When it comes to designing the logo for your business, it’s interesting to know that there are no hard and fast rules. There is no specific path that defines what makes a great logo. Even if there are any rules, they can simply be broken. Yet, creating your business’s logo is a very important decision to make.
One of the reasons why it’s a heavy decision is that getting a logo professionally designed might cost you a substantial amount of money and time. This is particularly true for businesses that sell physical products. That’s why the best thing is if you can get it perfect in your very first attempt. Once a business or an entrepreneur officially launches its logo, it’s as if they have officially committed to take the business off the ground.
According to the general consensus, designers say that a good logo design is one that is simple yet scalable, unique but not too weird, and workable in monochrome. Using these sound practices helps businesses to design a logo that their prospects like. But these prerequisites are not enough. You need to know more about what makes a great logo in order to avoid any chances of failure.
There are so many resources available these days for businesses to get a good logo design, such as apps like 99designs, and freelance platforms like Upwork to hire designers at cheap rates. On one hand, such resources are cost-effective for small business startups that are looking to stay lean by outsourcing most of their work. On the other hand, these resources increase the competition and thus the pressure on every business to have its logo stand out from others.
More so, designing has now become digitized, which means it has become harder to be more creative. Most of the programs that render graphics can only afford linear patterns, such as triangles, rectangles, squares or ovals. Illustrations have begun to lack uniqueness as paper and pen drawings go out of the scenes. What makes a great logo is actually its uniqueness and originality. If you make a logo that doesn’t have an original design, it won’t be able to attract your prospects the way it should.
What is the Purpose of a Great Logo?
A business logo serves the purpose of conditioning the minds of consumers towards their perception of the business. It is a symbol through which consumers or clients differentiate your business from others. It is a very critical aspect of your brand image as well as brand loyalty.
If there were no logos, there would be no concept of branding. Without branding, customers won’t be able to truly identify themselves with any business. Even if a customer regularly buys from a particular business, he/she wouldn’t be able to promote that business through word of mouth. Customers need to be shown a symbol, in the form of a great logo, and given a tagline, so that they can remember your business and spread the word about it. Thus a logo acts as the central part of a business’s branding. It is important for every businessman to know what makes a great logo.
Besides being the core of branding, a great logo has the following potential for a business.
1. Draw New Customers
People are usually drawn to a good logo design in the same way that they are drawn to a good web design or a good billboard design. At times, your logo could be the reason a customer thought about trying out your product or service. If you have a great logo, that could become the reason a potential client chose to step into your office. What makes a great logo is really its ability to draw new customers into your business.
2. Remind Existing Customers
Customers need to be reminded from time to time that your business still exists and that they can buy from you again. If you make a logo that’s prominent, precise and appealing, it is going to remind your customers about your brand and products every time they see it. This will help you to retain customers and build a good brand image.
3. Promote Brand Loyalty
A great logo gives customers a sense of belonging to the brand. All businesses with good brand loyalty understand what makes a great logo, and put in time, energy, effort and money in coming up with a good logo design. They see it as totally worth it because they believe it’s going to pay off in the form of well-established brand loyalty.
What Makes a Good Logo?
There are certain characteristics that determine what makes a good logo. Let’s look into this one by one.
1. Simple
If you notice, the logos of most of the popular brands are surprisingly simple. When a logo is simple, it is easy to remember and recognize. It is good for a logo to be simple and memorable because customers usually focus on a brand’s logo for a very short time. In that short time, they need to be able to capture the logo design into their mind and remember it for their future interactions with the brand.
If your logo is too complicated, your customers will have a hard time remembering your business, and even your brand name. Thus a simple and good logo design is sufficient to express the personality of your brand in a concise and effective manner.
Simplicity is what makes a great logo, and helps the business highlight the most critical parts of their brand’s personality. Simple logos can be very precise in their fonts and colors. So by keeping your logo simple, you won’t be missing out on the variety of styles that you can use to design a logo.
Some good logo designs that are simple and sweet are made of only letters or wordmarks. These kinds of logos really work. The fewer elements you use to design a logo, the more clear a message you’ll be sending out about your brand’s identity.
The screenshot below shows a very simple logo displayed on a company’s official website.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
2. Relevant
A great logo must have a quality that must be relevant to your market or industry. For instance, if you operate in the toys industry, what makes a great logo is that it has bright colors to attract children. Bright colors communicate fun, energy, and excitement.
Besides the colors, the font in your logo letters must also be relevant to the purpose your brand tends to fulfill. For example, if your company sells technological products, thin and angular fonts would make a good logo design for you. On the other hand, if you are selling jewelry, you might want to use softer cursives in your font.
The image below shows a logo that’s relevant to the industry. For example, this company is running a hostel and restaurant business, and the flames in the logo represent cooking.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
3. Memorable
Another key characteristic of a good logo design is that it must be memorable. This ties in with the first two characteristics mentioned above. If a logo is simple, it is easier for customers to remember it. Also, if the brand logo is relevant to the market it’s targeting, customers will be able to identify it with the products they buy from the brand and thus remember the brand for a long time. Thus creating a unique design is what makes a great logo.
To make a logo memorable, it also needs to be unique. Mainstream and common stuff is usually forgotten more quickly than something very unique, so your logo should stand out among others and stick in your customers’ minds.
The image below shows a memorable logo. The shape of the leaf reminds you of the beauty and smooth-flowing nature of the dresses that this company sells.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
4. Timeless
A great logo can stand the test of time. If it’s relevant to your business today, it should remain relevant to the industry over the years. Furthermore, a logo is something that you won’t be changing every year. Your logo will remain the same whether you introduce a new line of products or penetrate into a new market segment. Therefore, the logo you choose has to be timeless because it should never ‘expire’.
Timeless logos are more about quality than quantity. This means what makes a great logo focuses on precisely what works, rather than using unnecessary elements to create your logo.
The image below shows a straightforward and timeless logo. It is the name of the brand written in a stylish font. This kind of logo can never get outdated.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
5. Versatile
Last but not least, a good logo design represents your brand in various ways and situations. For example, a logo that’s not flexible in size and can only be used in one size is unsuitable for online use.
What makes a great logo is that it’s resizable, printable, device-friendly for desktop and mobiles, and even recolorable if required. This versatility is the key to keep your logo valid in different situations and across other marketing media used in your marketing plan.
Logos that become unrecognizable, illegible or distorted when resized are not great. One of the characteristics that make a logo versatile is if it is created in vector art. Vector graphics are easy to scale up or down, and thus make good logo designs that are resizable or scalable.
The image below shows a versatile logo, created using vector graphics.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
When it comes to websites, logos form part of the web design. However, if you are looking to build a website for your brand, you can choose to use our website builder called Strikingly, making it very easy for you to launch your site in just a few hours.
We understand that when someone is starting a business, they have a lot on their minds to deal with. That’s why we struggle to make as many things simpler for you as possible. For example, if you build a site in Strikingly, you can select from various templates to create your web design. That will save you time and energy to invest in coming up with a good logo design.
