Why your company needs an eye-catching logo
As the key visual representation of your company – whether or not your business name is with it – the logo becomes a very important consideration. It helps people and potential customers recognise you, find you, and ultimately buy your product or service. Your logo defines your business personality, differentiates it from the competition and can make you memorable.
What should my logo look like?
There are no hard and fast rules. It depends on your business and on your industry. Like everything else, there are trends in what people find attractive; more businesses are opting for a sans serif, clean, simple font where they use text in their logos. Colour has a big impact on human perception and behaviour, so choose your colours carefully.
Blue (banks, the NHS) is associated with being professional and trustworthy. Red suggests fun (Lego, Nintendo, etc.) and yellow is a friendly, optimistic colour (Nikon, McDonald’s). Many food businesses choose green (Starbucks, Tropicana) because of its association with being peaceful. Other companies – Google, ebay, Microsoft – use a rainbow of colours. Have a look at others in your industry; what catches your eye?
Brand guidelines
Think of all the opportunities to see your logo there are; your website, social media, letterheads and other advertising. It will be everywhere, so it’s important that it’s right, and crucially, consistent. Creating some brand guidelines so everyone understands how to represent your logo is key; how much space there should be around it, for example, as well as rules like not squeezing or cropping it.
The Small Business Chronicle goes into more detail about why the logo is such a key part of your business. It is worth investing in your logo and making sure it translates well to all media that you might use to promote your company. Get in touch with a branding agency such as Really Helpful Marketing www.reallyhelpfulmarketing.co.uk/brand-development/ company to get things started.
There are automated apps and websites that offer logo design for a small fee or even completely free, though use these with caution. Having a design created by a person or a team will be more expensive, but a human will understand nuances that automation never will, and you must have a logo that is scalable without losing quality. There is no shame in investing in your image!