Why do I need a logo for my business?

Having a quality logo is extremely important to your business

Logos are a critical aspect of business marketing

Whether you own a business or not, you see the importance of a logo, brand, design. Your eyes are drawn to all sorts of advertising, signs, promotions and logos.

A logo anchors a company’s brand and becomes the single most visible manifestation of the company within the target market. For this reason, a well-designed logo is an essential part of any company’s overall marketing strategy.

Purpose of a Company Logo

Corporate logos are intended to be the “face” of a company: A logo is a graphical representation of a company’s unique identity. A logo consists of many elements. Colors and fonts and images provide the essential information about a company that allows customers to identify with the company’s core brand.

Logos are also a shorthand way of referring to the company in advertising and marketing materials; they also provide an anchor point for the various fonts, colors and design choices in all other business marketing materials.

Design Principles

Good logos should be unique and comprehensible to potential customers. Although there are endless choices for color, visual elements and typography, in general a logo should help convey some information about the company, or be designed in a way that gives some sense of meaning about the company or its industry.

Brand Identity

Logos are the chief visual component of a company’s overall brand identity. The logo appears on stationery, websites, business cards and advertising. For that reason, a well-designed logo can contribute to business success, while a substandard logo can imply amateurishness and turn off potential customers. However, a logo should cohere well with other aspects of a company’s visual presentation: No logo, however well designed, can look good when surrounded by contradictory graphical elements or inconsistent fonts. This is why a logo is the basic unit of a larger brand identity that includes company fonts, colors and document-design guidelines.

Return on Investment

As consumers grow to know, like and trust a specific brand, they are more likely to respond positively to successive encounters with a logo–potentially leading to increased sales or improved mind share within the target market. In addition, a well-designed logo implies a degree of professionalism and competence that could help steer potential new clients toward selecting the business rather than a competitor with no or substandard logos.

Common Mistakes

Small businesses often play it fast-and-loose with logos, paying insufficient attention to their proper size and positioning and surrounding them with materials–including clipart–that compete with them visually. Avoid re-creating different types of logos for specific purposes (e.g., letterhead and business cards) or having similar-but-not-identical versions for print and online purposes.

What Types of Logos are there?

Psychology of Color

What is a font?

What types of logos are there?

Wordmarks

Wordmarks are freestanding word or multi-letter abbreviation groupings comprising a logo, a.k.a. logotypes.

Companies with wordmark logos include eBay, IBM, CNN, Google, Kleenex, Saks Fifth Avenue.

Letterform

Letterform logos are comprised of a single letter.

Think Honda, Uber, Unilever, Beats and McDonald’s.

Pictorial Logos

Pictoral logos are illustrated symbols of recognizable things.

Starbucks, Twitter and Playboy all have pictorial logos.

Abstract  Logos

Abstract logos don’t represent anything otherwise recognizable, like abstract art.

Perhaps the most famous brand to successfully pull off an abstract logo is Nike

Psychology of Color

Is it any surprise that, in any logo, color is one of the most important elements? After all, color has been shown not only to affect people’s mood, but also their buying choices when they shop.

You can find all sorts of guides and infographics breaking down the thoughts and feelings that color can inspire. Here are some examples of the emotions and impressions that colors have been shown to convey:

RED

EXCITEMENT and BOLDNESS

Red is a primary color. Red is often associated with the heat of sun and fire and is considered a high-arousal color, often stimulating people to take risks, according to color think tank.

It has also been shown to stimulate the senses and raise blood pressure, and it may arouse feelings of power, energy, passion, love, aggression, or danger.

What RED does to our Personality / Emotions

Red evokes strong emotions. Encourages appetite and increases passion and intensity.

Marketing

Red increases the heart rate and is used by restaurants to stimulate appetite. It also creates urgency as in sales or clearance items.

ORANGE

FRIENDLINESS, CHEERFULNESS

YELLOW

OPTIMISM, CONFIDENCE

GREEN

PEACE, NURTURING, FRESHNESS

BLUE

CALMNESS, STRENGTH, SECURITY

PURPLE

IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY

BLACK

TRADITION, SOPHISTICATION, AUTHORITY

What is a font?

... and how many fonts are there?

A font is a set of printable or displayable text character s in a specific style and size.

The type design for a set of fonts is the typeface and variations of this design form the typeface family . Thus, Helvetica is a typeface family, Helvetica italic is a typeface, and Helvetica italic 10-point is a font.

In practice, font and typeface are often used without much precision, sometimes interchangeably.

The two most popular outline font software programs on today’s computers are TrueType and Adobe’s Type 1. TrueType fonts come with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. However, Type 1 is a standard outline font (ISO 9541). Both TrueType and Type 1 fonts can be used by Adobe’s PostScript printers.

Independent developers and graphic designers create new typefaces for both TrueType and Type 1. Adobe states that there are over 30,000 Type 1 fonts available. Fonts (in addition to those that come with your computer) can be purchased as individual typeface families or in typeface collections.

 

RED

EXCITEMENT, BOLDNESS, HUNGER (HUNGER IS AN EMOTION HERE AT QLP)