited shelf life though, they also worked really badly when printed, and almost impossible to see when used small. If you design a good solid logo that tells the right story it should be able to last 10, 25 or 50 years. Good examples of this are Nike, Apple and Coca-Cola.

Versatile: A logo needs to be used in various formats, it needs to be able to work small on newspaper print, as well as large on a billboard and on websites or video media. It should always be designed in vector format so it is infinitely scalable to suit any media. Ideally it should also work on one, 2 or full colour.

Appropriate: A logo needs to represent the company in mind, something acceptable for an accountants wouldn’t be acceptable for a toy shop this needs to be considered in the style of font used, the colour coices and use of icon. As I said before the logo needs to tell a story.

For a look at a list of Good, Bad, or just simply ridiculous logos click these links.

If you would like us to design a logo for your company you can contact us here, or take a look at some logo’s we have designed, we have many more so don’t be afraid to ask to see other examples.