7 Useful Logo Design Tips
Logo design is like all other professional design works, in that it appears simple, but designing a logo is not as easy as one may think. It requires extensive research, critical thinking and hard work. Without contributing whole heartedly of the three requirements, a great idea can result in a crumpled up scrap of paper in the trash. Not to worry, in just a few simple steps you will be on your way to creating a great logo.
Be Simple
It is the first and foremost important rule to follow when designing a logo, keep it simple and not complex. A complicated logo is difficult to reproduce and maintain but most importantly, it cannot be adored by the audience. An astounding logo is the vehicle that drives customers to your product. It should be simple, eye catching and provoke thought in the viewer.
Be Tricky
A logo is the best way to entertain and engage your audience with your product. Don’t divulge the message for the audience by making it too obvious. Be tricky and give your audience an opportunity to discover the meaning and intention of the logo. This should be a memorable and entertaining experience for your audience. Also try to avoid making your logo too abstract or you can risk making the logo obscure and the message and entertainment will be lost.
Keep It Green
Maintaining a green lifestyle is the future, therefore your logo should be green. Durability and longevity of a logo is worth considering. Picture your company 20 years down the road, what services and products you are going to offer? Make your logo a perfect representative of your company that can stand the test of time. Make a logo that can even stand for all the changes you will make in the future. A textual logo like IBM’s works great in this respect.
Use Vector
Using 3D effects in a logo is always tempting however, clean; crisp lines with very limited colors will prove to stand the test of time. Vector-based logos provide the contrast and balance that is vitally important in logo design. Vector formats also allow the most variations that will play a key role if you modify your logo in the future.
Be Flexible
A great logo should always be flexible so it can represent every business situation. Don’t “pigeon hole” your target group-keep it open to all and any viewers. Literal and specific logos are hard to use when catering to varying markets whereas, textual logos are the most flexible. You can easily change the color of the logo to state the on time motto of the company. Google’s logo is the best example of the flexibility of a logo.
Be Relevant
Logos should be relevant to the product and services of the company. It should give the customers a clear picture about the products and services the company provides. World famous ice cream parlor chain, Baskin-Robbins’ logo is an ideal example of relevance. Customers immediately know from the company logo that the company is offering ice cream of 31 flavors.
Be Wise with Color
Color is one of the more important aspects of a logo as it speaks feeling and emotion to the viewer. The choice of color may vary depending on age, gender and cultural demographics. So choose color according to your target market. Colors like to follow trends. A bank often will follow conservative colors where as a newly launched company most likely will follow the current trends.
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A great logo always makes a mark in the mind of people. It stands for the taste and sprit of the company. All the best brands in the world are as famous as their logos. A simple, memorable, timeless, versatile and appropriate logo is highly important for a company to reach their customers.
About Author: Donald Bates is a website designer who is working for Tampa Web Design Company for last 3 years. He loves to help fellow designers and business owners sharing his knowledge and experience. He offers website design services via www.mdesignmedia.com
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Protecting A SMBs Brand With Social Media Monitoring
The Internet is a tool used by many people for different reasons. Social media has become a huge part of Internet usage. People are able to express thoughts and opinions and communicate with other individuals.
What is Online Reputation Management?
With the growing number of people using social media, Online Reputation Management software has been created. Online Reputation Management is a part of the Public Relations field that helps businesses enhance their online image. The Internet is a dumping ground of information, thoughts, and opinions, which is why small businesses should utilize this software. Social media is a way for individuals to gain information, share information, and express opinions about anything.
Some popular social media technologies are Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Each one of these has the power to make or break a company, product, or celebrity. Facebook incorporates “Fan Pages” for businesses and products to allow for discussion and opinions to be expressed.
The Impact of Social Media on Brand
The numbers of individuals who use social media technologies is constantly growing. Companies need to understand this fact and understand that it can directly impact their business and public image. With online reputation management software, a small business will be able to monitor all consumer talk about their business and respond to the situation in a timely manner. This will altogether increase customer satisfaction (which is very important!).
Another way in which a business’s reputation can be at stake is because of product and business review options on the Internet. Many people rely on the Internet to provide feedback on certain products and even company ethics.
Reviews allow consumers to express personal opinions, which may not be censored. A small business should use this software not only to monitor consumer reviews, but to learn more about competitor’s products.
Online reputation management software can also assist in unexpected ways. The software will help with marketing research.
A small business will learn marketing trends and how they should position their product or service in the community. Information about the industry as a whole will also help a business thrive.
Altogether, online reputation management software is the smart, efficient way to monitor your small business on the Internet.
About the Author: Stefan is an social media specialist with Reputation Observer a reputation management platform based in the US, Germany and France.
