Brand Logo Design: Effective and Powerful Tips for Businesses

Your brand logo, website, and other social media accounts aren’t your brand. Your brand is what people experience with your company and how they perceive it. However, company logos, websites, and fully functional social media accounts are all relevant in building your brand.  

A Guide to Designing Your Brand Logo 

Brand logos, if you haven’t noticed, is what draws most people to a certain company even before they’d hear about its business, products, and services. Once consumers find a particular brand logo that attracts them and stimulates their fancies, they’d be curious to know more about that brand. 

If you’re interested in knowing more about a brand logo and its significant contributions to your company, grab a pen or laptop and take note of this logo-designing guide. 

What is a Brand Logo?

Before you apply the various tips and tricks in designing your brand logo, it’s crucial to understand what a brand logo is and its huge role in your company. Your brand logo is a big part of your company’s identity because it’s what people would see often. 

A logo is a blend of text and imagery that communicates your brand name to people. It’s a visual symbol that embodies who you are as a brand and your values and visions. Moreover, a good brand logo creates a lasting impression on people’s minds. It separates you from everyone else and helps foster brand loyalty. 

A brand logo, especially a well-designed one, is crafted with a meaning behind and within it. Your brand’s belief, core value, purpose, and vision must show and reflect in your brand logo. And when you can do that, you’ll realize that people would remember and find meaning in your logo. 

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What Makes a Good Logo?

Once you’ve established your understanding of what a brand logo is, the next concern to be addressed is the characteristics of a good brand logo. Aside from reflecting your company’s core values, other characteristics shape a good brand logo. 

Brands vary in their logos, and a few aspects may alter their design depending on their needs and interests. But regardless of the differences and uniqueness of every brand, there are five major characteristics that all businesses with the best logos share. 

Simple

Many of the most successful, impactful, and influential logos since time immemorial are surprisingly simple. This characteristic can be seen from Apple’s eponymous to Nike’s single swoosh or checkmark. Simple logos are easily recognized and remembered. 

Relevant

A great logo is deemed relevant to a company’s target markets. And a primary component in making your logo relevant is being mindful in choosing the right colors. Like every masterpiece, colors can trigger people’s emotions, including potential customers. One concrete example is a company that sells toys. The brand incorporated bright colors in its logo since it delivers the idea of fun, excitement, and energy. 

Aside from colors, the right font is another crucial component in designing your brand logo. Your chosen font would better show people your brand’s tone and personality. Angular and thin fonts are more utilized by companies that focus on technology, while softer cursives are ideal for companies that deal with jewelry or other women products.

Lastly, a relevant logo uses the appropriate symbol. It sets visual support for your logo and bridges connections between your brand and its core. 

Timeless

The best and brightest logos stand out and withstand the test of time. They’re the ones that remain relevant and influential over the years. Now it might be tempting to constantly redesign your logo to incorporate current trends and fads, but remember that it isn’t the best decision always. If you do so, your logo might later lose its relevance, forcing you to always redesign it to keep up with the trend. 

Memorable

Your logo should foster a connection with your consumer. And the best way to do it is to create a memorable and unique logo—something that your customers can easily remember and distinguish from other brands. Memorable brand logos produce a strong and lasting impact and they set you apart from your competitors. 

Versatile

You can utilize an exceptional logo in various situations, ways, and shapes. Take this example: a logo that you can only use online or on your website and social media platforms might not be your best idea. It’s because it restricts the way you could expose your logo to the rest of the world. Hence, designing a logo that can be printed, resized, and placed on various media would ultimately make your brand much more visible. 

How Do I Create a Brand Logo?

Suppose you already know what comprises a good brand logo, you can now create your design. If you have design skills and background, there’s no problem with your logo creation—you can start anytime. Otherwise, you’ll require a graphic artist’s expertise. But with the advent of technology, creating your brand logo might be easier than it was before. 

Numerous free and paid logo-making tools are available online (we’ll enumerate them in the latter part of this article). However, designing a logo requires more than just utilizing a certain tool. It involves a process—one that entails commitment. To do it right, you need to undergo five phases: discovering, exploring, designing, refining, and defining. Each phase has a distinct goal, deliverable, and process. 

Phase One: Discovering

At this phase, designers take the time to extract as much company background and context as possible. This is to fully comprehend your brand’s values, goals, vision, attributes, and other business aspects. The discovering phase is also the best time to throw preliminary questions regarding the desired look and feel of the logo, its possible uses, and other special requests. 

Phase Two: Exploring

In the simplest term, this phase is basically researching. The exploration or researching phase might be the most fun and helpful phase, especially for starters and non-professional designers. The goal in this stage is to educate and summarize creators about the basic elements of logo designing.  

Phase Three: Designing

In the designing phase, it’s essential to consider the inputs and ideas you’ve gathered in the first two phases before you start creating your logo. This is the phase where your brand logo ideas should come to life. So, don’t rush and produce the best logo for your brand.  

