How to Create a Logo
By Kim T. Gordon
With a well-designed logo, potential clients can
instantly discover how your business can serve them.
Your logo is a visual representation of everything your company
stands for. Think of McDonald's golden arches or the Nike swoosh-these
two impressive logos embody these companies well. But many companies
still skimp on developing this key identity piece.
Ideally, your company logo enhances potential customers and partners'
crucial first impression of your business. A good logo can build
loyalty between your business and your customers, establish a brand
identity, and provide the professional look of an established enterprise.
Consider Allstate's "good hands" logo. It immediately
generates a warm feeling for the company, symbolizing care and trust.
With a little thought and creativity, your logo can quickly and
graphically express many positive attributes of your business, too.
Logo Types
There are basically three kinds of logos.
Font-based
logos consist
primarily of a type treatment. The logos of IBM, Microsoft and Sony,
for instance, use type treatments with a twist that makes them distinctive.
Illustrative Logos
- Then there are logos that literally illustrate what a company
does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration
of a brush in its logo.
And finally, there are
Abstract graphic symbols-such as Nike's swoosh-that become
linked to a company's brand. "Such a symbol is meaningless
until your company can communicate to consumers what its underlying
associations are," says Americus Reed II, a marketing professor
at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, who's conducted
research on the triggers that lead consumers to identify with and
become loyal to a brand. But building that mental bridge takes time
and money. The Nike swoosh has no inherent meaning outside of what's
been created over the years through savvy marketing efforts that
have transformed the logo into an "identity cue" for an
athletic lifestyle.
Growing businesses can rarely afford the millions of dollars and
years of effort required to create these associations, so a logo
that clearly illustrates what your company stands for or does may
be a better choice. Even a type treatment of your company's name
may be too generic, says Placitas, New Mexico, logo designer Gary
Priester, principal of gwpriester.com, the Web arm of design firm
The Black Point Group. Priester believes customers should be able
to tell what you do just by looking at your logo.
Getting Started
Before you begin sketching, first articulate the message you want
your logo to convey. Try writing a one-sentence image and mission
statement to help focus your efforts. Stay true to this statement
while creating your logo.
But that may not be enough to get you started. Here are some additional
tactics and considerations that will help you create an appropriate
company logo:
Look
at the logos of other businesses in your industry.
Do your competitors use solid, conservative images, or flashy graphics
and type? Think about how you want to differentiate your logo from
those of your competition.
Focus on your
message. Decide
what you want to communicate about your company. Does it have a
distinct personality-serious or lighthearted? What makes it unique
in relation to your competition? What's the nature of your current
target audience? These elements should play an important role in
the overall design or redesign.
Make
it clean and functional. Your logo should work as
well on a business card as on the side of a truck. A good logo should
be scalable, easy to reproduce, memorable and distinctive. Icons
are better than photographs, which may be indecipherable if enlarged
or reduced significantly. And be sure to create a logo that can
be reproduced in black and white so that it can be faxed, photocopied
or used in a black-and-white ad as effectively as in color.
Your
business name will affect your logo design. If your
business name is "D.C. Jewelers," you may wish to use
a classy, serif font to accent the letters (especially if your name
features initials). For a company called "Lightning Bolt Printing,"
the logo might feature some creative implementation of-you guessed
it-a lightning bolt.
Use your
logo to illustrate your business's key benefit. The
best logos make an immediate statement with a picture or illustration,
not words. The "Lightning Bolt Printing" logo, for example,
may need to convey the business benefit of "ultra-fast, guaranteed
printing services." The lightning bolt image could be manipulated
to suggest speed and assurance.
Don't
use clip art. However tempting it may be, clip art
can be copied too easily. Not only will original art make a more
impressive statement about your company, but it'll set your business
apart from others.
Avoid trendy
looks. If you're redesigning your old
logo, you run the risk of confusing customers-or worse, alienating
them. One option is to make gradual logo changes. According to Priester,
Quaker Oats modified the Quaker man on its package over a 10-year
period to avoid undermining customer confidence. But don't plan
to make multiple logo changes. Instead, choose a logo that will
stay current for 10 to 20 years, perhaps longer. That's the mark
of a good design. In fact, when Priester designs a logo, he expects
never to see that client again.
Watch Your Colors
One thing you need to be careful of as you explore color options
is cost. Your five-color logo may be gorgeous, but once it comes
time to produce it on stationery, the price won't be so attractive.
Nor will it work in mediums that only allow one or two colors. Try
not to exceed three colors unless you decide it's absolutely necessary.
Your logo can appear on a variety of media: signage, advertising,
stationery, delivery vehicles and packaging, to name just a few.
Remember that some of those applications have production limitations.
Make sure you do a color study. Look at your logo in one-, two-
and three-color versions.
Hire a Designer
While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a crucial step in
creating your business image, trying to create a logo completely
on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the best way to avoid
the high costs of going to a professional design firm, which will
charge anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000 for a logo design. Be aware,
however, that there are thousands of independent designers around
who charge much less. According to Stan Evenson, founder of Evenson
Design Group, entrepreneurs on a tight budget should shop around
for a designer. "There are a lot of [freelance] designers who
charge rates ranging from $15 to $150 per hour, based on their experience,"
he says.
But don't hire someone just because of their bargain price. Find
a designer who's familiar with your field . . . and with your competition.
If the cost still seems exorbitant, Evenson says, "remember
that a good logo should last at least 10 years. If you look at the
amortization of that cost over a 10-year period, it doesn't seem
so bad."
Even if you have a good eye for color and a sense of what you want
your logo to look like, you should still consult a professional
designer. Why? They know whether or not a logo design will transfer
easily into print or onto a sign, while you might come up with a
beautiful design that can't be transferred or would cost too much
money to be printed. Your logo is the foundation of all your promotional
materials, so this is one area where spending a little more now
can really pay off later.
Using and Protecting Your Logo
Once you've produced a logo that embodies your company's mission
at a glance, make sure you trademark it to protect it from use by
other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office Web site.
Then, once it's protected, use it everywhere you can-on business
cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads, your Web site and
any other place where you mention your company name. This will help
build your image, raise your company's visibility and, ideally,
lead to more business.
Creating a logo sounds easy, doesn't it? It can be. Just remember
to keep your customers and the nature of your business in mind when
you put it all together. In time, you'll have succeeded in building
equity in your trademark, and it will become a positive and recognizable
symbol of your product or service.
Compiled from articles written by David Cotriss, Kim T. Gordon
and Steve Nubie
previously published on Entrepreneur.com, and from excerpts from
Start Your Own Business.
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