Photo Credit: karola riegler photography
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Ten Things Small Businesses Need to Consider When Branding
Brand management is a process that helps your business produce long-lasting connections with your customers. Your brand is an establishment of how you would like people to feel about your business. A good brand provides a solid identity, which endears itself to your customers. Read more
The Importance of a Good Logo in Marketing Your Company
There are few things which are more important to a company than their reputation and their ability to reach new clients. There are certain elements which go into each of these which you might not realize. One of the elements which is highly important, yet does not get a lot of attention is the need to have a great looking logo. The logo for your company is the first thing that people will see when they are learning about your company and it is the one thing which will stick in their minds as they are trying to remember your company. A good logo can be included on your point of sale systems, business cards and advertisements. Read more
Get Noticed through Social Media Marketers
There is no denying the power of social media in today’s society. Look at any product and you will see the logos for Twitter and Facebook. Watch people waiting for the elevator and see how they spend their time checking and updating their Facebook or Twitter accounts. It is important for any business looking to gain the attention that they need to succeed in the modern marketplace to understand the importance of social media. Of course, just understanding its importance will not get your business noticed, you need a professional with the ability to navigate you through the social media maze. Read more
Seven Things Your Brand Is Not – And One That It Is
What Your Brand Is Not
1. Your brand is not your logo
2. Your brand is not your personal identity
3. Your brand is not what you sell
4. Your brand is not what you say it is
5. Your brand is not your fancy offices
6. Your brand is not your company culture
7. Your brand is not your employees
What Your Brand Is
Your brand is the emotional and psychological relationships you have with your customers. Your brand is what your vendors think of you, what your employees see of you, and what your customers say about you - Essentially your brand is what they say it is, not what you say it is.
Questions?
Put’em in the comments below.
The Importance of Brand Identity and Logo Design for Small Businesses
Below is a guest post from Jeremy Schafer of MyCorporateLogo, who reminds us of the impact a good logo can have on our business and brand identity.
A logo represents a company – it defines its identity – its purpose. It is an integral part of a company’s brand strategy.
Without a logo or brand identity it would be impossible for a consumer to identify one product or service from the next.
Brand Connection
Most consumers have very strong opinions regarding their favorite brand. These opinions are more emotional than rational. Some brands (e.g. Nike, Coca-Cola etc.) resonate with customers more than others. They form an emotional attachment to these brands, often disregarding better products and services for ones with higher visibility and brand recognition.
Some brands even become synonymous with the product and the consumer starts recognizing the product by its brand name (e.g. Xerox).
It is therefore of the utmost importance that every company – especially the small business, has a sound brand strategy and a strong brand identity with a unique identifiable logo.
Logo Design & Brand Identity
Brand Identity and Small Business Logo Design helps small businesses in many ways. A few of the more important ones are listed below.
- It helps give the company an established and professional feel. This increases the customers trust in the products or services the company offers.
- A powerful brand identity is important as in general, people find it easier to recall images than text. There is an old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words”. The logo represents that picture and can be remembered and identified with greater ease than a thousand words describing the company.
- Logo graphics can bring about awareness of the products or services that you offer in cases where the company name is not self-explanatory.
- As the company grows, the consumer base stays loyal to the brand.
- The brand value generated can also be leveraged when selling stock in the company or the company itself for a higher perceived value than the actual value.
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Since 2005, MyCorporateLogo.com has been offering affordable logo design and corporate identity design services to start ups, small and mid-sized organizations. Our creative team can effectively deliver any message across a wide variety of media. We have successfully designed thousands of logos catering to the needs of almost every industry imaginable. Additionally, we have designed hundreds of websites, brochures, letterhead, business cards, and stationary.
Photo Credit: kyz
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Bric-A-Brac Branding
Below is the seventh article in our $150 competition sponsored by BizSugar.com. It’s submitted by Michael Bennett Cohn, who is the publisher for the online magazine Revolving Floor. Good luck to everyone who contributed an article!
Most small brick-and-mortar businesses don’t brand the inside of their establishments. I didn’t realize this until I started playing Foursquare, the shopping scorecard social media iPhone game. Foursquare awards users points for “checking in” at their favorite restaurants, bars, convenience stores, etc. Often, in recent months, when I’m taking out my phone during an idle moment waiting for my food, or a drink, or to pay, I’ve found myself thinking: “I should check in here on Foursquare!” followed quickly by “What the heck is the name of this place?”
There’s plenty of branding inside chain establishments like Olive Garden, McDonalds, 7-11, or The Cheesecake Factory. That’s because the chain, taking the long view, wants customers to stay interested in the brand, so that they’ll see each franchise as just one manifestation of the greater whole.