Phase Four: Refining

If in the previous phase you ended with several varying options, the refining stage is the best time to narrow them down. Once you’ve narrowed the list down and have chosen the right logo, you’ll have to put it to test then refine it afterward. You can accomplish this by remembering the different characteristics of a good brand logo mentioned above. 

Phase Five: Defining

It’s crucial to set definite rules about your logo’s treatment and usage, especially if it would reach various places. In this phase, you should outline everything—usage, publication, and application—to ensure that your brand logo maintains a strong impact on your target market.

What are the 7 types of logos?

Logos, like most things, are categorized into seven types. Yes, they’re all a mixture of letters and symbols but each type provides your brand with a different feel and impact. You might wonder what the best company logos are and what type do they mostly employ. 

Here’s a list of the 7 types and some other brand logo ideas you ought to know:

Wordmarks

A wordmark, also known as logotypes, is based on fonts and solely focuses on a brand’s name. This kind of logo is best for brands that have short and distinct names. Some of the examples are Visa, Coca-Cola, and Google. 

It’s vital to think of a catchy and memorable brand name for wordmark logos to be effective. Picking out the right font style is also important when using this type of logo. Since the spotlight is on the brand’s name, using a font that captures the brand’s essence is a plus. 

Lettermarks

Also known as monogram logos, lettermarks are logos that consist only of letters, often the brand’s initials. You can find this type in HBO, HP, CNN, or IBM. Brands with lengthy company names usually use lettermarks. 

Similar to wordmarks, this type is typography-based and comprises only very few letters. Employing this type spells out simplicity. Also, notice how much easier it is to say HBO than Home Box Office. 

Pictorial Marks

A pictorial mark, otherwise known as a brand mark or logo symbol, is a logo based on graphics or icons. Think of the ever-popular Apple logo, the blue Twitter bird, or the Target bullseye. Each of the mentioned companies’ logos is so established and indicative that the icon alone is recognizable in an instant; you wouldn’t even have to think twice. However, pictorial marks can be difficult for startups or brands with no strong recognition.  

The biggest decision to make is choosing the precise image for your brand because this image or icon is going to represent your business throughout its existence. And you can’t risk making the wrong choice. 

Abstract Logo Marks

As its name suggests, this type uses abstract-formed icons instead of a recognizable image. Famous examples are Pepsi’s colored and divided circle and Adidas’ striped flower. Similar to logo symbols, abstract logos contribute to your brand’s uniqueness and make you stand out even more. 

Furthermore, abstract logos are beneficial when it comes to brand recognition. They better convey what your company does using a single symbol instead of a specific image. All you have to do is swoop in the right color, form, and meaning, and you’re good to go. 

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Mascot

The fifth type implies an illustrated character designed particularly for the brand. Somehow, you can see mascots as brand ambassadors. Some of the internationally-known mascots are KFC’s Colonel, Kool-Aid Man, and Planter’s Mr. Peanut. 

Mascots work best for companies with a wholesome atmosphere, wanting to appeal to families and children. Notice how the crowd, particularly children, gets so thrilled and excited upon seeing mascots!

Combination Mark

From the term itself, a combination mark is a combination of all the other types of logos mentioned—wordmark, lettermark, pictorial mark, abstract mark, or mascots. The designer can integrate images and texts to create a single picture, placed side-by-side or overlapped on top of each other. Some famous combination logos include the clothing brand logo Lacoste, Burger King, and Doritos. 

A combination mark is a versatile but safe choice for brands. There’s no need for people to guess and think hard because it’s all there. 

Emblem

The last type utilizes fonts within a symbol or icon; you may liken this to badges or seals. Emblems tend to have a traditional and formal feel. Thus, it’s more suitable for schools, organizations, and government agencies. 

However, emblems are the least versatile among all the types because they lean towards the higher details, and the texts and symbols may rigidly entwine. One rule to remember: keep your design as simple as possible to produce a strong, bold look that’ll make your business look professional. 

Best Logo Makers

As mentioned previously, various logo design tools and software are available online. Some are free brand logo makers while others need a paid subscription. Here are some of the best tools that you can look into:

• Adobe Illustrator
• Wix Logo Maker
• Laughingbird
• Logo Design Studio Pro
• Canva
• Design Hill
• Graphicsprings
• Logoshi
• Logaster
• Logo Design

Are you ready to make your own brand logo?

Creating an impactful logo is no easy task. It entails hours, days, weeks, and maybe months of planning and designing. But with the right guide and proper logo-designing knowledge, your brand logo will surely take you to greater heights. 

However, coming up with a logo will require you to use a graphic designing tool, to learn more about them, you may read our post about “20 Best Infographic Tools for Businesses and Non-Designers.”