A logo is so much more than a symbol that’s used to identify a brand. Think about industry-changing companies like Apple and Amazon. Their logos not only identify their name, but they convey a set of emotions and ideas as well. If you’re thinking about a logo design for your business, then keep reading.
In its purest form, a logo provides a visual summary of your brand. It not only identifies the name of your brand, but also becomes a symbol for its overall value. If done correctly, a brand will do most of the heavy lifting by:
- Serving as a symbol for the identity of your brand.
- Making an impactful first impression.
- Sets your brand apart from the competition.
- Allows customers to recognize your brand instantly.
When we see the Adobe brand, we think about the artwork Adobe helps businesses create. Apple’s logo represents quality and innovation. Police badges represent order and security.
Most importantly, a powerful logo will foster brand identity.
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Six Easy Ways to Create Logo to Define Brands
Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for – the defining moment for your business. You can either seek professional logo design for your business or do it in-house.
Here are six easy ways to create logos that will define your brand.
Understand the Brand’s Intention
What is the message that you want your logo to portray? Answer this question by defining your brand’s identity. What is the core personality of your brand? What problem are you trying to solve? List everything that makes it unique and why customers will benefit from it. For many of us, it’s a difficult first step to take to and so let’s simplify it with three questions:
- Why did you start your business in the first place?
- What are your values?
- How are your products/services better than anything else on the market?
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Plan Your Strategy
Once you have defined the intention of your logo, you will need to lay out a plan. Your logo should grab the audiences’ attention while communicating the core values of your business interestingly. Remember that the logo will become the very foundation upon which your brand’s identity is built.
Brand logos must also make a powerful first impression. Lay out some ideas as to how you plan to grab your target market’s attention immediately.
Look at the Cisco logo as an example. Their company is named after their founding city of San Francisco, and their logo showcases a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. The blue stripes are also used to represent electromagnets. It’s a great and well-planned design.
Get Design Inspiration
By this point, you should have a list of ideas that you plan to use in your logo design. This is where real brainstorming starts. What is now a basic idea is going to be transformed into a web of different ideas, all centered around your goals.
- The purpose of brainstorming is to get as many ideas onto paper as possible. Write down everything, no matter how far-fetched it might seem.
- Put yourself into the shoes of your audience. Create a list of ways that they would describe your brand.
- Build a brainstorming team so that there is more than one person involved. You can even ask friends and family for their input. Again, write it all down.
Brainstorming is going to present you with a lot of unusual ideas – most of which are not going to be feasible. The idea is to use these lists as inspiration moving forward.
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Look at Your Competitors
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. Check out what your competition is doing and see how they weaved their ideas into a logo. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t. Do some research to see what their target demographic thinks about it.
Your logo should set your brand apart from the competition, so don’t copy anything. You are just looking for ways to stand out in the crowd.
Find the Meaning Behind the Logo
This one is a bit tricky and will come naturally as long as you follow all of the previous steps. Let me use Amazon as an example to explain what it means to find the meaning behind a logo.
We know exactly what Amazon is because of their other various marketing campaigns and the name they have established. But how does that meaning come across in the logo? For starters, they incorporate the letters A and Z. This is not just an abbreviation of their name, but it reflects the fact that they sell everything. The arrow in the logo shows a smile, which is associated with happiness. Their core value is to make customers happy.
Understand Your Target Audience’s Psychology
Color, shape, and fonts, all of which play a significant role when it comes to the psychology behind the way people relate to a logo.
Color: Color plays a critical role in deciding the success or failure of a brand’s strategy. Every color has a different emotion attached to it, and so your logo must portray that. For instance, the color blue is associated with trust and security. So if the principal value of your brand is to build trust, then blue would be the perfect color.
Shape: Using Amazon as an example yet again, they use a shape that represents happiness on their logo (a smile). You need to think ‘what shapes can you incorporate into your logo to portray the desired emotional reaction’?
Fonts: Three fonts are proven to convert at the highest level: Century Gothic, Helvetica, and Garamond. Try incorporating one of these into your logo.
Seek Professional Help to Create a Logo That Stands Out
Designing a logo can be a fantastic adventure, but like all great adventures, the path ahead is stricken with peril. It’s always a good consideration to look at seeking professional help with logo design for your business. Whatever the case, you still need to follow through with these steps since they will help you consider the perceptions that your brand will have on consumers. You are creating the foundation for your brand’s identity, so make it a good one.
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