But once you enter an independent restaurant, bar, shop, or even grocery store, if you forgot the name of the place on the way in, then you’re probably not going to be reminded of it again until your next visit.
When I was in college, I worked at a place in Lawrence, Kansas called Joe’s Donuts. The catchy name was just a coincidence, as the original owner’s name really was Joe. The food was good and cheap, the place was open late and located near a couple of nightclubs, and Joe’s was hugely popular with the students. (A donut-loving girl once introduced herself to me on campus after overhearing me say that I worked there.) Customers regularly asked of their own volition if we sold t-shirts. We didn’t. I talked to the proprietor, Ralph (Joe’s son) about it. “Yeah, the kids ask about those, so sometimes I think maybe we should make some,” he said. “But what would they say? ‘Eat at Joe’s?’”
Ralph also kept the store closed on Saturdays, which would have surely been his best day for business. I tried to convince him to give it a shot. He shrugged. “It’s not a question of profits,” he said. “I just don’t want to work Saturdays.” The closed storefront was noted weekly by disappointed would-be customers, leading to widespread speculation as to what Ralph did with his Saturdays. “That’s when this place is closed,” was the only explanation that he offered querulous donut-buyers.
Around this time (1991) localized versions of Monopoly were a popular gift item. The Monopoly people scoped out our little college town, and determined that Joe’s Donuts was enough of a landmark to warrant a spot on the board (instead of, say, Park Place). They approached Ralph and asked him to pay for the privilege. He refused, and he continued to refuse as they kept lowering the cost. Ralph told them that he didn’t play Monopoly, and that he wasn’t interested in participating at any price. But the truth was that the Monolopy board based on Lawrence, Kansas just wasn’t complete without Joe’s Donuts. People would expect it to be there. And, indeed, it ended up on the board anyway.
At the time, Ralph saw this as a triumph of practicality over silliness. His business was successful in the physical world, and that was all that mattered. But times have changed. Nearly every local business has been reviewed on Yelp, they all show up on Google Maps, and that inevitable sales call from Foursquare is perhaps the loudest knock yet on the doors of those who don’t want to be dragged into the 21st century. (“We can prove that 100 of your customers check in with us every day. Do you want the ad they see to be from you, or your nearest competition?”)
It’s increasingly understood among online startups, even those focused on direct-response business, that they need a recognizable name, logo, and design. That’s just part of the deal. So is participating in the social media basics, such as tweeting and setting up a Facebook fan page. The social media landscape is eclipsing reality so quickly that brick-and-mortars are already part of it, whether they want to be or not.
In other words, every small business has a brand now, even the no-name bodega on the corner with no signage anywhere. Even proprietors who like to think that they can’t, or won’t, be bothered with something as abstract as shaping their customers’ long-term associations with the place are going to increasingly find that this attitude is not tenable. The no-name bodega on the corner will end up on Yelp as “No-name Bodega On Corner,” or not at all. And places that don’t bother to remind customers where they are will get fewer online mentions. It won’t be long before someone looking for, say, a toothbrush, will enter a search into their phone and then scan their surroundings through the viewfinder, looking for augmented reality signage hanging in the air. Those signs won’t be “hung” by the proprietors; they’ll be hung by the aggregators. And businesses who haven’t taken their image seriously by that point are literally going to disappear.
In New York, there’s a joke about what to tell a tourist when they ask you where to find the best pizza in the city. The answer is “Ray’s.” And there are indeed many pizza places called Ray’s throughout New York. Also, they have no connection to each other.
It’s a good joke, but it won’t be funny for very much longer.
Photo Credit: tandemracer
14 Questions to Ponder When Building Your Personal Brand
If you are looking for a blog post that gives you all the answers, you’re going to be sorely disappointed in this one. As I was reading a post over at PeiProfit.com on branding, it got me thinking about how and why it is important to build a personal brand. And as I thought through the “how’s” and “why’s” I found I was asking myself more questions than I was answering, and therein was the learning for me.
Below is a list of questions I came up with when thinking about building a personal brand. Possibly I will follow up with some answers, but for now I think I will just leave you with questions.
Questions to Ponder When Building Your Personal Brand
What is my passion?
What is my purpose?
Am I unique?
What am I already known for?
Am I influential?
Can I gain influence?
How am I perceived?
Can I alter the perception of me?
What makes me authentic?
What is my vision for me?
What is my mission?
What does my brand say about me?
What do I want my brand to say about me?
What am I doing to strengthen my brand?
Am I missing something? Please add it in the comments section.
