We’re often asked What makes a Good Logo? Your logo is your visual ambassador to the world. It must be appropriate, memorable, and individual. Logos exist because we remember faces and landmarks better than words. Your logo is the unique face of your business, your unique landmark that helps people find you again in the crowd.
Consider the following scenario: You are an accountant. You give your business card to someone at a party. A year later they need an accountant, but they can’t find your card, so they start Googling to find you. Unfortunately, because they don’t remember your name and your logo looked like that of every other accountant, they never find you again. You didn’t stand out. Good logos are designed individually, not chosen from a library of clip art.
It must be reproducible in a variety of sizes because it might be used on a pencil, a key fob, a business card, a billboard, a menu, a mailing label, a website, a television advertisement, a product package, or an invoice—anything used for conducting business. Think of all the packaging, communication, and promotional material you will generate with your logo on it.
TImeless Visual Identity
Your logo design should be timeless. It should be with you as long as your business exists. Changing it for a completely different one later is not an option you should consider. A good logo should stand the test of time. While it can be updated over time to keep with trends and technologies, the fundamental visual idea should not change. You’re going to invest years of hard work in developing a positive public image. Your logo will be the face of that image. The journey from desire to creation requires research, reflection, inspiration, sketching, analysis, and testing before final deployment. The process can take a few days or a few weeks. A professional, formally educated designer draws on the lessons of art history, heraldry, architecture, marketing, colour theory, culture, and psychology and can create something truly unique and memorable. Here at Vitamin, we combine the experience of three highly talented designers to create something you’ll love and, more importantly, that will get you noticed and remembered.
We don’t design logos
Well, we do, but… While we talk a lot about designing logos, this really doesn’t tell the complete story about what it is that we do here at Vitamin. We don’t just design logos; we design identity systems. With the demands of modern technology, its essential that your brand has a controlled and consistent identity that will work across a vast range of printed and digital media. By eliminating guesswork and providing a set of flexible yet consistent assets, you can be sure that wherever it is seen, your brand identity will retain its clarity, consistency, and memorability. Your logo needs to be the lynchpin of a complete look & feel. The secret sauce that just makes everything feel as if it belongs to your brand. That means typography, colour, texture, shape, composition, and all the other considerations that together form a visual identity.
Just your Type
One area of logo design commonly ignored is the typeface. A typeface sends a subtle message to the viewer. You don’t want to send one message with your logo and another with the typeface. Logos that are entirely text, such as Disney, are called typographic logos. Businesses that choose a typographic logo should have an original typeface designed especially for their needs, as opposed to using a typeface that already exists. The necessity of originality demands it. If you choose a typeface that anyone can use, you run the risk of undermining the unique character of your logo. Many logos are symbols combined with text. Combining a symbol with text allows you to take advantage of the many different typefaces currently available yet still have a unique, recognisable symbol to present to the public. The North Face is a good example.
What to Avoid
Still asking the question, what makes a good logo? Trying to visually represent what you do is a fool’s errand. A logo should convey a brand personality; explaining what you do is the job of a website, brochure, or sales person! Photos or complex illustrations should be avoided. Detailed, colourful images are frequently used in the design of product packaging such as beer bottle labels, and such artwork is often used as signage for shopfronts. But a logo should be more simplified. The more detail, the more difficult it will be for customers to remember and therefore recognise.
So what makes a good logo?
Your new logo should be recognisable, reproducible, unique, and, above all, memorable. Here at Vitamin, we can call on over 60 years combined experience in designing logos for new ventures, established brands, and major corporations. We like to think we’re good at what we do, and we enjoy it. We’re confident you’ll be delighted with the results! Click here to start the process.