Reilly Newman | When consulting businesses, often the perception of what a logo exactly IS and how it relates to an identity system seems to be a bit hazy. We thought we would clarify what a logo really is.
To help owners understand this relation between the logo and brand, we often give an example of a logo being only about 10%-20% of a brand’s visual identity system. Most business owners are shocked by this low percentage.
Of course this is a ballpark and exact percentages aren’t realistic. However, the approach and mindset are realistic. When creating a brand, one must realize that the logo is a minor – yet crucial – part of a visual identity system.
The best way to think about a logo is like a human face. In relation to our bodies, personalities, talents, and other collective attributes, your face is really a small portion of what makes you – YOU. Yet we remember and recognize our family, friends, and acquaintances by their faces.
Not only do we use the human face as a reference point to remember, but our minds use this as the central point that contains the personality, memories, experiences, feelings, and much more that are associated with this person.
To illustrate the point further, we all have “familiar” strangers. People we have never met or had any real experience or interaction with, but their face is familiar. Yet we many times we might make inaccurate assumptions about that person based on their face. It is only when we have some direct interaction with that stranger that their face and our association with it can change or evolve to more properly – and accurately – reflect the nature of that person.
Our experiences with a person can affect our emotional connection when seeing their face, and like it or not, create biases.
If you met someone and found him/her funny, you may remember their face being more confident, happy, and outgoing. While someone who is more of a thinker may be remembered with a face that is more reserved, investigative, and intellectual.
Just as a face works as a frame of reference for our experiences and constructed perception of a friend or family member, a logo does just that for a brand’s identity system.
The spectrum of emotions and experiences with a brand span far and wide simply because a business can’t control every experience, this is precisely why your brand is up to your audience. It’s not controlled by you.
These perceptions can be managed and associated to form a better frame of reference with the logo (aka face) — but it’s up to the other 80-90% of your brand identity to help your audience see you and remember you as you want to be.
