Your company – your brand – needs a logo, and you’ve decided to get one designed by a professional. Great! How do you decide that the result is exactly what you need? Is it art or is it science? I’d say it’s a little bit of both. Here are some guidelines that will help you make the right decision.
- Simplicity. Your logo should be uncomplicated and easily recognizable at a glance. There should be no complex details – your logo should be clear even when it’s small or viewed from afar. Think of iconic logos like Nike’s swoosh or Target’s target.
- Relevance. Your logo should be relevant to your brand’s identity, values, and target audience. It needs to reflect the essence of the emotion you want to associate with your brand. An experienced designer will ask you questions about your brand, your mission, and why you’re in this business. Colors, fonts, and shapes should reflect your industry and your brand’s personality (e.g., bright colors for a fun, playful brand, or sleek, modern lines for a tech company).
- Versatility. Your logo should work well in various formats: color, black and white, and grayscale. Test your logo on paper, on screens of various sizes, and in different contexts.
- Beauty. This is a tricky one. In order to be beautiful, in order for its shape to be magnetic and to attract the eye, your logo should adhere to the natural laws of balance and proportion. The proportion that’s found everywhere in nature is ɸ (phi), or the “Golden Ratio,” which is roughly 1: 1.618034. The phi proportion is found in the human body, other animals, plants, DNA, art and architecture, music, and so on. It’s no wonder that we tend to consider beautiful the designs, which have the Golden Ratio encoded in them. Your logo should exhibit the phi proportions, and, preferably, in more ways than one.
If the logo you received adheres to these guidelines, then, chances are – it’s the one. Something important to keep in mind: when you receive the final version of your logo, be sure to keep and safeguard the vector files, and the files of the font(s) the designed used when making it! This way when the time comes to print your logo on a large banner, for example, or to make a small change, you won’t have to chase after the original designer, hoping that they will have kept the files, or to re-create the logo from scratch, risking it being different.
Logo design is one of my specialties – call or write me for a free consultation.