A company logo is not merely a fancy icon on merchandise. A logo is an expression of the promises that a company’s brand makes and the logo should also look unique enough to distinguish your brand from the others. In most cases, company logos act as the face of businesses as they are what your potential customers notice first. This makes it important for you to create a logo that can really deliver your brand’s messages.
Many startup companies have been questioning about how they can have company logos that are able to really represent their brands; the logos that can really fit their brands. Thankfully, there are several pro designers and business people willing to share their experiences in creating logos that can be both representative and memorable. This may help your company thrive and even increase revenues.
Things to Note Before Designing Company Logos
There are a few things to note before deciding which company logo will represent your brand. First of all, just remember that a logo is not your brand and vice versa. A brand is your reputation in business or organization while a logo is your brand’s ‘representative.’
A logo is also not your visual identity. A good designer will tell their customers who happen to be new companies or organizations, “What you need isn’t just a logo, but also a brand identity.” Indeed, a logo is just a part of a much bigger picture. The visual identity of your brand usually includes color choices, typography, visuals, photography, layout, and so on.
The last thing you should note is that a logo is not an indicator of your success. Many companies with cool logos had to end up in bankruptcy or bad reputation. Meanwhile, the others that have fulfilled their goals have very simple logos. So, that pretty much explains how logos do not determine your brand’s success.
5 Steps on Creating The Ones that Deliver Your Brand Message
In order to make the right company logos, you will want to work in steps. Even though every designer may work differently, there are five steps you should go through in creating a company logo that represents your brand:
Discover
The first step is more about self discovery. Your goal in this phase is to have a crystal-clear understanding of what your company is, your beliefs in your business, what you do want to achieve and how you want to achieve it. Please, keep in mind that you are not just creating a logo. You are also building your brand identity.
Explore
This is actually the phase in which you start your research, but the term “exploration” sounds way more interesting. Especially, for beginner in design world, exploration helps ease out the challenges in a more fun way. Firstly, your focus will be on getting educated and inspired. Learn design principles on Google and read more on essentials such as colors, styles, and typography.
Design
Eventually! The goal in this step is quite direct: Take all the lessons and considerations from the first two steps and begin creating some designs of your logo. Before you start, do not miss out on several essential stuff you need to design company logos like sketching tools (pencil and paper), graphic design software, typeface, and free logo makers.
Also, decide the type of logos you want—either word mark, brand mark, combination mark, abstract logo mark, letter mark, mascot, or emblems. At the end, you should have done at least a single logo design for evaluation. At this stage, it is also common that you have 2-3 logos for options.
Refine
If you have at least two or three design options already, now it is the right time to pick one; the final choice. If you have had one, you can evaluate it based on the following criteria:
- It should be simple, memorable, and evocative.
- It should look interesting enough wherever you put it—be it on a website, social media, or on printed materials.
- It should be timeless, meaning it can go lasting for over five to 20 years.
Define
Consistency and quality are the key to maintaining your brand identity. Considering your logo will be on a number of places and be used by many people, it is crucial that you define some rules and/or guidelines on the ways your logo is treated and should not be treated.
Now that you have known the five steps on creating company logos that can really deliver your brand message. You can use free, online logo makers such as Canva, Hatchful, and Designevo.