Creating a Logo that Reflects Your Business

Your company logo is quite important. Very important, actually. It appears on your Web site, letterhead, business cards, maybe even your company’s building. Your logo can show your business’s personality. It’s the first impression people have of your company. You want to make a good impression, right? Follow these tips for designing the best logo for your company:

1. Your logo should be a sign of what your company represents. What do you want your customers to think of when they see your logo? Your logo needs to be unique – you don’t want a customer to mistake you for one of your competitors. Perhaps you have a trait that you want your customers to think of when they think of your company. For instance, if you run a pizza delivery company that guarantees a hot pizza at every delivery, something that connotes heat, like steam, could be incorporated in your logo.

2. Make sure your logo is clear and not convoluted. Don’t make it fancy and hard to read or understand. Forsake fanciful design for a clear message. Simple logos are more easily recognized than complex ones (think McDonald’s, Nike).

3. Make sure your logo looks good in black and white as well as color. It’s much cheaper to print in black and white than in color, and it’ll be easier to make copies. On the flip side, your logo needs to look good for commercial color printing for bigger, more important marketing opportunities, such as billboards.

4. Make sure your logo can be enlarged or shrunk. A good rule of thumb is the "business card/billboard rule": Your logo should look good on both, without being stretched out or shrunken so small that you can’t tell what it is. You may want to consult a graphics designer or graphics printing company for more guidance.

5. All parts of your logo should carry the same weight. What this means is that no one part of your logo should overshadow other parts. This contradicts good flyer design – you want one thing to focus on in flyer design, but with logos, it should all balance out.
There are some experts that say logos should last at least 10-15 years. But the bottom line is, create a logo that you love that is clear. Once you have a logo designed, the most important rule is: Don’t change it! Keep it just the way it is. For a long time. You might get tired of it, after looking at it every day for years, but just remember that all your potential customers are seeing it for the first time. If it’s worked for you in the past, it will keep working for you in the future.

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