How Your Logo Design Delivers Value to Customers
What’s the most important factor of your logo? Think about its purpose — and learn how to create a logo design that delivers value to customers.
Designing a logo may sound easy, especially if you use a free logo maker with many templates to get started.
However, creating an outstanding logo that delivers value to customers requires some knowledge and a careful design process. You may opt for a generic design as an easy solution, but it won’t leave a powerful impression on your audience.
This article will discuss the reasons for having a well-thought logo and present practical tips to design a logo that attracts people, applicable even for non-designers.
Logo Design and Branding
Branding is a strategy that creates a business identity and makes it stand out from the competition. Many factors are part of a brand strategy – one of the most prominent ones is a logo.
The logo design impacts branding in many ways, such as:
- Brand representation. Each element of the logo, like colors and font, conveys meanings that reflect your brand personality.
- Brand awareness. A logo is the most recognizable brand identifier and helps differentiate a brand from its competitors.
- Loyalty growth. More than 50% of Americans are likely to be loyal to companies with recognizable logos because they convey trustworthiness.
How to Design a Logo That Delivers Value
This section will show you seven essential tips on creating a well-designed logo and provide real-life examples from major brands.
1. Reflect Your Brand Identity
Understanding your company’s core personality makes design decisions easier as you establish the elements that best represent your brand.
We’ve prepared some questions to help you reflect on your company’s identity:
- What are words or phrases that describe your brand?
- What is a brand value you want to express with the logo?
Take a look at Nike’s Swoosh. It symbolizes the wing of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory that names the brand. The Swoosh also helped to convey motion and speed as the brand used to sell only running shoes.
You may also want to consider your target market. For example, brands targeting female teenagers and brands that cater to male adults will use different logo designs to convey their personalities.
2. Analyze Your Competitors
Researching your competition is a great way to find inspiration and analyze what works well with your audience.
Think about what will make your brand logo stand out while looking at other companies. For example, if most coffee shops use brown, opt for different colors that still suit your brand, like red or yellow.
Analyzing competitors’ logos also helps to avoid using the same logo and other trademark infringements. For American business owners, go to the US Patent and Trademark Office website to check registered trademarks.
3. Pick the Design Style
At this point, you’ll have a clearer idea of your brand and its personality. Thus, it’s time to start translating that information into a design.
There are many design elements to consider, like fonts, colors, and shapes, which often overwhelm beginner graphic designers. Therefore, the first step is to pick a general design aesthetic to help narrow down the options.
Here are some design styles to consider when creating a logo:
- Vintage. The best option for a retro barber or coffee shop, for example, that wants to evoke nostalgic feelings.
- Minimalist. Fit for brands with fresh and modern vibes, like tech companies.
- Fun. Suitable for brands with a joyful personality, like toy producers.
- Classic. Perfect for luxury and formal brands, like jewelry stores and law institutions.
4. Find the Right Type of Logo
After choosing a suitable style, move on to picking the correct type of logo. Here are four popular types of logos and their examples:
- Lettermarks or wordmarks. It consists of letters referring to a business name or its initial, like Coca-Cola and H&M.
- Pictorial marks. Iconographic images that represent a brand, like Apple and Twitter.
- Abstract marks. Use unique geometric shapes that don’t directly connect to the brand’s name, like Pepsi and Nike.
- Combination marks. Combine a symbol with typography, like Burger King and Doritos.
5. Choose the Colors
Selecting the right colors is crucial as they help influence 85% of customers’ purchase decisions and boost brand awareness by 80%.
Here’s a brief explanation of some popular colors and their meanings:
- Blue. It represents stability and generally matches insurance companies and banks.
- Yellow. A symbol of innovation and happiness, very popular among the food and automotive industries.
- Green. Often associated with harmony, health, and nature. It’s a popular choice among eco-friendly brands or others working in the agriculture industry.
- Red. It demonstrates excitement, passion, and hunger. It’s perfect for the entertainment, beauty, and food industries.
- Pink. It symbolizes playfulness and femininity. It’s suitable for beauty, fashion, and toy companies.
Keep in mind that your logo may appear in newspaper ads and documents, so make sure it also looks good in black-and-white.
6. Pay Attention to Typography
Like the other design elements above, typography also affects your brand’s personality.
The three basic kinds of fonts are:
- Serif fonts. Fonts such as Times New Roman create classic, timeless, and high-end vibes.
- Sans serif fonts. For modern and clean looks, choose a font like Arial.
- Script fonts. Due to their hand-written nature, they communicate a creative and expressive personality, like Onthel.
Some brands also creatively use typography for creating a shape in their logo. For example, Shelter used a pitched roof in the letter “h” to represent the housing charity.
7. Prioritize Simplicity
A simple logo design helps increase memorability because people don’t get overwhelmed or distracted by unnecessary elements. It’s also a versatile option, ensuring the logo looks great regardless of the occasion, size, and time.
One tip to simplify your logo is avoiding an emblematic style with many detailed elements, like university logos. In fact, major brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks redesigned their traditional emblem to achieve a more modern look.
Conclusion
A logo plays a vital role in a business branding strategy. It represents a brand’s identity, differentiates it from competitors, and boosts customer loyalty.
In this article, you’ve learned several tips on designing a logo that people will love:
- Understand your brand identity and consider the target market.
- Check the competitors for inspiration but avoid trademark issues.
- Pick the most suitable design style, like classic or fun.
- Choose the right type of logo.
- Pay attention to colors and typography.
- Prioritize simplicity as it makes the logo versatile and memorable.
Designing an iconic logo for your company might be a challenge, but we hope this article will help you in the process. Good luck!
