Your logo is the face of your business. Take it seriously. Once you launched it, you should
preferably not have to change it again and again in the future. The investment you make on
your business image, marketing and goodwill will be lost when you change your logo. Thus, it
is important to spend time and resources to pin down a logo you feel works for you and your
marketing. Now and in the future. But do you know how you can go about getting that dream
logo for your business? You can start here.
1. A good logo defines the business entity. It defines the entity in terms of its scope of business, both now and in the mid to long term. What is the essence of your business? What is your unique selling proposition compared to your competitors? It defines the marketing stance in terms that its customers, business associates and owners can identify with and can be proud of.
2. A good logo is aesthetically exciting. As a beautiful face makes people more receptive, so can a graphically inspiring logo be more inviting. It's all about a good impression. And like a impressionable face, a good logo has strong lines, good balance and a unifying look to it. We think of these as divided into five issues of shape, fonts, space, colors and unity (See the face of your logo).
3. Good logos are visible and readable from far. Stay away from hard-to-read fonts or colors that don't offer contrast. Some color schemes look nice indoors, but look weak outdoor under he sun. Ask yourself where possibly will you use your logo in the futue for marketing.
4. When deciding on your logo, look at the "Evergreen" factor. Your logo might look contemporary right now, but do spare a thought on how it will look five years from now. Some logos look good even after 10 years. As marketing icons, logos are best designed so that they don't have the fanciest fonts and the most trendy color schemes. Instead, they should have an "old but still looking good" feel.
5. Unique. Simple yet so hard to achieve. Your logo will grace your shop front, your letterheads, your namecards ... yet if your logo looks like an icon off a clipart page, it will fail to impress. And worse, you may be lumped by soem of your customers as "one of those small players who will be here today and gone tomorrow". Your logo's uniqueness will go a long way to help you position your company as a serious player with strong potential in your niche area.
Logos are like people. Each defined by their personality. Logo personality are defined by these five issues. Very often, the five issues overlap each
other as one decision can affect the other issues as well, so a discussion of these issues cannot be isolated.
Shape
When a logo designer sets to work on a logo, it will invariably have to decide on its shape. Is it rectangular, triangular, round or what? Is this the
shape of the symbol only or is it the combined shape with symbol and business name. Then, is portrait or landscape format better given the issues of
the logo design project. These considerations are often arrived at through consultations with the business owners as well as researching into
competitor's logos. Even more important would be the concerns of where the logo would have to be frequently used. For example, a tire
manufacturer was concerned that his logo might not work well on highway billboards if it were portrait formatted - so a landscape format is
adopted as billboard advertising is an important advertising mix to him. Good logo designers must understand the marketing issues behind logo
designs. In fact, they must understand the magic of marketing. One key concern would be the height to width ratio of the logo created.
Consider the logo: NOKIA
Versus the logo: MOTOROLA
NOKIA's logo is 1:4, whereas Motorola's is 1:7. Given a similarly fixed advertising width, Nokia's logo would be more prominent than Motorol's (all
things being equal). We are not saying which is better, we are simply saying that an awareness of the issue of shape ratio would help you make a
better decision when you fashion your logo. When the shape ratio gets too tall or too wide, we start having problems and generally we try to discourage a
long thin or narrow logo. A more regular shape is more functionable.
For logos with a monogram, the height-width ratio would be easier to balance. For a word logo, the ratio would most likely be a minimum of 1: 4 or
even 1:7. Before you decide whether your logo should be a symbol only or symbol+word or words only, do consider the height-width logo and how
it applies to your marketing. Definitely, a more balanced height-width logo would allow the brand to be taller and therefore more conspicuous within
a given space.
Fonts
One of the means to balance height-width ratios is to choose a taller font if the name word in the logo is unusually long. For example, the font:
 is much taller than a font like 
given a certain pointsize and could be used to control excessively awkward height-width ratios in long names. More than that, space between letters
could be reduced or expanded to fine tune the logo to attain favorable or preferred ratio. More on this under the topic "SPACE" later.
Fonts are known to convey characters which are attributable to the brand. We should know something about fonts being loosely categorized as:
Traditional
Modern
Post-modern
Handwriting / Cursive
The study of fonts in relates to the character it exudes is called Typography. As to whether this is a lost art in this computer age or not, it is certainly
not to be forgotten in the consideration of a logo adoption. The study is so broad and sophisticated that only a short discourse can be offered in this
discussion. Shortly, we look at the serif styling of each font type and the าbelly and curvesำ of the letters in the alphabet and the numeric set.
Look at the following "feet" of these fonts:
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Trendy fonts tend to have flat feet which aids readability. |
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Traditional fonts have curvy feet which came from manuscript writings. Fonts have a more elegant and luxurious look. |
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Modern fonts without feet says "I am in a hurry". These super effficient fonts are good for industrial look. Some fonts also depict modern mini malist or cyltureless city life. |
Each type of serif or "feet" suggests a certain personality, strength, energy and balance. Knowing the main branches of these types and how to use
them in appropriate situations is the key job of a successful logo designer. It depends on the mood and feelings that a logo is supposed to exude.
