50% Of Brand Success Depends On Your Logo Design
Experts in brand development are aware of the importance of logo design because it portrays the brand’s identity.
It is something customers encounter first when they get familiar with the brand.
A logo represents a brand and draws attention to it.
It comes into people’s minds first when a brand is mentioned.
Think about McDonald’s.
I bet you imagined a big styled letter “M”.
What would you imagine if I say “Nike”?
Yes, this is what I mean.
The majority of people realise that a logo is an essential part of brand success.
However, only a few know how to make the logos recognisable.
This is a fascinating topic to discuss.
So, I’m going to shed some light on this issue, explain crucial moments when choosing it and the principles of making effective logos used by corporate giants.
Simplicity Wheel and Deal
Have you ever thought about why the Google logo or NASA logo come into your mind when being mentioned somewhere?
If you look at them, you will tell me why – they are very simple but catchy and easy to memorise.
They make a lasting impression and create associations in your mind.
For example, you see an apple (someone bit a part of it, but you don’t care) and recall that you need to buy a new laptop.
You see a stylized letter “M” and recall that you’re hungry.
This is how brand recognition works.
All brands try to create an original logo to differentiate them from competitors.
At the same time, it should be simple and straightforward.
Uniqueness is not the same as complexity.
Consumers don’t want to clog their minds with unnecessary information.
This is where simplicity comes into action.
Recall those of the most famous brands – several letters or the name of the company or a stylized image (letter).
How It Works
Logos build brand identity.
It’s easier to memorise a letter, a word or a simple image than thousands of words, even if they are valuable.
Our brain chooses a simple message out of complexity because it’s easier to absorb and recall simple things.
Confusing or unclear messages can be automatically rejected by the human brain.
People don’t want to overload their minds with many messages: they build associations with simple and clear thoughts.
This is how our brain works.
However, creating a simple logo is not as easy a task as it may seem.
It should contain a message about the brand success story, mission, values, and goals in one word or symbol.
It is like a summary of a large book: you need to put the plot of 100 pages into 300 words.
The same case with a brand: you tell the whole story with the help of lines, fonts, and colours.
The Importance of Colours
Brand success depends on the logo.
It became an independent and valuable part of the industry that is selling a brand.
Therefore, brands try to develop effective logos to sell their products.
A logo must be professional and has features that support corporate identity.
Everything matters in its design: colour, typography, current trends, etc.
For example, if it contains a green colour, customers will associate the brand with youth, nature, environment, and spring.
A company involved in environmental protection activities can use green colour to deliver its message to potential customers.
The blue colour is often associated with the companies providing educational services.
You may look at the logos of several educational companies and make sure that this statement is correct.
Customers unconsciously search for these firms by their colours and find the answer to the question like how to choose between two companies.
Simple font and proper size are also very important for customers’ understanding.
Why Large Corporations Change Logos?
Clarity and simplicity are not that easy to achieve as they may seem at first sight.
If we track the changes in corporate logos, we can see how these companies tried to simplify them.
Changing a logo is a serious step as it may make a negative impact on ranking and traffic.
When it is changed, buyers may fail to find the company on the internet and buy its products.
As a result, the revenues drop, and the company will not build profits.
Besides, changing it is a costly move.
A company should have strong reasons behind this decision as everything is put at stake. So, why do they do this?
Several Reasons behind Changing Logos
The reasons can be different:
Firstly, simple logos are more recognisable if compared to complex ones.
Some small companies use colours and the parts of stylised images to copy the strategy of large corporations.
So, now it’s more difficult to differentiate in the market.
Secondly, the majority of large companies were established in the middle of the previous century, and they need to show that they change together with the customer preferences.
Therefore, they should confirm they offer advanced products to satisfy changing customer needs.
As a result, they were changed with time as well.
Many large corporations, such as Shell, Mercedes, McDonald’s, Pepsi, and Starbucks changed their logos.
For example, Pepsi altered its logo to change its brand identity.
Pepsi strived for looking more modern in the eyes of its customers.
The company spent millions of dollars to execute this step.
It was a big deal, but it was worth the money spent.
Finally, Pepsi can afford it.
This was not the case with Shell.
The company moved off its name from the logo.
Recently, Starbucks did the same.
However, this didn’t affect brand success because these companies are so popular that moving off their names from the logo will not alter the perception of these brands.
So, if a brand is a well-established one changing it will not influence these brands drastically.
Logo Design and Brand Success
A simple logo doesn’t mean a simple brand strategy of the company because, on the contrary, it can be complicated.
Interestingly, 50% of the brand success depends on logos.
Besides, beautiful logos don’t necessarily convey brands’ messages effectively.
Similarly, complex logos don’t necessarily convey differentiation.
Also, see – the 6 Keys to Successful Branding
Principles of Building a Logo
1 – Clarity.
A logo and a brand are the two sides of the coin.
It should deliver brand ideas and values to consumers.
Otherwise, there is no more sense in developing a logo.
It should be simple, but it should pursue a target.
It should deliver a clear and concise message.
2 – Easy to recall.
It’s easier to memorise one word or sentence than a half-page.
Processing a small amount of information is more accessible than trying to comprehend a significant amount of text.
So, it shouldn’t contain much information because it will make it difficult to commit the message to the memory of an average consumer.
Also, see – the Importance of Brand Consistency
3 – Explicitness.
It’s easy to explain it to interested parties if needed.
For example, “a white apple bit from the right side”.
4 – Recognisable.
Consumers must recognise the brand from a distance.
For example, when you need to transfer money, you expect to see a yellow logo of Western Union.
As it is yellow, you can see this bright spot from a distance of several metres.
5 – Emotional reaction.
It should evoke positive emotions in the consumer’s consciousness.
This can be reached by using a simple logo because it takes some time to comprehend a complicated one.
In this case, cognition is stronger than an emotional response.
6 – Easy to publish.
It’s essential to use a logo that can be further published by various media.
Don’t forget that it will be used across media, in signs, stamps, etc.
7 – Difficult to copy.
It’s not easy to recreate a simple logo because of only two-three colours used in it.
Therefore, competitors may spend much time trying to copy it and, most probably, fail.
A complicated logo is easy to recreate: competitors need to change an insignificant part of it to use brand success and entice its customers.
8 – Scalability.
A professional logo is easy to enlarge or shrink.
If it is complicated, it’s not easy to do that.
This may cause visibility problems when used in mobile apps.
A simple logo can be reduced easily without any harm for visibility.
Logo design is not an easy task.
The logo conveys the principal message of the brand to customers.
Besides, the brand success of the companies dramatically depends on how recognisable is its logo and what associations it creates in customers’ minds.
Consumers’ associations with a logo and brand help increase brand awareness.
Therefore, large firms take efforts to create memorable and straightforward logos.
Creating a simple brand logo is a more complicated task than building a complicated one.
Sometimes corporate giants even opt to change them to show the progress in understanding the changing needs of their customers or send a new message to them.
Its simplicity is one of the essential characteristics.
Simple logos are easy to recognise, memorise, and publish.
They are scalable and explicit.
Besides, they are difficult to copy, and they evoke bright emotions.
Therefore, using simple logos is preferable because complicated logos are difficult for customer comprehension.
