Logo design can mean different things to different people. For a small startup on a super-tight, bootstrapped budget, designing a logo might just mean picking a font to write the business name in. For a large corporation, logo design is usually part of a much bigger branding exercise that includes consumer focus groups or employee interviews and considers the company’s brand values, unique selling proposition, and market position to hone in on the finest of details that affect their brand positioning. Wherever you fall on that spectrum, the fundamental of what a logo is and must do remain the same.
A logo is not your brand, but it needs to support it
I’ve often heard the terms logo and brand used somewhat interchangeably, but there is a difference. Your business’s brand is its total identity and consists of its core values, its market position, the way it presents itself to the public, and all the subtle feelings your customers (and non-customers) have about it. A logo is a shorthand for your business and, by extension, for your brand. Logos originated at a time when literacy rates were very low, so businesses had to use visual signals on their signs to make their offerings clear to people who could not read. Today’s use is more sophisticated, but has the same basic role: helping people identify your business.
Your logo needs to match your brand values
Your brand values are the core values that make up the identity of your business. It your business a necessity or a luxury? Expensive or affordable? Fun or practical? Traditional or revolutionary? The design of your logo will communicate these values is subtle ways, so it’s important that you, as a business owner, understand those values and that the logo design properly reflects them to the public.
Your logo needs to consider your entire audience
Logo design relies heavily on visual metaphors and the value our society puts on certain objects, colours, and ideas. A subtlety that often gets overlooked is that those values are cultural, not universal. It’s important to consider your entire potential customer base (both currently and in the future) and to ask yourself if the logo design reflects the same values to all of them.
Your logo doesn’t need to tell the whole story
A pitfall I’ve often seen in the logo design process is the expectation that your logo needs to communicate everything your business does. Logos need to be simple so they can be easily understood and so they can be reproduced well in a wide variety of media—from business cards, to websites, to rubber stamps, to embroidered jackets. When we start down the path of trying to represent every aspect of your business, the design becomes complicate and instead of communicating one concept clearly, we end up communicating many concepts poorly.
Good logos are simple, but communicating through simplicity takes work
Finally, it’s important to understand that logo design is a process of distillation. A logo designer takes all the information about your business and brand and whittles it down to its fundamental concepts, then tries to communicate those basic concepts clearly in a visual format. The end result may look simple, but the process of getting there takes time, effort, and plenty of trial and error.
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My name is Mark Garrison and I’m a graphic designer and illustrator based in Victoria, British Columbia. I have more than 20 years of experience producing creative work in a variety of media and using strategic thinking to build and grow projects.