Photo credit: Stéfan’s photostream
Your Brand is Not…
What is your brand? Let’s start with what it is not:
- Your brand is not your logo
- Your brand is not your identity
- Your brand is not what you sell
- Your brand is not what you say it is
Are you reading the above and thinking “What the heck, I thought my brand was ALL of those?” You wouldn’t be alone in that line of thinking. Many businesses start building their brand, defining it, and measuring the success of it around those four concepts above.
If you don’t characterize your brand around your logo, or differentiate it based on what you sell, what exactly goes into brand building , and more importantly where do you start?
Luckily we have this extensive visual presentation by Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap
And please don’t be too intimidated by the 165 slides, it really is a visual presentation, you’ll be through them in no time.
Building Your Brand By Branding Yourself
No doubt about it, brand and brand awareness is huge! For the most part branding is why we choose Coke over Pepsi, or like Nike instead of Reebok. Branding has us consumers believing there is a big difference between Ford and Chevy, or that Miller is better than Budweiser. For large companies the equity in their brand is priceless, and sometimes the sole differentiator between products. But for a small business entrepreneur the brand dynamic is much different.
Want to focus your efforts on the one thing that will blow your business wide open?
It’s not the brand of your products, or services you should concentrate on, it’s the brand of YOU that will take your business to the next level.
That’s right, it doesn’t matter what you do, sell, market, or peddle, the way to make it HUGE is by branding yourself!
Small business entrepreneurs are in a unique situation to leverage their brand more than GE, Coke, HP, Dell, or any of the other big name businesses in the United States. Do you know why? Small businesses by their very nature are able to connect and interact with their customer base on a much more intimate level than Budweiser ever can dream of.
Think about it. When you are doing business, like it or not, for the most part your customers are buying YOU. That’s right, when you don’t make the sale, don’t close a consulting contract, or somebody walks out of your store empty handed it’s not the products or services they are turning their back to, it’s you. I know that hurts to hear at first, but by building your own brand you can change that.
So how do we go about building our personal brands?
1. Be Transparent and Be Yourself
A large component of brand building, is building a trust in your product or service. Branding yourself is no different. People build trust over time when they feel like they know someone, and are not being fed a line of BS from them. Be yourself, never try to emulate or become a charachture of what you think people want to see. Also, be transparent. Let your customers know you, know what you stand for, let them have a peak behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz once in a while. The more they identify with the real you, the more likely they are to do business with you, and the stronger your personal brand becomes.
2. Become an Expert in Your Field
Another way to say this is…know your stuff! This doesn’t mean you need to know everything there is to know about widgets in order to sell them. But it does mean that you know enough to become a trusted authority on widgets in your region. How does this help build your brand? You may not be the national expert on widgets, but when your customers feel they know and trust you personally (thanks to #1 above) they are more likely to be a customer of yours even if you’re not the world renowned expert on widgets…just know enough to answer their questions and you most likely have their business.
3. Never Fake It
Nothing will erode your brand, and cost you more customers, than when you are faking it. What do I mean by faking it? If you are not 100% into what you are doing, the message you are sending, or the product you are endorsing your customers will know it immediately and shun you like the plague. When people can see you love what you are doing, and are totally into your work, it becomes contagious. People love dealing with people who love what they do, and I am sure there is some law of attraction that proves this. Don’t love what you are doing? Stop doing it, and do something you do love.
4. Network, network, network
Leverage any and all networks available to you in order to build your brand, demonstrate your expertise, and let people get to know you (#1-3 above). This could be brick and mortar business networks, online social media outlets, or any other medium where you can get in front of people who can help build your business and your brand. How many of you get a friend request from somebody on Facebook you don’t know, yet accept their request anyway because when you check them out they have a million friends? Most people do that because we think “hey all these other people are following them, I should too”. Same thing will happen with your business network and your personal brand. Because everyone is following you more people will want to follow you, thus strengthening and reinforcing your brand. Another law of attraction in action.
5. Do the Little Things
I can’t stress enough how important it is to do the little things. The little things aren’t really little! When you do them consistently, they become one big thing and that in an of itself can differentiate you from your competition which is what branding is all about. When building your personal brand you want to stick out. Make that email, phone call, or follow up just a little different, a little better. Stand out just a little more than your competition and guess who is going to get the business? I say “little better” on purpose, it doesn’t take something drastic to get the attention of your customer, the little things are the big things!
If you apply the five concepts above you will see your personal brand start to emerge, and the brand equity you will be creating is priceless. Nothing will blow your business wide open more than being a brand unto yourself. Coddle and foster your brand with the same care and attention you devoted to starting up your business and it will quickly become your number one asset.
What have you done to brand yourself?
