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Characteristics Of A Great Logo Design

Logo design may seem like one of the less important elements of your brand.

However, your logo has a big impact on how your brand is perceived. It’s a very important part of your brand identity and can help a lot with brand recall.

An effective logo design needs to be unique and represent your brand exclusively. By being relevant to your brand, it should become instantly recognizable.

Consumers should be able to see the logo alone and know the company it is associated with. They should also think of the logo when they interact with the brand, even if it is not on display.

With so many logo designs, how do you make one that stands out and perfectly represents your business? Keep reading for the characteristics of a great logo along with some tips on the design process.

Characteristics of a Great Logo

There are a few basic characteristics of a great logo that make it effective and memorable.

A great logo should be:

1. Simple

Your logo is not the place to go overboard with colors, images, and fonts. You need to keep the design extremely simple. While it needs to be creative and unique, a simple design will make your logo easy to recognize and remember.

The logo will be focused on for a short period of time. Viewers need to recognize the company that the logo is associated with and remember it after just a glance.

It must highlight the most important parts of the brand while using minimal elements. It should include just a symbol and a few words at most. Simplicity will avoid giving across mixed messages.

2. Memorable

The logo design needs to be memorable. Consumers should be able to see it once and recognize the brand it is related to. Every time they see it, they should instantly know the brand it represents.

Consumers should ideally be able to remember the logo without seeing it. The best logos can be recalled without seeing them.

The best logo designs can be recalled without seeing them.

For example, everyone thinks of the Nike swoosh when thinking of the brand alone. Consumers don’t need to see the logo to recall it.

Logos are made memorable by being simple, unique, and relevant to the brand.

3. Timeless

A great logo needs to be timeless. Your logo is one of your main brand identity components. Ideally, you don’t want to change your logo once a final design is chosen. This means that it needs to be designed to be relevant for years to come.

Make the design timeless by avoiding trending elements and focusing on your brand and what it represents.

4. Versatile

To make a great logo, it needs to be versatile and effective in a range of formats.

Your final design needs to be scalable and look good in black and white, even if your primary design is in color.

Scalable

Your logo will be used in a range of sizes and on a range of media. It needs to look good when printed in small, medium, and larger sizes. It should look as good on a 300×250 pixel web ad as it does on a billboard.

Make your logo scalable by designing it in vector format. This will allow it to be used in a range of sizes on a range of media. Non-vector files are likely to pixelate.

Make your logo scalable by designing it in vector format. This will allow it to be used in a range of sizes on a range of media.

Black and White

Your logo design also needs to look good in black and white. Even if you’ve used colors, your logo will likely be printed in black and white at some point.

Ensure that the colors are not required to get the message across otherwise this meaning will be lost when reproduced in black and white.

If your logo looks good at the sketching stage before any colors are added, it should work in black and white.

Read our 8 Signs You Need to Hire a Marketing Agency for help on determining if it’s time to enlist the help of a professional to evaluate your logo design and brand identity strategy.

5. Relevant To Your Brand

A logo is the main visual representation of your brand. You must understand your brand and the message you are trying to get across with the logo.

This should be related to your brand personality, what you represent, and who you are trying to reach.

Colors and Fonts

Use colors and fonts to help with making your logo design relevant to your brand.

Colors should be on-brand and used to represent the emotions you are trying to get across.

Fonts are used to help communicate tone and define personality.

A technology product, for example, is likely to use slick fonts and modern colors. A toy store, however, is likely to use fun and cursive fonts and bright colors.

Creating A Great Logo

Now you know what makes a great logo, you can start planning your design. Use this timeline as a guide for creating your logo.

1. Create A Design Brief

Think about what your logo needs to represent. Discuss this with your whole team.

Brainstorm ideas for images or symbols that relate to your brand along with what you represent and what brand identity elements to include.

Even if working with a logo designer, they will ask you for this information so you need to have a good idea of what the logo needs to represent.

If you frequently change your logo design, consumers will be confused. It will affect memorability and brand awareness.

2. Do Research

Conduct research on the logo designs of your competitors and the style of logo that’s most popular in your industry.

You’ll want to differentiate yourself and improve on logos already being used. However, take note of what others in your industry are doing.

Any trends that appear are there for a reason so take note of them when drafting your design.

Brainstorm ideas for images or symbols that represent your brand identity.

3. Sketching

You can now start drafting out some designs using your brief and research to help guide you. Sketch out a few designs and start getting feedback from your team.

Once a few designs are chosen, you can design them in a program to get a better idea of what the final logo will look like.

4. Revisions

Once you have one preferred design, think about how it can be improved if at all. Ask your team again or even ask your target audience for feedback.

You’ll probably make a few sets of revisions before the final logo is decided on. When doing this consider the points above, ask if your logo design is:

Simple
Memorable
Timeless
Versatile
Relevant to your brand

If not, then revise the design to meet these criteria. Once the design does meet these, you can get it professionally designed and begin using your new log

In Conclusion

Your logo is one of your most important brand elements and there are many things to consider in the design process.

Your logo design needs to be extremely relevant to your brand while also being simple with the ability to represent your brand in a range of formats for years to come.

Although it may seem like a lot of work, taking the time to design and revise your logo until it is perfect will absolutely pay off!

If you’d like some help creating a great logo, get in touch with Brand Hause. Our team can help with formulating your design brief and conducting research to design a logo that represents your brand and what you offer.

Contact us now for a free consultation!