Whether you are flying solo or running a big corporation, your business can easily get lost in the shadow of competitors seeking the market’s attention — unless you etch your identity on the minds of your target audience through your logo design.
For businesses great and small, the logo design is an icon. It works pretty much like the computer icons you see on your desktop computer. It is a tool for remembering and recalling. In business, it is more than just for identification of a business—it is also an important piece of graphic art that establishes your business’ nature and credibility.
Your business logo is a fascinating visual piece. It may be as simple or as elaborate as you want it to be, but it is a potent representation of your entire business. You can unleash tomes and volumes of paper documents and press releases that tell your audience what your business is all about. Yet, your logo can do it better, simply because the logo encapsulates who you are and what you do. The logo could never be as thick as a report, too. The real power of the business logo is in visual media’s ability to reach beyond human logic and tug at heartstrings.
RELATED: How Effective is Your Logo Design?
With a well-crafted emblem or icon for your business, a person who sees it for the first time will form initial impressions about your business. Through the lines and shapes, through the characters and colors and other graphic elements, the viewer will instantly imagine the kind of business entity represented by the image. That is how powerful a logo can be in creating first impressions. For someone who knows your business, even at a superficial level, your logo will evoke a sense of closeness and affinity, both of which can come in handy when the person eventually starts to need the product or service that your enterprise can provide. That is how powerful your logo can be when it comes to building goodwill and preserving your business name in the person’s memory.
People are visual creatures. They interact cognitively and affectively to what they see. Straight lines and sharp edges evoke an image of sturdiness, professionalism, and efficiency. Bright and vibrant colors evoke a sense of excitement and dynamism. Provided that you have given much thought to your business logo, the choices that you make concerning its graphic contents can easily translate the cognitive and affective impressions into one that your business can profit from: consumer action, or psychomotor response.
RELATED: How to Create Your Company Identity
Your business emblem, therefore, must be crafted carefully so that it will achieve at least two great purposes: accurately reflect the nature and direction of your business, as well as make people feel good about your company. For these two reasons, spend time and resources in designing your business mark. If you do, you can be sure that your investment in time and resources will never be for naught.
If you want your business to be remembered—and to be remembered fondly—by your target audience, make sure that your logo design catches the eye, is memorable, and projects the kind of image you want to be carved in people’s minds.
Recommended Books on How to Use Your Logo:
- Essential Elements for Brand Identity: 100 Principles for Designing Logos and Building Brands (Design Essentials)
- Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team
- Brand: It ain’t the logo* (*It’s what people think of you)
- Brand Bible: The Complete Guide to Building, Designing, and Sustaining Brands
- Building a Big Small Business Brand ( How to turn your brand into your most valuable asset)
- Why It Sells: Decoding the Meanings of Brand Names, Logos, Ads, and Other Marketing and Advertising Ploys (The R&L Series in Mass Communication)
- Dynamic Identities: How to Create a Living Brand
