Do’s and Don'ts: What Makes a Good Logo Design?

A question that has been haunting designers and entrepreneurs alike is understanding what makes a good logo. This question can mean the difference between success and failure for your business. Understanding what makes a good logo may not seem profitable that you invest valuable time that could have been put elsewhere. But before you overlook this vital aspect of a successful business, you might want to check out these simple points on what makes a great logo and why your business should create one right now.

What Exactly is a Logo?

In layman terms, logos are symbols made up of images or text that helps brand identity among customers. A good logo is the cornerstone of a brand and will help customers (and potential customers) identify with the business.

The most important function of your brand logo is to give your company or organization a unique mark that will set you apart from other businesses (AKA your competitors). A good logo will also provide your customer base with important information about your company – it can communicate what product or service you are providing, what industry you exist in, your brand values and sometimes even your brand values.

Image taken from Strikingly’s user website

Why Do You Need a Logo?

Before we get into what makes a good logo design, you need to look into the purpose behind the logo. Here are 4 reasons why you need to have a great logo.

1. Gives You Visual Identity

Remember the old Wild West movies where cowboys brand their cows? This identified their cattle among other similar-looking cows. It identified who the cows belonged to. The logo does the same job for your business. It is a visual representation of your company and tells the world/potential customers who you are, the types of products and services you sell, or the benefits you provide to consumers, and more all in a unified symbol.

2. Draw New Customers

We do not live in a monochrome world. People are drawn to interesting designs and colors. The attraction factor of your logo can push potential customers to at least want to see your product, increasing the chances of a sale.

3. Distinguishing Feature

Some icons represent a particular industry or product. For example, how many pizzerias have mustaches, big white hats, and the logo of an Italian chef with a bright smile? So when people see a similar-looking image, it reminds them of pizza, more specifically, pizzeria pizza. Perhaps you have a huge pizza in a grotesque way? A good logo not only reflects who you are but also makes you stand out from others.

4. Promoting Brand Loyalty

You know the feeling you get when you see the emblem of your favorite football team. It gives you a sense of belonging. A brand logo does just that. It helps your customers identify with your brand. Whenever there is an intention to purchase, the logo makes sure that your brand is the first on their mind.

Logos are thus an important aspect of branding that you must include as part of building your business. But there’s more to what makes a good logo than just throwing shapes, colors, and fonts together to make it look flashy.

What Makes a Good Logo Design?

This question has been around since the very first logo. And the answer to it changes with changing trends. A logo design tip from a couple of years ago, may not be as useful, if you’re designing a new logo. And so, we have come up with general logo designing dos and don'ts that’ll precisely tell you what makes a good logo.

The Do’s

1. Define Your Audience

Defining your audience is the first step to what makes a good logo design. Your logo is supposed to enchant your main target audience and make them identify with your brand. Create a logo that you know will be appealing to your audiences. Look at the logo from your target audience perspective and understand what grabs their attention. So, identify their interests and online habits and create the perfect logo that is guaranteed to catch their eye.

Social media is a good place to understand consumer behaviour. The type of pages they follow will give you an idea of what gets their attention. If your targeted users follow a majority of clean, minimal feeds, then that’s where you should start.

2. Make Sure it’s Legible

Logos should be easy to read. If you create a logo and the idea behind it is not quite clear or legible, you might have to reconsider the font you chose. Customers may see your logo and see a name that doesn't look like what you want. It creates confusion. Keep typography simple and legible, and avoid complicated or overly complicated fonts. Paying attention to the font plays an important role in making the logo understandable for everyone. You can be creative, but make sure your audience can read your logo. After all, you don't want to buy a product from a brand you don't know!

3. Plan for All Sizes

Of course, you will need to display your logo on business cards, social media pages, or websites, but that's just the beginning of building your business. Your logo will go to various other media platforms and ads. So be sure that increasing the size of your logo to fit a sign or poster, does not affect the quality of the logo. The logo should be perfect, even when scaling. Test your logo in different sizes to make sure it doesn't degrade when you want to make your logo bigger (or smaller).

Options are also needed to allow placing logos using different colors on different backgrounds. It also avoids future printing restrictions. Make sure your logo looks great regardless of the format you choose to promote your product.

4. Keep the Tagline in Mind

When creating a brand identity, the tagline is an important aspect of expressing your personality. If you include a tagline in your logo, make it shorter than your business name so that the logo doesn't get cluttered or look shabby. When choosing a font, use a light font in the tagline so that the brand name is noticed first. You need to create a story in the tagline without making it too complicated or boring to read. The brand slogan should be eye-catching and striking. Brands such as Nike, McDonald's, and L'Oreal are great examples of creating catchy slogans.

5. Choose the Right Color Scheme

Just like how fonts make an impression, colors tend to evoke different emotions and feelings when viewed. The colors you choose can be the difference between what makes a good logo and an ordinary-looking logo. For example, fast-food restaurants tend to use shades of yellow and red that are known to evoke a feeling of hunger. Social media platforms use blue for branding and logos as it invokes a feeling of trust.

So be sure of what emotions you want customers to associate with when they see your logo. You can choose the color scheme for your brand based on target audiences. Yellow is known to evoke feelings of hunger, but it also evokes happiness and optimism. Green evokes feelings of nature and personal growth. Pink evokes compassion and love, but purple is often associated with royalty and spirituality.

So, we’ve established 5 steps that tell you what makes a good logo. But you also need logo design tips that keep you from making amateur mistakes.

Image taken from Strikingly’s user website

Don’ts:

1. Be Too Complex

Simplicity is the key! Don't overdo the colors, and don't make them look like expensive works of art. It can be too distracting and cause people to focus on the wrong side of the logo. Adding too many elements will also affect the scalability of your logo. A logo doesn't have to be a complicated design. It does not require hours of detailed sketches. Instead, you can apply a website design scheme to your logo.

2. Copying Other Brands

When talking about what makes a good logo or a bad one, we cannot leave out this point as it can have legal implications. Copying other brands or companies is obvious plagiarism and generates a lot of negative publicity. The goal of a brand is to differentiate itself from its competitors. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to be authentic and original. And you can’t do this by copying other brands. Know the difference between inspiration and imitation. Any infringements on copyright issues can also get your company involved in legal matters.

3. Rebrand

Consistency is very important when it comes to logos. You don't need to update your logo often, because your marketing strategy should be consistent throughout products and time. Constantly changing or updating a logo can frustrate customers, and making significant changes can make the logo unrecognizable. Take the McDonald's logo for example. The two yellow bows have been a permanent symbol of the brand since 1961. And though Coca-Cola has undergone several logo changes since its inception in 1886, in most cases the brand has been consistent since it found its voice.

4. Track Trends

Trends are constantly changing, and following trends when designing your logo can make your brand obsolete in about a year. The trends are great to follow for marketing purposes, but they are not useful for branding or logo creation. Remember, what makes a good logo, may not necessarily make a great logo. For example, if it were 2013 and you decided to use the popular "Dog" meme for your logo, that logo won't attract many viewers for years to come.

5. Be too literal

Logos are fun and colorful! But if the design is too literal, it can be too complex or boring. The more unique and creative you are, the better. Adding text and a logo with too much detail can make the logo too narrow and distracting. With the information, you can automatically direct the audience's attention to other places.

These dos and don’t exactly tell you what makes a good logo and help you make a good logo design. But wouldn't it be better if we showed you some examples of what makes a good logo?

That's exactly what we’re gonna do.

Brilliant Logo Design Examples

Strikingly is an intuitive website builder platform that allows businesses to build an online presence and expand their reach. So here are a few logos used by Strikingly users.