Scott Saunders | A big part of a great brand is having a great logo developed for it. But all too often a great logo in the hands of the business can be easily mistreated or abused and the result can be very damaging for the brand. With a great logo comes great responsibility.
Many people make the incorrect assumption that a logo and a brand are one and the same. They are not. A brand is made up of so many components — beyond visual design — that all govern the relationship the business has with its audience… and the logo is just one of those (visual) components. So the proper way of looking at it is that the logo is a part of the brand and the brand is so much more than the logo. They are not mutually the same. That being said, and even under of this misnomer held by many consumers, the logo has a huge impact on the perception of the brand.
While there are some exceptions, most great brands have great logos. Yes, there are some good brands that have mediocre or bad logos yet somehow the value of its service or product is able to overcome that shortcoming. But those instances are very rare. So in order to have a great brand, you need to have a great logo. But once you have that great logo, many small business owners (or even large companies) make mistakes with the usage and implementation of their logo. And these mistakes can greatly impact the brand by psychologically eroding its perception — and power — with the audience.
Know Your Logo
Your brand’s mark (icon) and word mark (name) mainly comprise your logo and there are some set configurations that it has been designed for. One or two are deemed your primary instances (most common use) and secondary or supporting instances (like just the mark or word mark alone). However, many people mistakenly create new configurations using those secondary elements and do so without the proper knowledge of how to combine them with proper proportion or proximity to each other. These altered iterations can easily grow and the brand’s visual identity starts to become cloudy and confusing as to what is the primary brand visual is. So know your logo and all of its components that includes it primary and secondary instances, and don’t take the liberty of creating others unless you have the knowledge, experience or skill to do so.
Respect Its Personal Space
The negative space around a logo or “clear space” that surrounds the logo should be respected. Just like everyone likes their personal space and hates when people get too close in conversation that it feels uncomfortable, your logo doesn’t want its personal space violated either. It wants room to breathe. When other text, graphics or images are in too close of proximity to it, it diminishes the visual impact and strength of the brand’s logo. Think of the page as a stage. The spotlight is the visual focus of our eyes. When the spotlight is only pointed at the logo, our brains put more focus and importance on it. However, if you apply a spotlight to a crowd group of people, there can be some confusion as to who is meant to be the focus. Making sure that your brand’s logo stands out to the viewer has less to do with the scale of it and more about its isolation from other things.
It Doesn’t Like Yoga.
If you have a great logo then it was very intentionally crafted. That means that all of its elements have the ideal thickness, spacing and symmetry that were originally intended. Your logo was never meant to be stretched or compressed as if it was doing a yoga class. However, too often do companies make the mistake of forcing a logo to fit within a specified space or format that it wasn’t designed to fit within by slightly stretching the logo vertically or horizontally. The beautifully designed lettering that comprise the word mark or any other elements in the logo are what suffer the most when this form of abuse occurs. A perfectly circular letter “O” in a logo is now an oval and the thickness of the letter forms is inconsistent — thicker in some areas and thinner in others — due to treating the logo like it was made of putty. The end result is communicating to the audience an amateurish and uneducated approach to the brand’s logo and that can convey the same approach the brand might have to the rest of its business which can lead to lack of trust in the business behind the brand. Don’t abuse the logo. It doesn’t like yoga and doesn’t have arms so it can’t fight back. Keep its proportions as they were originally intended.
Serve It Neat.
While I am known to enjoy a good cocktail, I mostly prefer my bourbon or scotch served “neat”. This means, just the spirit alone in the glass. No ice. No bitters. No other ingredients. It allows me to enjoy and respect the liquid libation the way it was intended by the distillers. The same is with a great logo. Too often people make the mistake of adding visual effects to the logo like a drop-shadow, outer glow, outline or any other effects treatments that are available to use in today’s software. Some of the times it is done with the good intentions of making the logo’s visibility better. A drop-shadow or outline is used on the logo so it is more visible against a certain busy background or photo. But these treatments shouldn’t serve as a layout solution and one should avoid those situations that call for the logo to be placed in that predicament. A properly designed brand would avoid occasions when that might even need to be considered as a solution or devise other solutions that don’t involved altering or embellishing the logo. It isn’t the visual state that it was designed for. It was intended to be best served “neat”.
Mistreated, the logo conveys to the consumer to possibly call into question the professionalism and trustworthiness of the other aspects to the brand. A great logo can transcend a brand by properly connecting with the audience and conveying its meaning and value to the consumer. Great logos are strategically and professionally crafted and the set of visual components that comprise the brand need to maintain the integrity, strength and power that they were created for.
