Logo Design: Beyond Just a Pretty Face

“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand” – Paul Rand.

In the present times, the race is to be a brand that connects with the audience and outstands the competition. In the process of making a brand, a favourite amongst its users, branding becomes very crucial. And logo takes the driver’s seat on this journey.

A good logo gives out a strong brand message, influences purchase decision and makes it easier to choose between a wide array of products/services. A good looking logo is only half work done. Logo achieves its goal when it’s appeal and functionality work in synergy.

Now before you get think of doing it yourself or getting it done by a beginner for free or at a cheap price, stop! There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap design.

Let’s say you visit a doctor for a surgery, you wouldn’t want to get yourself knifed by an inexperienced surgeon, right? After all, it’s about your life and death. The same way, you don’t want to get the face of your company designed by an inexperienced designer.

The deal is, experienced designers know what they’re doing, and they add value to the design which makes it exclusive.

logo terminology wordmark brandmark lockup

Functionality

1. Identifiable

The key function of having a logo is ‘identification’. It’s the face of the company and should have the potential to stand out in the crowded market for people to find you. The logo should be the face of the amazing experience, memories, and interaction the brand provides so that the onlooker associates the good experience with the face of the brand.

It’s very important to research on the competitive brands, their look and how your logo can stand out in that crowded space.

2. Readable

The wordmark should have proper kerning, contrast and should be readable in macro and micro situations, from print on a letterhead to a hoarding. Overdoing the typeface is also a bad practice. If your audience can’t read your brand name then it’s just a blob of colour on the page which nobody will remember.

3. High Recall Value

Making a good first impression is very important for the brand to have a good recall value, for them to remember the brand for the next requirement or even to suggest it to their friends. This can be achieved with the use of colour, interesting typography in the wordmark, or graphically represented brand mark. It’s a  good practice to avoid jumbling letters, skipping some letters from the word or adding numbers, which makes it very difficult to memorize the brand name.

Appeal

1. Contrast

In the market filled with logos, each trying to grab people’s attention, it’s very important to stand out of the crowd visually. Having a good contrast in the logo makes it more legible.

2. Colour Theory

Colours play an important role in evoking the right emotions. Each colour has its psychological effects attached to it, if these things are taken into consideration the logo can do wonders. The food industry prefers to go towards a warmer palette while the banking industry will move toward the cooler hues to establish the trust factor.

3. Trends

Design trends keep revising and things designed exclusively for that trend fades away with it. The logo should stand evergreen with the changing trends because a brand can’t afford to change its logo with the changing trend.

4. Simplicity

  “ The Ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary, so that the necessary may speak”. This quote by Hans Hofmann encapsulates the whole idea of design hitting the sweet spot of simplicity which has to be a balance between too much and too less. As Antoine de Saint once said, “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

logo design quote by antoine de saint

Hidden Meaning

Hidden meaning should be the last thing to consider in a logo design. It’s always fascinating to have a backstory attached to it but keep that as a secondary consideration.

Over To You

For the brand to make its place in this crowded space, researching the market and having a logo which functions to achieve what is it designed for while being pretty is very important.

So, get inspired and keep inspiring.