3 Overlooked Factors to Consider when Designing a Logo to Represent your Brand.

Choosing a logo can be a difficult process.

Between coming up with the original idea for what it should look like to deciding on how to make it capture your brand’s image, there are several difficult creative decisions to make.

Not to mention the fact that once you’ve arrived at your answers, someone still has to be able to bring your creative concept to life. It can take a lot of time, energy, and money to get the logo that your brand deserves.

However, aside from finding a graphic designer, and figuring out what type of logo design you’d like, you will also need to carefully think about a few other considerations that most people forget about when choosing a symbol to help advertise your brand.

The following often overlooked concepts will help you in your search to create the perfect logo.

Understand color psychology, don’t just pick your personal favorites.

Color is one of those elusive things in life, that can seem to be esoteric and mysterious. However, it turns out that the psychology behind colors, and their associated meanings are pretty well documented. Thanks to researchers and therapists who use color therapy and other such methods involving the meanings behind colors, marketers have learned how to use color to help their companies make more money.

You see, every time our brains process a color, we have a certain association that accompanies it. For example, when you see a red circle you probably think of a ‘Stop’ sign, even though a stop sign is actually an octagon. To our brains’ subconscious associations, however, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that each color has a different meaning associated with it, and therefore each color in your company’s logo produces a different subconscious reaction.

Color can also impact how your customers interact with your brand, and how they make purchasing decisions.

Marketing leader Hubspot wanted to experiment with this and find out if colors impacted buyer decisions and the results were astonishing.

“When we did a button color test here at HubSpot, for example, we found that a red CTA button outperformed a green CTA button by 21%.”

However, colors are used by brands to make you do more than just buy, they also want to make you remember them.

Colors bring out emotions and each color targets different feelings in our subconscious mind, which is very important in processing our memories.

For your reference, you can check out the following chart that highlights exactly what every color means to your potential customers.

When you think about a logo you may think about using your favorite colors to match your personality, or the personality of your business. However, this isn’t what the biggest brands do. Instead, you should focus on what each color will represent to your customers symbolically, as this is how other people will perceive your brand. While favorite colors are subjective, there are defining characteristics that we use as a society. Think about the color blue for example. Because blue is so prevalent in the color of our atmosphere and the color of lakes, rivers, and oceans it is representative of calmness, community, global pursuits, and peacefulness.

These concepts impact how our society operates. For example, in America hospital signs are blue, and often so are public transit signs. This represents the communal necessity that blue represents in our daily lives, and blue can also be representative of the communal experience that your company provides for its customers.

When choosing a color to represent your business you will need to consider how people all over the world will react and respond to your color scheme.

What does the color psychology behind your company’s logo communicate about your brand’s mission?

The logo could outlive your products or service offerings, even if the company pivots.

A lot of companies start out with one product or service offering in mind. However, they don’t always stay on that path. Companies pivot and change over time.

You can read about famous companies who shifted gears before they were known for what they excel at today in this Forbes article, about famous business pivots. It’s important to remember that even major companies like Twitter, Paypal, Nokia, and even Starbucks all pivoted and became very different companies than what they originally intended to be.

When you brainstorm for a great logo, it should be something that can be relatable to your service offering even if your service offering changes. Thinking into the future is important and something that a lot of companies overlook. Before you create your logo think about all the applications where it will be seen.

Will it appear on billboards, t-shirts, neon signs, or in-print and online publications?

These are all considerations that you need to think about prior to choosing a logo.

Want a pro tip?

Ideally, you can provide some insight behind where your logo will appear, and how it will be positioned to your designer up front, so that you can ensure that all of the above applications will work well with your chosen design.

Also, do some homework by looking at what other brands’ logos look like in multiple settings, to make sure that the logo you want is going to look good wherever your brand appears!

It must appeal to your biggest market.

A lot of companies when they are just starting out make the mistake of choosing a logo that doesn’t appeal to their largest client base. For instance, they may have product lines for men and women, but choose to focus on a logo that appeals more to men. This can be damaging to their early traction, as women may not know that the brand is also targeted to them.

Another common concern is that clients and customers may not be able to easily ascertain what your company does through the name of your company. In these instances, the logo can help to pinpoint precisely what your company does well. This makes it easier to work with customers and ideally will help them choose your products and services over your competitors.

For example, if you operate a service-based company where the name of your brand isn’t specific, you may want to create a logo that shows customers exactly what you want to do. There’s nothing worse than fielding calls from eager customers who saw your webpage on Google and didn’t realize that you don’t provide the service that they are looking for.

These types of confusions can easily be avoided with the proper forethought. However, it’s not always easy to decide exactly where your key target demographic audience is going to be coming from.

This is why Zippy Logos works with our clients to identify strategy & clarity of your brand before implementing any kind of graphic. This will help you to think through and identify your target clientele, where they are coming from , and where you can best expend your efforts towards finding more customers in those demographics.

A company logo is the very first impression that your clients will have of you.

It’s important that you consider the points in this blog so that you can create a lasting impression that helps your brand to market itself well into the future. By thinking about color psychology, company direction, and target clientele you will be able to see ahead of the curve and know what’s coming next.

Interested in learning more about Marketing & Brand Development? We’ve put together a suggested list of books you should read before you try to brand or sell anything. Visit our resource center to see our list of recommended books. You can click on the images to purchase them through amazon or your local bookstore if you prefer.