A company’s logo design is the first line of interaction that a brand has with its customers. And needless to say, a good logo design speaks volumes about a brand. But what exactly is this ‘good logo’? How does anyone ascertain if a logo is good or bad? Well, even though it all depends on individual perception, there are certain guidelines when it comes to logo designing. These are based on human psychological analysis, market surveys, and experiences of successfully established brands. So before you register your trademark registration, it is best to stop and see if your logo needs any improvement.
Basic points to be considered while designing a logo:
Pick a simple logo design for trademark registration:
There goes a saying; simplicity is the trademark of a genius. This holds absolutely true for logos. Simple logos are always easy to comprehend and easy to recognize as compared to complex logos. Let’s consider the logo of the automobile company Audi. It consists of four ceiling rings that represent the 4 manufacturers of Auto Union. The logo is simple yet effective and has a considerably high recall value.
In spite of being simple, good logos feature something unique and compelling. So get rid of any intricacies in your logo design and tone the design down. Remember, when it comes to logo designing, the challenge lies in being simple and expressive.
Go for the right font for your logo design:
For many people, the font used in the logo design may not be an area of concern. However, selecting the right font for your brand is as important as designing a logo symbol that stands out. It’s like your brand’s handwriting that helps to communicate the personality of your brand to the consumers. There have been many instances where companies have attributed a rise in profits by up to 20% after changing the font style in their logo, website, and marketing material.
It is thus important to sync the style of the font that you intend to use with how you’d like your customers to perceive your brand. For example, you shouldn’t go for a very professional-looking font for a kid’s toy brand. Similarly, a playful font is not recommended for a legal firm. While there are some fonts that you may have to pay for, many interesting fonts are also available for free on Google fonts. So go ahead. Choose well.
What color do you want!
You may be surprised to know that your logo’s first impression is formed largely by the color used in the logo design (ranging from 62% to 90%, depending on the customer). As per color psychology studies, every color instills a certain kind of emotion in humans. Thus, companies can influence their customers to create a certain mental image of their brands with the use of colors. For example, Yellow is a bright color that reflects optimism, fun, warmth and maybe caution in some cases, red is youthful and bold, blue is for calmness, trust, and strength while green stands for health, growth, and peace.
While selecting the appropriate color for your logo is a significant step, it must be ensured that you don’t go overboard with it by having too many colors in your logo. More than 90% of successful brands use only one or two colors in their logos. Having said this, creativity has no limit. So, if you are confident that having a colorful logo design would actually speak for your brand and put across a clear message, go ahead. Take the case of Google, it has four colors in its logo. While all alphabets other than ‘L’ have primary colors, ‘L’ has a secondary color (green) to denote that Google doesn’t always follow rules!
Designing a logo system- the new way to protect your brand:
With evolving marketing tactics, logo systems are becoming more and more popular these days. Going by definition, a logo system refers to a series of marks or the several depictions of a mark to communicate a specific aspect of a brand. So, instead of having a single static mark, a logo system acts as a ‘graphical framework’ that can change for different situations while the main structure of the logo remains the same. Confused? Here is an example that all of us are familiar with- the Google Doodle. It is actually an illustration that has been designed to bring forth a specific topic every day in a way that the Google logo also remains visible to us. Hence, this helps Google to express varied ideas and thoughts that click with different people across the globe. Thus a logo system helps to extend the expression of a logo. While logo systems may work very well for some brands, these may not be useful for others. In fact, some big brands like Coca-Cola have chosen to keep away from logo systems and stick to static logos only. Hence, it is important to figure out whether your brand should have logo systems or not. Blindly following the suit may prove to be futile for your brand.
Apart from the above points, while designing a logo, it must be ensured that the design is scalable so that it can be used on any form of advertisement medium, like a billboard, pamphlet, or newspaper ads. Also, it should be impressive in the black and white version too. Lastly, even after having the best logo design, your logo will not be good enough for your brand if you haven’t protected it. So don’t forget to register your trademark.