Show Your Logo Some Love
February is the month of love. It’s natural to splurge more on chocolate and flowers, but don’t forget about your logo. Show it some love by giving it an updated look, while keeping in mind logo design basics. The ultimate aim of any logo is brand recognition. The logo is your brand’s personality condensed into a symbol and should remain constant across all platforms. It should be sleek, modern, easily-identifiable, positive, and timeless. Revamping your logo can bring a much-needed facelift to your brand image without taking the time to completely rebrand. There are a lot of reasons why you might consider a change: your brand has outgrown its current logo design or you’re looking for a more modern image. How do you know when it’s time for an update? Here are some quick tips to help you assess whether it’s time for a change, and how to implement the change successfully.
Keep It Consistent
Your logo might be your most important brand asset. It is your brand personified, and should be present on all advertising, web presence, and marketing collateral. If the logo isn’t matching across all public-facing materials, this could make business-to-consumer or business-to-business communication confusing and might present a ripe opportunity for a logo redesign. When redesigning your logo, you should consider updating business cards, letterheads, signage, etc. to achieve consistency throughout. Some companies differentiate logos depending on the medium — a sleeker, more modern version as a social media avatar, for example — proving it is important to think about the purpose of minute changes to the logo.
Don’t Overwhelm, Simplify
A New York Times article reported that the average 21st century individual sees about 2,000 ads a day. This translates to 2,000 logos inundating people daily, creating a “sensory overload” on the consumer. This has led to a trend of minimalistic design, creating sleek simple lines that please the eyes and don’t overwhelm the consumer. What happens when the consumer becomes overwhelmed and overstimulated? They tune out. People generally process images within thirteen milliseconds, and with people seeing about 2,000 ads a day, the skill required to make a logo recognizable within that length of time might seem like a daunting task. Although it wouldn’t make sense for small businesses, the corporate elite such as Nike, Apple and Pepsi have launched a trend of removing the company name from their logo entirely. Doing so shows a clear aim to tie the logo to the brand, making it recognizable based on image alone, in short, reaching “iconic” status. Though this may not be applicable to most brands, this lesson can be applied to redesign in terms of keeping aims clear and simple.
Assess Your Values
Your logo is the face of brand recognition, and web presence plays an important role. Expanding your brand into cyberspace may require a more modern take on an outdated logo. As with trends in music or fashion, design trends come in waves, and if you have a logo bogged down in an old look, it may confuse consumers. Some logos are timeless. Coca-Cola for example, hasn’t updated their logo in over 200 years. Identifying what quantifies your brand’s values can help you assess whether your logo is currently representing those values. A brand with a commitment to design and youthfulness may completely redesign their logo frequently, whereas a brand with a dedication to traditionalism may need only minimal tweaks to keep their logo recognizable without it looking outdated.
Company Changes
A quick walk-through of your home would find that many household brand logos fall short of “timeless” or “iconic.” Companies change. They merge, downsize, differentiate, acquire new values, or ditch old ones. External market changes can also affect how your company changes, and a company may find itself updating to keep up with the times. Logo redesign is a quick and subtle way to communicate these changes to consumers without launching a campaign. A company that expands geographically or into new product categories may find the need for differentiated logos that represent how these offerings are different from the original parent company. From word marks to symbols and letter marks to emblems, all logo types aim to do one thing: attain memorability that creates loyal customers
Whether you think it’s time for a simple touch-up or a whole redesign, Creative Juice is here to give you options. We understand your goal to keep your brand’s image looking sleek and reflective of its values and personality. We can help you show your logo some love with an updated design. Consider our collateral options by contacting Creative Juice.
