Creating a captivating logo is essential if you want to catch your customer’s eye, build a following, and eventually make some sales and revenue. In fact, 75% of people can recognize a brand by their logo, and 73% of people will buy from a company whose logo they know. Needless to say, the power of your logo can’t be underestimated.
In this article, we’ll discuss some tips and tactics that you can use to help you craft a stunning logo that can grow your business.
I. What You Need Before Designing Your Logo
Before we get into the tips on how to design your logo, let’s first do an overview of what you’ll need before you get started.
- Brand Identity – Your logo should be communicating your brand’s personality, identity, and message. Do you want your brand to be seen as friendly and approachable? How about a mentor, an authority figure? Or do you want to be seen as a fun-loving and energetic brand? Once you have defined your brand identity, it will be easier for you to come up with a design that clearly communicates that.
- Target Audience – Another important element to identify and understand is your target audience. Since they are the ones that will be seeing your logo and the ones that you want to purchase from your brand, you’ll need to make sure that your logo design is something that they will find appealing.
- Business Name – Lots of logo designs usually feature their business name. Before you start designing, it’s best to finalize this first. If you’re stuck on a name, try experimenting with business name generator tools first to spark some ideas.
II. 6 Logo Design Tips That Can Help Your Business Grow
Experiment with abstract or conceptual designs
Logos are usually encouraged to be straightforward and simple. Think of the logos of famous brands like Apple, Target, Dove, or Puma. Their logos contain literal icons of their brand names.
Utilizing a professional logo design tool like Adobe Express Chrome Extension can be a game-changer in your logo tactics, enabling you to create visually compelling and memorable brand identities that resonate with your audience, ultimately contributing to your business’s growth and success. A well-crafted logo has the potential to establish brand recognition and trust, setting the stage for increased customer engagement and expansion.
Also, with Tailor Brands logo maker tool, designing a distinctive logo becomes a seamless and intuitive process, offering a user-friendly platform that empowers individuals to effortlessly craft a unique brand identity for their business or personal endeavors.
While this kind of design is indeed easy to remember and understand, it doesn’t have to be an unbreakable rule for all businesses. Sometimes, playing around with conceptual ideas to convey your brand’s message can make you more memorable and unique.
A few examples of abstract logos are Adidas, AirBnB, Slack, Mitsubishi, Pepsi, and Nike. All of these logos don’t necessarily use literal icons to describe their name or products. Instead, they use abstract shapes and utilize colors to communicate their message.
Take the Nike swoosh icon for instance. It’s actually meant to represent speed and motion, which is fitting for the sportswear brand. While the abstract shape of the Slack logo is a combination of two things — a hashtag and a speech bubble. This fits the messaging app, as the hashtag is an organizing element used in the platform, while the speech bubble is meant to reference chatting and communication.
As you can see, you don’t always have to stick to a traditional straightforward logo design. Exploring abstract ideas can make you more unique and stand out from the crowd.
Play around with negative space
If you want to be more creative and unique, why don’t you try to play around with negative space for your logo design?
Negative space logos are ones that use the white space between or around the letters or pictures of a logo design. A great example of this is the logo of FedEx. If you take a close look at the words “Ex”, you can make out an arrow that is pointing to the right. The arrow represents speed, accuracy, and forward thinking, which fits the concept of the delivery company.
Another example is the logo of Toblerone. Pay close attention to the mountain in the logo design, and you can see a bear silhouette. This is because Toblerone’s headquarters is located in Bern, Switzerland, which is named as the “City of Bears”. Not only is the logo visually creative, it also includes their heritage as well.
Negative space logos are distinct, creative, and visually striking. Why not experiment in your logo design?
Experiment with typography
One of the major design trends for 2023 is the use of creative typography. Whether you prefer the bold and raw fonts that are perfect for the brutalism trend, the retro font style fit for the 90s, or the clean and sleek sans-serif fonts, using distinct typography is a way to make your logo stand out.
Of course, typography isn’t only limited to the font style that you use. Feel free to experiment by distorting your text, making the letters fall off, applying different textures such as liquid chrome or gradient, or playing around with the shape by making the edges of your design all bubbled up.
Typography can convey your brand’s personality and identity, depending on the style you use. Informal, handwritten style can make you look more friendly, while a sharp and narrow serif style can make you look more elegant and classic. Try exploring typography on your logo design to showcase your brand’s personality and flair.
Consider minimalism
Sometimes, less is more. And this holds true with logo design.
Minimalism is a long enduring trend in graphic design, and for a good reason. A clean, sleek, and simple design is great at accurately getting your message across your customer. By only having the essential elements in display, your ideas and messages can be understood in an instant.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that your design will have to be bland and boring. Remember, minimalism is a principle rather than a hard rule. To make a great minimalist inspired logo, focus on choosing the correct colors and font, align your elements properly, and follow visual hierarchy patterns to keep things balanced.
Make variations of your logo
Depending on your business and products, you’ll be using different marketing materials (which your logo will be displayed in). Will you be mainly using business cards? Will you be printing your logo on a huge tarpaulin, or on a small flier? How about your web design? Having an idea of where your logo will be used is crucial so that you can take that into consideration for your design.
This is where logo variations will come in. A variation can come in different ways – color, alignment, and style.
For color variations, make a full color and black and white version of your logo. Consider seasonal and event colors as well, such as black and orange for Halloween, or a red and green version for Christmas events.
For alignment, try arranging or stacking your logos horizontally and vertically. If you have a long brand name, consider cutting them in two and stacking them. This is helpful if you’ll need to place your logo in small places like custom printed cards or stickers.
Lastly, style. If you have a wordmark logo, try making an icon based one, and vice versa. Again, this gives you more options and flexibility when the time comes for you to focus on marketing your brand.
Having logo variations is key to making your branding consistent and harmonious, no matter which platform or material you use.
Animated logos
Last but not the least is animation.
An animated logo can be a dynamic and powerful way to showcase your design. It’s more distinct and memorable compared to a static one, and has a lot more visual impact. Motion can also help in infusing more personality and character to your design, making it easier for you to convey a message. It can also help in evoking more emotions, which is helpful in building an emotional connection to your audience.
III. Wrapping Up
By applying the logo tips and tactics above, you too can create a powerful logo for your brand. A captivating logo can not only contribute to your business’s growth, but also in building brand awareness and engaging new and existing customers.
However, a logo is only one part of your strategy. Make sure your products, customer support, and marketing strategy are in place so that you can ensure your brand’s continued success.