Useful Tips from the Pros to Easily Choose the Ideal Logo for Your Business

A great logo is so important for every business to make both a strong first impression and a lasting impact on your customers. Your logo should speak to new and existing customers about what your business stands for, and connect with them at some level in a way that is memorable and authentic. Choosing the best logo can have enormous benefits for your business and really help you to stand out from your competition, even if your products and services are the same as what they offer. We all recognize famous brands straight away. Just think about when you see the Mercedes or Apple logos. You immediately know the company without needing any words.

To help your business achieve this kind of instant recognition, here are useful tips from the pros to choose the ideal logo for your business.

1. Know Your Customer Inside Out

Before you can even start thinking about the design elements of your business’s logo, you must first get to know your customers and think about the experience you want them to have. Do your research and find out why your customers like your business and what they expect you to deliver. Knowing what they want can help you to deliver a logo that customers can connect with and that assures them you reflect their same values. Your logo should be the focal point of your brand, so develop a winning brand strategy first, and decide on the message you want to portray.

2. Make Sure Your Logo Reflects Your Message

Once you know your customers inside out and have created a brand message that resonates with them, the next step is to ensure that your logo reflects that message. A logo should be a visual cue for your customers which immediately makes them think of your business, its values, and your customers’ relationship with you. Make sure you think about your products and services when choosing your logo so that your message is not confused and so you can drive sales and engagement through your logo.

3. Keep It Simple

Keeping it simple is one of the most important factors in designing a business logo. A simple logo will resonate better with your customers and will also be simple to reproduce your logo or adapt it later on for different applications. Your logo should be recognizable and impactful whether printed in color or in black in white and should require no accompanying text. As you can see here, there are different types of logos for different purposes such as pictorial and abstract logos. While they all have slightly different functions and purposes, one thing is true for them all; they keep it simple.

4. Make It Memorable

For customers to recognize your logo and store it in their memory, there needs to be an inherent experience in its design. You want to create a logo that is simple and yet gives the customer something to play with and explore each time they see it. If you consider one of the most iconic logos of all time, the Nike Swoosh, it is very playful and customers can think about what it means. It seems to signify speed and movement and is almost reflective of a flying arrow. Give your customers something to think about and they will remember your logo.

5. Design an Adaptable Logo

When you start your business, your logo may only be on your website, advertising materials, and products. As time goes on, however, it will be used in ever-changing ways, and so it is very important that your logo is highly adaptable. Think about the progression of the Apple logo. It has changed a lot over the years, with different colors and styling to reflect the changing trends and fashions of each era, and yet despite the adaptations, the logo always remained recognizable as Apple.

Another highly adaptable logo is the Ralph Lauren Polo Sport logo. The horse and rider can be scaled up or down, with more or less details, stamped onto leather wallets, or in full multicolor on kid’s tshirts and it is still instantly recognizable as Polo Sport. You need to aim for the same adaptability for your logo. Whether it is stamped on your products or up in lights in Times Square, it needs to be recognizable and impactful.

6. Choose the Right Colors

Color is very important for both branding and logo and your original design needs to have a memorable color scheme. As with every other aspect of logo design, the key rule is to keep it simple. Many inexperienced businesses get carried away and keep adding more and more colors to their logo but the 1980s are long gone.

Consider another highly successful logo, the McDonald’s arches. It couldn’t be more simple; just a yellow M on a red background but almost everybody in the world will know that it is McDonald’s. Similarly, Coca Cola only uses two colours, red and white, but their logo is also world famous.

7. Keep Those Colors Flexible

As noted above, there may come times when you will need to change the colors of your logo to make a different impact or to suit the current trends. As long as you keep the color schemes simple, the message and recognizability of your logo will not be affected. You also need to remember that whatever color scheme you choose, there will be situations where your logo is likely to be printed in black and white. Color schemes with too many colors do not translate well into black and white which is another reason to keep it simple.

8. Try to Create Something Timeless

In order to ensure the life expectancy of your logo, it is crucial to remember that even though it may go through an evolution, the message and underlying design of your logo will not change. This is why you need to put in the work at the planning stage so that you can create something truly timeless. If your logo is too caught up in the current zeitgeist, it will not be adaptable and will not last the test of time. Avoid any design that places your logo too firmly in the current time or business environment so that it won’t go out of date.

9. Make Your Logo Unlike Anything Else

In order to be successful, businesses need a unique concept or selling point so it is important that your logo is unique too. An effective logo will help to separate your business from the competition and attract and retain the attention of customers. Avoid any designs that are too similar to well-known logos, or you will muddy your message and could end up looking cheap or unimaginative. Avoid anything that looks like a tick or a swoosh, stay away from stripes, and be careful with the use of animal designs. These are all very cliche and won’t make your logo stand out.

10. Choose the Right Typography

Typography is often looked at when it comes to branding and logos but it is a crucial element. If your logo has no text then you won’t need to worry about typography until it comes to advertisements which require it. Many logos have their brand names or slogans alongside them and so the typography is a fundamental element of the logo itself.

You need to think about your brand’s message and the way you want your business to be portrayed and reflect this in your typography. The font needs to match the business, and a good example of what not to do is match a playful font like Comic Sans with a serious business such as those in the finance or legal sectors.

11. Make It Relevant

Matching the font to your business is just one element of making your font relevant. You need to study your customers, your business, your competitors, and the market and climate in which you are operating, and deliver a logo that places you firmly in that market. For example, we are all becoming more conscious of environmental issues.

If your business is related to the environmental sector, or you want to portray your business as being environmentally conscious, you may want to consider a green color scheme or elements of nature in your logo. This will immediately engage your customers and instantly tell them on a subconscious level what your business is about and the values it holds.

Creating an effective logo for a business can be difficult but it is also an exciting design process. Your logo is often the first impression your customer has with your business and so it needs to be a good one. Always keep your customer in mind, step into their shoes, and research what they want, need, and expect from your business. This will help you to create a concept around which you can design your logo.

Keep it simple in terms of color and design elements so that it is both adaptable but also timeless. The best logos are instantly recognizable and perfectly portray their business’s message. Follow these design tips, and your business will have the best logo to help you achieve long-lasting success.