How many logos can you name?
Macdonalds? Nike? Apple? All huge multinational corporations with millions to spend on building brand recognition. Have a look at logos and see how they work – pay attention to the colour schemes and simple designs. You will probably also find that, although you couldn’t recall them immediately when you see them you immediately recognise them – banks, shops and products. Can you immediately recall the OCA logo?
(of course I do)
We see logos all day long, and everywhere we look, in the streets, in our screens and in our memory.
A great logo is one that is so memorable and so identifying with the brand.
Pinterest board
Articles and podcasts
I have found this interesting article, "Vital Tips For Effective Logo Design"
Few important points from this article I have learned -
Logo = identity
"To understand what a logo is, we first must understand what the main purpose of logos is. The design process must aim to make the logo immediately recognizable, inspiring trust, admiration, loyalty and an implied superiority. The logo is one aspect of a company’s commercial brand or economic entity, and its shapes, colors, fonts, and images usually are strikingly different from other logos in the same market niche. Logos are used to identify."
Logo Design Process
5 Principles Of Effective Logo Design
Another interesting quote from this article is -
"I like to work first in black and white to ensure that the logo will look good in its simplest form. Color is very subjective and emotional. This can distract from the overall design - say if you saw your logo in all red, that color may be the first thing that you respond to and not the composition of the design elements. I will not even consider submitting color suggestions to a client for review until they have signed off on a final black and white logo. — Patrick Winfield"
I haven't considered, in the past, creating logos with black and white first. Also, I look back on logos I have made and maybe they are not as timeless as they can be.
Second article I have found is this one "What’s the purpose of logos and why do they matter?"
Few important points from this article too
Logo design is a strategic tool – it’s not art.
A logo design doesn’t need hidden meanings
Communicate brand values & additional meaning
Third interesting article "Pentagram Partner Michael Bierut shares his wisdom on what makes a truly great logo design"
a great quote from it-
"When we look at a well-known logo, what we perceive isn’t just a word or an image or an abstract form, but a world of associations that have accrued over time. As a result, people forget that a brand new logo seldom means a thing. It is an empty vessel awaiting the meaning that will be poured into it by history and experience. The best thing a designer can do is make that vessel the right shape for what it’s going to hold."
Fourth interesting article is this one "What Makes a Great Logo"
quote
"If logos and branding didn’t exist, there would be no way to easily indicate who you were buying from."
Quality 1: Great Logos Can Be Recreated by Hand, Off Memory
Quality 2: Logos Should Look ‘Structurally Sound’
Quality 3: The Founder Should Like It
Quality 4: It is Remarkable
Then I came across a great podcast, "The Steps To Design A Brand Identity, With Alina Wheeler"
It was very interesting to listen to such an experienced woman and her process of work when it comes to branding - which is the base for Logos.
"Alina Wheeler: Well, I like to think of research and the role that you would play in the research phase, and I hope you think of yourself as a sleuth, a shrink and a scientist. So you're looking for insights. You're looking for insights about the problem you're solving, you're looking to learn more about the customer, about your client, the competition, the market place, and what I like to think about too, is you're looking for the gold. It always astonishes me. I've worked on hundreds of brand identity programs and systems, and it always astonishes me. You always find something that becomes an epiphany. There are different parts. As I said, each phase has a series of tasks. One of the tasks is auditing.
Number one, you are collecting whatever information you can about that particular organisation. Make a request of your client, you give them a list. And not only do you look at things from the present, also if you're revitalising, if you're re-doing the logo, revitalising the brand, you also want to request materials from your future. So you will be conducting a marketing audit. A marketing audit is also called an internal audit. And you are looking at all the touch points where the logo and the brand exist. Maybe you're looking at key messages, maybe you're also looking at names. You're looking at all of the logos an organisation has ever had. You're really taking a magnifying glass to how is this company presently communicating about itself? So while you're doing this internal audit, I always like to recommend doing a touch point diagram.
