I once had a client starting a new business wanting a logo designed, and the brief was “we want a koala bear riding a horse jumping over a creek, and can you work in a mosquito”.
It’s exciting building, running or buying a business – the research, the planning, the anticipation of success.
Impressions
First and continuing impressions are an essential part of your business success. Your identity/logo is that first and continuing impression.
When thinking about your logo design you need to identify where your logo will be used and displayed – business cards, brochures, websites, signage, banners, posters, maybe even tattooed to your backside, I dunno…
When you think of the best brands/identities, what do you think of? I think of a Nike, CocaCola, Pepsi, Facebook, Twitter. Some are just words, and others are symbols, but at the root of their success is the simplicity of design, colour and structure. All are easily identifiable and more importantly, have been used consistently in all visual branding to reinforce their brand in your mind.
Keep in mind, whilst your logo is usually the first impression, it is only a small part of your overall brand, which includes other visual collateral like photography, message, appropriate content and effective business/brand strategies.
Flexibility, Versatility and Adaptability
I encourage flexibility, versatility and adaptability with your logo style guide. A good logo can and should be able to be placed across a variety of mediums, sources and backgrounds such as photographic backgrounds.
By setting a rigid ‘you can’t’ policy, it can visually reflect poorly on your visual brand with a logo that doesn’t fit or looks out of place. Of course, there is a LINE, but that is where your graphic design partner can guide and give recommendations.
Technical Requirements
A good logo is technically correct, supplied by your graphic designer in CMYK and RGB (+ Pantone if required) and a range of formats such as EPS, PDF (Vector) JPG or PNG (Rasterised).
Your logo needs to be vector-based, which means, at its core, it is a line drawing, and if you choose, you can scale and print as large as you want. Most signwriters, printers and designers will require vector EPS or PDF.
Just having a rasterised (like a photo) logo option, you can run the risk of pixelation when you want to use your logo in a large format like a pull up banner or signage. Pixelation means the loss of quality, have you seen a photo or logo that has been printed and it looks fuzzy, and you start seeing boxes of colour, it just looks ewww.
Whatever happened to the “I want a koala bear riding a horse jumping over a creek”?
After much discussion, some coffee and a biscuit or two, we developed a unique and distinct logo, with no koala’s riding horses.