In selecting or designing your company’s logo, there are certain properties about the logo to weigh before committing yourself to final choice -“final” at least for the present. Here are some cogent additional logo considerations:
Flexibility: Your logo will see lots of duty across the full gamut of business communications on business cards and stationery, in advertising and web materials, on signs, on vehicles, on promotional products, on catalogs, invoices, purchase orders, and on checks, among other applications. A complex, highly detailed logo won’t work on a pen or on other small-format placement areas. So whatever you choose, it has to reproduce cleanly and completely on everything from a business card to a banner to a billboard. To determine if your logo is, in fact, flexible in applications, first make sure it looks good in black and white as well as when printed in white on black.
Simplicity: King KISS (as in, “Keep it simple, stupid”) rules the Realm of Logoland. A confusing or complicated logo that tries to convey too much information won’t get your point across and it’ll look a mess. Look at the great Logos you see everyday on your car, your computer, your home appliances, on tools, on your cell phone, and scads of consumer products and you’ll see what simple means. Don’t confuse a logo with what you see on official city, state, and provincial seals; most of them were created before the word “graphics” was even part of the language of communications. Take a quick cruise online or leaf through a favorite magazine to get some inspiration.
Your logo doesn’t have to be a representation of your product, though that’s certainly an option. A silhouette of a T-shirt says a thousand words. But Nike’s swoosh tells a story, too, even though it says little about clothing, fitness, style, or comfort. But Nike’s worldwide recognition. with billions of dollars invested over time in its advertising
and marketing, nonetheless makes the value of its seemingly unrelated trademark worth even greater billions of dollars as an asset called “good will.”
Continuity: Once your logo is essentially what you want, don’t tweak it every time you run it. Consistency brings about faster recognition for your company.
Typography: Different fonts give you the ability to convey different attributes. Fonts communicate STRENGTH or discretion, can be feminine or masculine, express tradition or modernity, excitement or compos11re, whimsy or sensibility, superiority or deference, simplicity or sophistication. Orjust about anything else you want to portray. So, whether you opt for creativity or elect a conservative cast, think about how different fonts can effect different outcomes for a distinctive look and feel.
Color: Once you like what you see in black and white, consider what color you’d like your company to wear when color is a suitable option. Two-color logos can be lovely, but not necessarily twice as good as a monocolor logo. Using three or more colors isn’t three or four times as nice, nor will it properly show in many smaller applications. But there are logos and names that scream for color (i.e., Celebration Sports wear, Rainbow Fashions, etc.) Use two, three, or even four colors to create impact, but always be sure to design your logo in such a way that it maintains its integrity in all monocolor applications. The final word on color: there’s no one-size-fits-all answer as the issue of color or colors is one that comes down to chocolate or vanilla. Both taste good.
Erik Mickelson