A touch point diagram is a diagram where the brand is in the centre, and then it has a number of spokes. And when you look at an organisation, you say, "Wow, look at all the different ways that this organisation is communicating about themselves across touch points." Throughout this research process, you are collecting information that you're going to be using throughout the entire process. You're also going to do a competitive audit in which you're going to ask your client, "Could you identify three to five leading competitors?" And again, you're going to go do a deep dive on how do those competitors leverage their branding to become more successful? How did those different touch points that the competitors use, how are they different? What do they do really well? What can we learn from them? And where can we really dramatically differentiate ourselves from them?
You're going to be conducting a series of interviews. So if it's a very small engagement, maybe you're only interviewing four or five people. You're interviewing the founder, maybe a CFO or the customer service person or the sales person. And you are going to be asking them a series of questions. Number one, you're going to start to build confidence because you're going to ask some really good questions. And the other thing that you're going to do, and it kind of sounds like blinding flash of the obvious, is you're really going to sit back and listen. So if you ask some questions and people hesitate, just sit back, give it some space and they'll come back to you with a really thoughtful answer.
So what kinds of questions do you want to ask? It's kind of like what you want to be when you grow up. Why should your customers choose your brand over others? What do you do better than your competition? What keeps you up at night? Tell me about your customer. Tell me about the needs that you are fulfilling. And during these interviews, you also have an opportunity to reinforce why this organisation has chosen to rebrand themselves. You always want to make sure that everyone is working towards the same three goals. Number one, you're listening, you're building confidence, you're taking notes.
I love to just record a conversation and have it transcribed. And you're going to, at some point, pull out some really amazing things that come out of these interviews. When you learn more about who the customers are and how this particular organisation is structured, you're going to be able to create a stakeholder diagram. So again, it's a great diagram, you're going to use it throughout the process, and it's basically the brand is in the centre and a series of circles surrounding that brand. And it's the customer, the prospect, maybe it's the board. Maybe it's a government agency, the media.
So companies are always, companies of two people, companies of 10,000 people, they love these diagrams because decision-makers very rarely kind of see at a glance who the stakeholders are, what the touch points are. So these audits, you're really evaluating the present state of the brand. You're also doing whatever you can to gain insight into the customer. Some companies, even if they're really tiny, are going to have some research about their customer that they can share with you. Sometimes I like to do something called mystery shopping, where I put myself into the body of the customer. So I order a product and then I see how easy it is.
I see what the customer services like, I see what opening the package is like, I see what the follow through is like. So I get a lot of insights in being a mystery shopper. There are levels of research as projects get more complex. And I don't think we have time to review them, but things like usability research is one of them. The other thing that I didn't mention is before you do the interviews, educate yourself about this organisation. Read whatever you can from customer reviews to your website, to again, give your clients the confidence that you've done your homework, and you're listening deeply to what they're trying to achieve. At the end of this research phase, you're going to do something called an audit readout. And maybe if you're really lucky you can create a wall room.
Sometimes even small companies have a room where you could put the entire audit up on the walls. It's kind of fun to walk management through. What I usually do is I usually create an 11 by 17 booklet, and I also project everything on the wall. So you say, "Alina, booklet paper, really?" But I found that during the presentation, everyone gets ideas, they want to write all over the audit. So I want you to do that. So basically you are synthesising your learnings. You are sharing your epiphanies. You are quoting some of the people that you've interviewed with things that they've said, big pullout quotes. And I've been doing this for a long time, and I'm always amazed and surprised at what I can get from an interview.
Face to face is a luxury, as Susan Bird says, that few of us can afford, but if you can do it face to face with the founder or your client, I strongly recommend it. So that's in a nutshell what the research phase is. So you're capturing your client's vision. You're looking at the present state of the brand and all the touch points. Your job as a designer is you're part of that team that's going to help run the future. And by doing all this homework, you can anticipate the future in a much better way."
in general understanding how much logos and branding go hand in hand was very new and interesting for me. not the flat fact logos are so in-touch with branding, but how much it depends on it - because at the end of the day we are here to make an ID to the brand and make people identify this brand. Here are few interesting key points -
Sixth article I came across was "Psychology Of Color In Logo Design"
