What Makes a Good Logo: The Dos and Don’ts?

What Makes a Good Logo: The Dos and Don’ts?

What is the first thing you notice about a brand or business; it is the logo, right? The logo is not only a visual representation but it’s also the face of the brand. The logo is the point of recognition for your potential clients and customers. A well-designed logo helps to build reputation and goodwill of your company.

A logo should be distinctive, classy yet simple to remember. It should be memorable at the same time make a good first impression. Attention to detailing is important in logo designing. From bold colours to cursive fonts, a logo should be designed in an exclusive way.

Why is it Important to Have a Logo For Your Brand or Business?

– A logo helps to reveal your identity. It lets your customers know about the type of product or service you sell. A logo helps to distinguish you from your competitors giving you a separate image.

– A logo helps to facilitate brand loyalty and that plays a major role in business marketing. A specific logo for your company can be used in every platform for promotion. It can be used for sponsorship, marketing, packaging, on your business website and also on social media platforms. One logo can be used to build a trademark image for your company.

– Explore conceptual ideas while designing a logo for your brand. It’s not important that your logo should have your product image or relevant business purpose. You can relate to the conceptual idea of your business to create a different design. Keep it abstract or think of a graphic icon. It should be appealing enough to use it as your brand identity. Your logo should be simple so that it has a recall value.

Dos and Don’ts of Logo Design To Consider

A] Dos of Logo Design

 1. Research Your Target Audience and Be Different

Logo attracts your potential customers so it’s important to know your target audience first. Research on the internet to know about likes and dislikes of your target audience. You should know about the liking so that the logo can appeal to them.

It’s always a good idea to create a logo that is one-of-a-kind or different. There may be similar logos and brands, you need to stand out and create your own classy logo. Seek inspiration from logos that are already available, but brainstorm for something creative, as that’ll serve your purpose well.

2. Draw a Rough Sketch and Keep it Simple

Rough sketches always brings out your creative side. Simply sketch the ideas that are in your mind. Just experiment with various creative ideas and go with the flow. If you are inspired by a design, try changing its core concept to create a new design of your own. You can use a rough copy or if you are using Photoshop, you make easily changes in your design.

You never know what you’ll actually get after brainstorming. Also, keep the logo simple. Complicated logos don’t have good recall value. A simple logo can also be creative with perfect designing. The idea is to highlight only a single feature of your logo so that it looks classy and stands out.

3. Pay Special Heed to Negative Space

Logos need proper spacing and some designers pay heed to the exact spacing. It just fits right because text and image also need proper layout and spacing. If space is not proper, your logo won’t look good. Use proper spacing and right composition. Also, the negative spacing in logo design can be used for your advantage.

Use a grid to use proper spacing as that’ll be proportional to the subject matter that you use. If your logo is text-based, you can use the spacing for two line options. And, if it’s an image then use proper negative space. It should look neat and uncluttered.

4. Consider The Proper Size and Font of the Logo

A perfect logo is always decipherable, whether large or small it should maintain the same detailing. As it’s used for various purposes, it should be easily redesigned in every size. A brand logo should look similar on the banner and even on the merchandise that you use to promote your brand or product.

If the size is not proper, you will not be able to use it easily. Font of the logo plays an equally important role in designing of the logo. A font can be bold, cursive, solid and strong. It can be imperfect, but it should have clarity so that it is received well by your customers.

5. Create Variations and Ensure Readability

It’s always good to have versatility while designing your company logo. From business cards to promotion, a logo is a brand image of your company. Create different variations of your logo design. Different colour variations will help in designing the best logo.

Consider black colour or bold colour and decide on the final logo. Also, ensure that it is readable. At times, the design and text are too close and that affects the readability of the logo. Every word or design should be clear.

6. Avoid Irrelevant Words and Divide Image & Text

If you have a tagline for your business, then don’t insert it in the logo design. This’ll only look cluttered. Avoid words that are irrelevant. Your focus should be on detailing and the name of your product or your company. Don’t use words that are not required in the logo. Keep text and image separate if possible. If you insert text in the image, then it can affect the typeface of the logo design. The logo should be clear and content should be readable.

B] Don’ts of Logo Design

 1. Don’t Follow New Trends Blindly

It’s good to consider things that are in trend but don’t follow new trends blindly. Trends in logo designs keep changing, so if you follow trends then your logo can be outdated with time. Just stick to an idea and create your own concept.

2. Don’t Make It Complicated

Too much of everything is not good. You need to make a design that is simple, so don’t complicate things. Focus on a single feature while designing a logo. If you add text, colours, design and tag line then it’ll affect the final logo concept. Keep it simple and classy. Add only the details that are required. Don’t go overboard with your logo concept.

3. Don’t Copy a Design

A logo should be original so don’t copy a design randomly. The plagiarized logo will affect the goodwill of your company. You can take a cue from the concept of a logo you like, but don’t copy a design as it is. If you steal someone’s creativity, it’ll also affect your company image. The original concept works the best so stick to it.

4. Don’t Follow the Brand or Product

Some people stick to a brand or a product in logo designing. It’s not important to stick to the brand. If you are designing a logo for a restaurant, then don’t stick to food designs. You can always follow a theme or image in designing. Branding does not mean that you stick to the same concept.

Follow a design that’ll work for branding and also create a great image of your company. Don’t use bold colours and concepts. It’s always good to design a logo based on the core concept or your brand. Bold colours or bold logos will affect the designing part.

5. Don’t Use Clip-arts and Ready to Use Images

It’s easy to use clip-arts for logo designing, but clip-art is community art. If you are trying to design an original logo, then you should avoid clip art in your design concept. A logo with clip-art can’t be trademarked as a normal original design would.

Using clip arts and ready to use images is surely an inexpensive way of designing, but it is surely not worth it. A logo should be created with original effort as its important for business promotion and marketing.

6. Don’t Re-brand Every Year

Rebranding is a good thing to do as it helps in business. But, you can’t do the same thing with your logo. You can’t design a logo every year for rebranding purpose. A logo is an image that stays with your customers. Changing it frequently will only hamper your business prospects. It’s a good idea to create a logo after every ten years as that’ll serve your purpose.

Final Notes

A logo goes beyond the pretty visual. It resonates to the concept and the purpose of your product or business. It’s the star of your branding and marketing. With changing trends, logos have become classier and artistic.

There are software’s you can use to design your own company logo. If you are looking to create your own logo, stick to the dos and don’ts above. Logo designing needs originality, creativity, and conceptualization. So, keep it simple and experiment with its design!

 

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