I want you to sit back and close your eyes. With your eyes closed, I want you to picture McDonalds, Apple, and Amazon. What do you see when you picture them in your mind?
Probably their logos, right?
Their logos are so ingrained into our culture and everyday lives that we don’t even need to see the brand’s name to know who they are and what they represent. The logo for your business or organization does the same.
We know those first impressions are important, and like a good landing page, a good logo will draw in customers and give them an idea of the values of your company, increase your credibility, and serve as a tool for brand recall (or how well a customer recalls a brand later).
But what makes a logo effective and stand out as a little fish in a big pond?
A good logo is unique.
While it might seem like a good idea to use a well-known logo and edit it to fit your brand. That is considered plagiarism and is pretty illegal. Plus, it could give your customer an uneasy feeling.
Making your logo unique to your brand is a great way to stand out as a little fish in a big pond and build rapport with your customers. After all, if you can create that awesome and unique logo, what can you do for them?
A good logo is simple.
Think about the logos from earlier; what stands out among them all? They’re straightforward, right? Golden arches, a bite taken out of a simply illustrated apple, and everything A to Z. They stand out because of how simple they are.
Our Creative Manager and Graphic Design Extraordinaire, Brittany Baum, says the key to a great logo is going for readability. When choosing fonts for your logo, choose something easy to read and relevant to your brand. She also recommends keeping your palette simple at 1-3 colors when selecting colors. Four and up can make your logo hard to read and interpret.
Brittany also suggests using color theory when choosing colors. Select colors that represent your brand vision well. For example, suppose you want a bright and welcoming logo to portray a welcoming company. In that case, yellow is a great color to use. If you want your brand to come off as royal and high quality? Try purple.
Some other things to consider.
Keep your logo relevant to you, and don’t overload it!
Just because you love the color pink, cycling, and lounging on the beach doesn’t mean you need to add all of those to your logo. It makes it hard to read and understand – not to mention people won’t be sure exactly what your business does. And it’s not relevant to the industry. Keeping it relevant to your company and the industry is a great way to stand out.
Raster vs. Vector
When working with any graphic design, a vector file is the way to go! Why? Because of pixels.
Raster files are built from pixels – the tiny little squares of color that, when put together, form photographs, artwork, and more. The higher the pixel count, the higher the quality of the image. When you resize or zoom in on an image, you start to see the individual pixels, making your logo unreadable and blurry. It’s considered to be low quality and unprofessional.
Vector files use math (I know, I know!), curves, and lines on a grid with fixed points to create the image. This means that there are none of those little squares of color making up the image. A vector image can be resized and reshaped as often as necessary without distorting it. So, you can blow up a logo to put on a beach towel and then size it down to a business card with no problems.
Do you need help with a logo? Whether you need a custom logo made from the math equations on up (good ol’ vector joke!) or just want a few adjustments made to an existing logo, the highly talented and fabulous professional graphic designers of SAGE ArtworkZone are here to help! And it’s super affordable too! Click here to learn more about all the services SAGE ArtworkZone provides.
Editors Notes: This post was originally published in April 2015 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
I want you to sit back and close your eyes. With your eyes closed, I want you to picture McDonalds, Apple, and Amazon. What do you see when you picture them in your mind? Probably their
Source: Let’s Talk Logos – SAGE Blog
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