6 Tips For Creating An Impactful Logo For Your Brand

Last updated on March 31st, 2023

Have you ever wondered why businesses, including well-established ones like BBC, spend millions of dollars towards rebranding their brand logos? It’s because a logo is not just a visual representation of a company but a graphic that reflects its values, mission, and personality.

A thoughtfully crafted logo design has the potential to capture the audience’s attention instantly, influence their perception of the company, and eventually drive sales. In this article, we’ll share expert tips on creating a logo that truly represents your brand.

Crafting a logo that truly resonates with your brand demands a touch of creativity and a good hand of experience in several technical skills, such as illustration, typography, color theory, and visual composition.

However, the following six proven tips will help you find the inspiration and get you in the right direction to design a logo that truly represents your brand’s essence.

So, Let’s Get Started

01. Know Your Brand

Just like every robust building requires a solid foundation, an impactful logo requires its bedrock. But what is it exactly?

To ensure that the logo synchronizes with its associated brand, you must begin by knowing the brand inside out.

Who would be your customers?

Gaining an insight into your target audience would go a long way.

If your potential customers constitute a teenage category, consider adding funky, trendy, and colorful elements to your logo. In contrast, keeping the bells and whistles at bay would make sense if the intended audience is older and/or professional.

That’s not all there is to it. Apart from the age group, try to delve deeper and figure out the buying habits of your prospects, as well as what attracts them and why. In fact, surveying potential customers can be an excellent idea to gauge their responses and preferences.

How do you describe your brand?

Ideally, your logo should reflect the nature of your company. Consider your company, dig for its unique traits, and try embedding one or two inside the logo.

Consider the following set of questions while having a more in-depth look at your brand:

• How do we do things differently?
• What are our core values?
• What are our mission and vision?

[Image Source: VISUAL HIERARCHY]
Consider the vision of the famous e-commerce company – Amazon – as an example:

“to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, , and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.”

Now, notice how the arrow in the logo conveys the highlighted clause of the vision statement. It initiates just at the bottom of A and ends at Z—a clever way to tell the audience that they deal in everything from A to Z.

02. Explore Your Options

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” ― Maya Angelou

Take no shame in putting your competitors’ logos under the spotlight. In particular, rank them in terms of popularity and discover their common traits and patterns. This would help you connect the dots and realize what consumers are into. As a result, you could get a head start in innovating something of your own.

Moreover, if you plan on hiring a designer for your logo, analyze the portfolios of the logo designers, explore their plans, and go for the one that promises an affordable logo design with value.
In contrast, if you want to paint that magical portrait yourself, remember to round up all the paint colors in front of you.

For That, Let’s Explore Some Of The Common Ways You Could Craft Your Logos

i. Wordmark

Also known as Logotype, a Wordmark is a font-based type of logo that solely depicts the brand’s name.

[Image Source: Pinterest]
Who doesn’t recognize the logo of the world-famous non-alcoholic beverage company ‘Coca-Cola’!

The trick behind this iconic logo is a custom font and a wordmark layout.

With that being said, the Wordmark logo could be a risky business as the entire essence of the logo pivots on the font—not leaving you with much to play around with.

ii. Symbol Logos

This type of logo incorporates a symbol or an icon without the presence of any text.

If we consider ‘Nike,’ the swoosh is an icon that has stood the test of time by remaining memorable, versatile, and simple. On the other hand, a bullseye is all that it takes to encapsulate Target’s logo.

However, be wary of the fact that these logos are generally not recommended for new entrants that expect to get recognition, through their logos, on the fly.

iii. Combination Logo

As the name suggests, a Combination Logo combines a picture, symbol, or icon with text. This is a relatively safe technique to create your logo as it keeps the audience from guessing what brand it is.

If we talk about the variations, you can include your text separately, like in the case of Lacoste. But, on the contrary, you could merge the pictorial part with the text, like the way Burger King does, to make it look more creative.

03. Get The Colors Right

Colors bring logos to life, like how they do to everything around us. But, sadly, colors can also suck the life out of a logo if they are selected on a whim.

According to research, colors can increase brand recognition by 80 percent.

Every color evokes a unique type of mood or feeling. Therefore, your logo can do wonders for your company if it comprises colors corresponding to the feelings or impression you wish to instill in your target audience. Alternatively, you could use colors to convey the values of your company.

[Image Source: Sortfolio Blog]
Another research indicates that Red increases metabolism and enhances your appetite. This speaks for the reason why many food brands prefer to include the color red in their logos. In contrast, Black generates classic and deluxe vibes; hence, it can be seen in popular luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, and BlackBerry logos

Fun Fact: Blue is the most popular choice of color when it comes to logo design. Some examples include Facebook, Twitter, Samsung, and Intel.

So, now that we have seen how every color carries more meaning than what it usually gets credit for, let’s shift our thoughts to color combinations.

Upon analyzing the logos of Fortune 500 Companies, it appeared that most companies preferred combining two colors while designing their company logos. On the other hand, only less than 1 percent got gutsy enough to go for five colors or more.

