What is a Logo? And what are the benefits of a Logo
8 Minute Read
August 29, 2021
A logo is a symbol, commonly made up by a combination of elements and letters to make a image that represents a brand. A logo is normally the first thing someone will see from your business so it is important that it is getting people intrigued to learn more. Here’s what a logo is and some helpful points on how to use it.
A logo is a symbol that can be a combination of text and symbols that represents a business, showcases what they do and who they are.
Logo design is about understanding the client and creating something that visually represents them.
A good logo should be easily distinguishable, appropriate for the brand and industry, simplicity and easy to remember. A good logo should be able to work in any size, from a giant billboard to a app icon on your phone.
We live in a fast past world, humans are consuming more content at a faster rate than over. As your logo will be one of the first things people interact with, you want it to be something they will remember. A good test is if someone saw your logo for the first time and you asked them to sketch it out half an hour later, they should be able to produce something similar.
Your logo should fit into the middle ground of making sense in the industry but be distinctive enough that it looks unique. A great logo will help you stand out from the pack.
A good logo should make sense in correlation to your industry and your business. Does it make sense for your intended audience? Is it communicating your identity through it? If you are in the luxury fashion industry and all your consumers are high end you would choose sleek and minimalist over rustic and dirty. How you position the logo should make sense in the eyes of your customers.
Look at some of the biggest and most successful brands, brands like Nike, apple, Tesla, Mcdonald's, what do these all have in common? They are 'Simple'. Simplicity really helps with making your logo easily recognizable and easier to remember. As I mentioned before we live in a fast pass world and you will only have your consumer look at your logo quickly.
I used to think simple meant easy and boring, but it's really quite the opposite the ability to make a logo more simple but still make it distinctive and showcase the brand's personality is very challenging!
In our modern day your logo needs to be able to shift and look good in a many different areas of print and digital. You want your logo to look as good blown up giant on a billboard at time square but also look 'iconic' in icon size on someones phone (See what I did there haha)
It is important to have your logo in vector format, as imagery can easily pixelate and not respond well to different layouts.
This helps and builds on the last point of having it 'simple', a simplicity logo will more easily be able to adopt to different functions where a overly complex logo will struggle and will scale poorly.
I used to think logos were just purely for looking good but they have so many other benefits and functions.
Normally a logo will be the first interaction someone has from your brand. We live in a fast moving world, people are constantly bombarded with things, your logo can help cut through that noise. A great logo has the ability to intrigue clients and capture attention from just one look.
One of a logos main reasons is to help give your business have a symbol that is recognisable.
By being recognisable it helps you differentiate yourself from other businesses in your industry.
This is so important as in all industries you will have competition! How are you going to get clients interested in your business over others? A logo is a great place to start!
Have a look in the industry and see what all the competitors have. You will find a lot are similar, maybe there is a good opportunity to have your logo different to help it stand out!
Just remember though, your logo should still make sense in the industry so don’t go too wild that it confuses people!
A logo is not your brand, but it is an important part of it.
Your brands foundation can start at your logo, choices like font, colour, style are decided here, these will be some very important building blocks that will span in almost everything.
From your design elements e.g. website, letterheads, business cards, ads to brand values, does your designs visual style match up with your core values?
When your client is trying to decide which service/product to use, yours or a competitor. Having a consistent logo that people remember is a great way to build trust, Maybe they have seen your logo 5 times across different mediums, now they are ready to make a purchase they are more likely to use your service over others.
The Nike logo commonly refereed to as The Nike swoosh, Is such a great example of simplicity but still showing a brands personality, the swoosh showing movement, speed and pairing perfectly with their 'Just do it' slogan perfectly fits for the fitness industry.
The brand that Apple has built is a great example of consistency and simplicity. When you hear the most fruits you think of the actual fruit, but when you hear 'apple' you either thought of the fruit but there is a a chance you actually thought about the apple logo in your head. The logo matches the brand perfectly, when we think of Apple we think modern, futuristic, sleek and the logo reflects this perfectly.
The Mercedez logo showcases a perfect matching of a symbol with a font while keeping it minimalist at the same time.
The logo does a great job of helping you ‘feel’ the premium feeling of Mercedez. It It is a great example of how a typeface can show so much personality. Imagine if they changed to a blocky, rustic font or even worse...comic sans, The entire brand wouldn’t make sense and the logo would be a mess!
