When you hear stories of companies spending millions on logo design, it’s easy to laugh and say “what a waste!”, but the truth is that a company’s logo is an essential part of their brand. A well designed logo is easy to recognize, easy to understand, and evokes positive emotions from those that see it. A badly designed logo can turn your company into a laughing stock. It makes sense to invest as much as you can afford into getting a good logo designed for your company.
Your Logo Represents You When You Aren’t There
Your logo is the first thing that many people will see when they encounter your brand. It will appear at the top of your website, you’ll put it on printed carrier bags to give to customers, it will appear on your business cards, and on printed mugs that you hand out at trade shows. This means that your logo has to be clean, clear, distinctive, and good looking.
If your logo is too similar to another company’s logo, it could cause brand confusion, at best (or land you in court if the other company thinks you’re trying to pass yourself off as them!). If your logo is badly designed, it could be perverted or parodied online, damaging your brand.
The Importance of Skilled Design
Some people try to design their own images, and this can work OK if you’re a good artist – after all, you understand your brand better than anyone else. However, it can sometimes backfire. If you spend ages hand-drawing a design, or drawing it in a simple art package, you might find out later that all of that effort is wasted. Your scans, or your JPG image, might be too low quality to use on printed mugs, or even on a business card. If your image doesn’t scale well, it’s not much use for promotional materials.
A professional designer will put together a logo in a vector format – one that can be resized for use on posters, printed carrier bags, and on the web. They’ll also make sure that the image can be broken down and used in part, or in full. After all, you don’t have to see the word “McDonalds” to recognize the brand – just the M by itself is enough. The same is true for Pepsi – the swoosh logo is just as recognizable as the name. That’s what you should be aiming for with your brand.
Completing Your Image
Of course, your logo is just one part of your brand. To go with your logo, you still need a solid brand philosophy, a strong marketing message, and a good product. If any of those elements are missing, there’s a good chance that your business will fail.
Make sure that all of your employees understand your brand ethos, and take some time to talk to your customers and make sure that they’re happy with the way you’re doing things. Listen to what they have to say, and communicate clearly with them. Remember – you don’t control your brand, you can guide it, but consumers have the final say.
This article was written by James Harper on behalf of UK Print Price, providers of printed mugs and printed carrier bags for your brand. If you’re looking for printed mugs or printed carrier bags, visit their site.
Photo: Elevate Printing
