Every company tries to make its name well-known and wants its goods or services to become well recognizable and memorable. The presence of its own corporate identity (corporate style) will help the company to achieve this aim. The key element of this style is the company logo of the site or the firm. Thanks to a good logo the consumer can choose your very company from the dull crowd of your competitors.
What is a logo?
A logo is usually understood as a certain text or graphic symbol that is the distinctive mark of the company. It contains a certain idea and expresses the main line of the company's activity. The word “logo” is short for “logotype”. And the word “logotype”, in its turn, is of Greek origin: “logos” means “a word”, and “typus” means “mark, impression, type”.
Logos are usually divided into text logos, sign logos and combined logos (text & sign logos).
A text logo is the name of the firm/organization/enterprise typed using a certain text font. Designers can use different fonts for creating text logos: both classic and decorative ones. Such logos, as a rule, are simple and laconic. However, they are not easily memorized by potential clients. If you want your text logo to be zestful, you can use an exclusive font, that has been developed especially for your company, instead of one of standard fonts. Besides, you can set off separate letters with color or special font, use patterns, shades and volume effect. The brightest examples of text logos are the logos of the following companies: Nokia, Sony, Panasonic, Coca-Cola.
A sign logo consists in creation of an original mark that originates from the company name or some image that is related to the company. It may be an image that illustrates the company's activity, its geographical or national affiliation. The brightest examples of text logos are the logos of the following companies: Audi, Nike, Microsoft.
A combined logo is the most widespread variant. It is a combination of the original mark of the company and text inscription of its name. Mutual arrangement of the text and the mark in such logo may vary: the text over the mark, the text next to the mark (on the left, on the right, above, below), the mark over the text and other combinations. Such companies as Adidas, Mercedes-Benz use combined logos.
How is a logo created?
You can create the concept of your future company logo on a paper napkin in three minutes. However, it works only in one case: when your goals are clear, the tasks are set, you have all information about the company and have a huge amount of inspiration at your disposal. In all other cases this process takes from several days to several weeks or even months. Why does it happen so? The point is that it is not easy to create a really good logo that will improve the image of the company it represents. The logo must meet a lot of requirements. In general case the process of developing a corporate logo can be divided into the following stages:
- determining the preliminary conditions: what associations the logo should provoke, what it should symbolize, what its target audience is;
- research aimed at clarification of the company's history, principal aspects of its activity, analysis of the market and competitors;
- analysis of the logos that are used by the companies of your market segment: which of the logos are successful, why etc.
- creation of the concept of your logo – drawing of the creative ideas on the paper;
- thinking, reconsideration of the concept; getting feedback on your work for a fresh look at the project, possible alternative solutions;
- creation of the logo proper in the required format; usually it is vector format – in this case the logo can be easily zoomed in or out to be used on your products, business cards, headed note-papers etc.
- presenting the developed logo to the client; usually designer presents two or three different variants or the most suitable variant.
Rules of a good logo
Have you ever thought why some logos are practically “eternal”, and others are gradually relegated to obscurity because people do not get used to them? Of course, the companies that own these logos play a very important role in this process. Some of them are well-known all over the world, and others are known in a certain region. However, each rule has an exception. For instance, a world famous company Coca-Cola has not changed its logo for almost half a century, and Pepsi, that is not less popular, changes its logo quite often. What is the reason? The answer is simple. To make your logo really successful, you should take into account several rules.
First of all, your logo should be individual. If it imitates the logos of other companies, it will not be able to make your company notable; it means that such logo will be absolutely useless. Secondly, during the creation of the logo you should not be guided by fashionable trends only – they change very rapidly, and in a couple of years your logo may become outdated. Thirdly, you logo should look equally well on computer display, letter-head and product package. For this purpose the logo is usually made black and white – in this case it can be easily adjusted. Finally, a good logo should possess a certain zest. It may be a pun or presentation of a habitual image in a non-conventional way.
Recognizability, simplicity, laconism, universality, durability and significance are the main elements of a good company logo. If you want your company logo to be really successful – contact web design studio WebStudio2U, our specialists will develop it for you!
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