Here’s The Full Breakdown:

• Two colors – 43%
• One-color –37%
• Three color – 14%
• Four color — 5%
• Five colors or more — Less than 1%

Once you decide on the colors, don’t forget that there will undoubtedly be moments when your logo will be tested in black and white. Hence, it is vital to ensure your logo works just as fine in its black-and-white and grayscale versions.

Moreover, it is best to avoid using gradients, tones, and colors to mark an essential distinction in the logo.

If we take the example of PayPal, we can notice how the two shades of blue distinguish between the two Ps of PayPal. However, soon as we look at its Black and White counterpart, we can see the essence disappearing and the logo turning into an absurd blob.

04. Make It Versatile

A few technical blunders could quickly spoil your work of art and push your efforts down the drain.

To avoid blots on the landscape, let’s make your logo foolproof by focusing on some of the crucial aspects.

Is it scalable?

Scalability ensures that your logo retains its spirit upon getting used to various applications. For example, some logos make it on giant billboards, and the same logos shrink down to the scale of a business card.

Think about where you would be using your logos, and ensure that your logo fits well for large and small applications.

Another must-have to ensure your logo retains its crispiness is to make it on a vector-based program. Not only would it keep it from getting pixelated, but it would also compliment your logo to some processes that solely deal with vector files. Such may include embroidery, etched foiling, and vinyl cutting.

What is the typeface like?

If your logo is a wordmark or a combination type, you can NEVER afford to disregard the importance of a typeface.

So, the first thing to consider is the selection of fonts.

Did you know that 73 percent of Fortune 500 companies use the Sen Serif font? The reason is simple: it is easier to get a grasp of.

What appears attractive to you might be different for your target audience. But if you plan to go creative with the font, ensure it is simple for your audience to comprehend.

Moreover, it is essential to see to it that your logo is free from the following:

• Faulty capitalization
• Too many fonts
• Unreasonable font sizes
• Inconsistent spacing

What about proportion and symmetry?

If one part of your logo outweighs the other, it best balances it. An excellent example of the proportions of details is the Starbucks logo. The details in the face, the crown, and the fins are so balanced and coherent that it’s hard for anyone part to steal the show.

[Image Source: Pinterest]
Another important consideration to take care of is the aspect ratio. It wouldn’t be intelligent to make a logo that is either too horizontal or too vertical. Instead, your logo should work in portrait mode just as well as in landscape.

05. Add A Unique Touch

Be creative and conjure up something out of the ordinary. Every impactful logo always has something to it that makes it stand out.

Let’s Consider Some Of The Ways You Could Instill Uniqueness In Your Logo

i. Double Meaning Picture

You can take your creativity to the next level and employ a couple of images merged into one—the double visual entendre.

[Image Source: Crux Creative Solutions]
The logo of Wine Place puts this technique into effect perfectly. The thumbtack in the icon refers to “place,” while having a second look at it makes you realize that it also serves as an upside-down wine glass.

Using negative spaces, you can also pack your logo with an obscured image. Negative constitute spaces and areas around and between the main element of your logo.

Two good examples of utilizing negative spaces can be seen in FedEx and Spartan Golf Club logos. The hidden arrow in FedEx communicates that the company is quick and forward-thinking. On the other hand, the Spartan Golf Club beautifully integrates a spartan warrior and a golf swing in its logo.

ii. A Story Behind The Curtains

Some famous logos in the world involve more than what appears in front. There are certainly exciting stories behind their logos.

The logo of the Bluetooth technology suggests the story of a Danish King who liked to snack on blueberries.

Likewise, the three dots on Domino’s logo symbolize the three branches the restaurant had in total when this logo was designed.
Stirring a story with your logo will provide your brand with an opportunity to make the audience talk about it and get connected to it emotionally.

iii. A Timeless Design

If you want your logo to last for the next 100 years, don’t buy into adding something that would eventually fade out.

Continental Valet Services features a key in its logo design. Unfortunately, this is a bad idea if longevity is sought because many modern cars don’t come with a key.

Horses, on the other hand, will stay strong, of course, but the polygon art style might not be a trendy option to go for in the years to come.

06. Keep It Simple And Balanced

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak” — Hans Hoffman

According to Pam Moore, 5 to 7 observations are enough for anyone to get familiar with a logo. The simpler your logo is, the easier it will be to make it memorable for the target audience. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

You must work with limited space and deliver style and substance within that. If any aspect of your logo doesn’t play a substantial role while interacting with the audience, remove it.

A study was conducted in which 156 people were made to draw certain logos from their memory. The logo of IKEA was drawn with the greatest accuracy. One quick look at the logo and you understand why that was the case.

Besides, omit to clutter your logos with over-the-top effects. Not only would they lose their essence in the black-and-white version, but it could leave an impression on the audience that the company is pretentious.

Logos like that of Apple and McDonalds offer the epitome of simplicity. More and more brands are refining their logos and inclining towards simplicity.

Wrapping It Up

Let’s take a moment to recall—begin with knowing your brand, then explore your options, get the colors right, analyze its versatility, add a unique touch, and finally, make sure it doesn’t contain unnecessary elements.

Creativity has no limits. So, once you establish yourself in a position where you know all the rules and tips, there is no issue in making bold decisions and taking the leap of faith.

Give us a chance to interact with you in the comment section, and let us know in the comment section if we missed out on anything important.

Create Your Own Logo