These serifs can also be modified successfully to create a customized communication. Generally, a textbook categorization is to consider curvy serif
types as "elegant", straight slab serif types as "trendy-hurry", non-serif faces as "efficient-industrial". But the world of type would be simpler if not
for hybrids that can suggest in-betweens and other adjectives.
A typeface that has a big belly has a lot of space inside, and generally would look lighter and "floatable" as a logotype. Because such font type are
airier within, they generally need more space outside and around them to look more comfortable to the eye. Thus, squeezing them with a tight inter-
lettering spacing or a tight leading could end up with a contrived look that is strange to the eye. Such fonts need more personal space and when
denied, will protest by irritating the eye.
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Belly size of Century Gothic font is the biggest. But the thick and thin strokes of Garamond makes the font look busier than therefore less relaxed. It does looks less airy. Now look at the subtlly thick and thin strokes of Optima which carries a grace about its thick and thin transitions and give the font a feeling of space within that is the most graceful of the 4 fonts |
Now, going back to what was said earlier about height-width ratio, we will realize that big belly fonts with long
business names will yield extremely low height-width ratios (Good or not? That depends on what you want to
achieve with the logo, but generally it would be negative). Big belly types are also perceived as “richer”. The rich
stays in big bungalows and have more personal space than a poor worker who sleeps in a quarter with 5 other
men. I hope you are following the analogies here because in typography, there are many such analogies.
Fonts are also classed by their readability. Traditional fonts are preferred for businesses where customers and
associates viewing the brand are more conservative. Abstract fonts are harder to read, but could serve to communicate
a willingness to break conventional rules for more creative executions when carrying out business decisions.
Abstract types also characterize age and youth, suggesting a rebellious streak that may work as an appeal
to customers (pubs, discos use them).
There are estimated over 200 thousand fonts in use everyday. Your logo is like a movie star with fan clubbers and
haters. Alot has to do with personal preferences of the owners and commentators concerned. But having an
understanding of the science of finding a suitable font would at least reduce the confusion of picking a right font
from the depth of a haystack.
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Space
The word "space" is synonymous with the word "balance". A good logo has to have a good balance that sits well in any situation. MacDonald's logo is said to have a good balance with the letter "M" against a horizontal floor. Balance is more than that. It needs to consider:
shape of the logo (gravitational balance),
Elemental balance (visual balancing right, left, top and bottom) and
Inter-lettering/ inter-word balance (Lettering weight balancing)
Color balance
Colors
Traditional logo designs have a rule: that is, if it works in black & white, it is a good logo. Too many logos depend on the attention of colors to make them attractive. It would be a good test; to see if your logo works just as well without the interference of colors. However, in Web 2.0 logos, colors are inextricably linked to colors such that the logos do not work without colors. The era is brought about by the internet where businesses often need not exist outside the internet so the de-emphasis on the paper rendition of the logo (such as the humble facsimile sheet which must be black & white) . Also, a phletoria of Photoshop and Illustrator effects make Web 2.0 logos highly dependent on colors (effects such as transparency , 3D, mirror effects, etc).
Colors schemes are often the key issues in a logo that a marketer would spend time deciding. Look at the color chart below. Colors opposite the color wheel are called complementary. Colors next to each other are called supplementary. The rule on color schemes suggest that opposite colors work more graphically. Neighbouring colors also work as color schemes but as softer feels. See more on this in this link.
Some colors needs a lot of personal white or dull space to breathe. Reds and orange are typical and generally, the more white space you give a red element in a logo, the louder that colors works. Blues and greens soothes the eye as they are the colors of nature, and suggest some association of your business to nature.
Colors react differently when over-exposed. Reds, orange when over-exposed by a strong sunlight still looks red and orange. Blues and greens have less tolerance to an extra-bright environment. But the least tolerance for over-exposure is yellow. Thus, never make a logo in yellow if you intend to use it in very bright sunlight such as a signboard or billboard (the yellow would just look white). Another weak tolerance color is pink.
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Unity
Unity is a less-obvious concept to understand. It means bringing all the elements of shape, font, color, space together to yield a unique logo that only you have. People will not look at the logo and say, "hey, I have seen that logo somewhere else before". It means "Not-a-me-too" logo. The power of unity is that it can create a strong feeling of creative trust in your brand as it is unique, special and possessing personality. One good way of creating unity is through the use of "clever". A clever logo speaks volume of its originality as it is not easy for other brands to copy since they do not share the same name, symbol, font, height-width ratio, space and color attributes as your brand. The clever logo uses all the attributes to form a united look that is one of a kind.
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