Chapter 1: How Logo Design & Branding Coincide

Coming up with an idea for a company or product is a great first step.

After that idea turns into a business, it’s time to develop your brand.

Developing a brand takes time. There’s no other way around it. That said, the light at the end of the tunnel can come into reach if you put in the work. If you don’t know the brand, how can you expect to produce that perfect logo? The logo will suffer, if you can’t first pin down the brand

An Overview of Branding and What it Looks Like

One of the legendary digital marketers of our day, Seth Godin, defined branding best when he said,

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a customer’s decision to choose one product, or service, over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t want to pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that customer.”

Catch what he said about the consumer?

You must determine your brand value for the customer.

Let’s take a look at Coca-Cola. If you look at their commercials, packaging, events and so forth, you begin to realize that they brand their products based on people’s feelings, attitudes, thoughts and relationships. Coca-Cola creates brand value by targeting its audience in a very strategic way that combines all of these elements.

Keep your customer in the forefront. It’s not just about keeping them happy — they need to feel like they are part of your brand.

William James once said, “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

Get creative and come up with new ideas to help feed your customers steady doses of appreciation.

Life gets busy — no doubt about it. But you know what I’ve learned about people? We always make time for the most important things in our lives.

Try not to let the busyness of life supersede one of the most important parts of your company — your customers. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can make time for making our customers feel like they’re appreciated.

Here are some quick, easy ways to show your customers you care:

• Sending out a random email asking how their week has been going
• Giving your customer a ring on the telephone to see how you can better serve them
• Mailing a small gift card to some of your clients

What would you think if your electrician sent you a $5 Starbucks gift card (with no catch)?

I don’t know about you, but I would be pretty impressed. I would know he cares about me enough to make that investment. That’s the kind of consideration that fosters goodwill.

The result? Trust is built, walls come down and our perceived brand value skyrockets.

Enter your logo.

Now, when this customer sees your logo, they connect the visualization of your company to feelings of generosity, kindness, friendliness — namely, a tangible item like a $5 Starbucks gift card.

In the end, try to find those little pieces of time to connect with your customer base to show them that they are valued. Don’t let excuses get in the way. Etch it on your mind and take action. Your brand will thrive as a result.

Logos Aren’t Brands

Your logo is the most important visual representation of your brand. No pressure right?

This sounds like a no-brainer but people forget, especially when it comes to paying for a logo, that cheaper is usually not better. As we will talk about in Chapter 5, quality of design and price often go hand in hand.

Although logo design and branding tie together, you would be surprised at how many people think they are one in the same. They do relate to one another, but a logo design is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to branding.

Let’s go back to Coca-Cola. When you see a Coca-Cola can, you automatically see the logo—but if you think deeper than the logo, you begin to see the brand of Coca-Cola. It’s those happy-go-lucky commercials; it’s people sharing a bottle of Coke on their first date; it’s childhood, adventure, romance, and excitement. While the logo makes up a percentage of your brand, it’s not the whole kit and caboodle.

Designing a Logo vs. Creating a Brand

A logo is a visual representation of your company, blog or entity, but a logo can’t visually communicate everything that you represent. That’s where branding comes in. While a logo is a huge part of your branding and has a specific shape, font and color scheme, this is just one aspect of your entire branding message.

When you start branding, you need to answer a few questions. Here’s how the list of questions break down:

• What message do you want to deliver?
• Who are you delivering that message to?
• What are the demographics of your audience?
• What is their age range, gender and location?
• What media stream will you use to market your brand?

Once you answer these questions, both designer and consumer will not only be able to produce a more effective logo, but will have the main building blocks of a more developed brand strategy.

Jacob Cass is a talented, well-respected designer and friend who runs Just Creative. Check out his helpful, engaging post explaining branding verses logo design.

Purpose-Driven Branding, Purpose-Driven Logo

If I told you to “find purpose in your logo,” you may look at me as though I have two-heads. “Of course that’s what I want to do,” you say. Sure. But have you thought about how that works as a process?

Let’s delve just a bit deeper here.

One of the greatest human needs is centered around this idea of purpose. It’s innately built into our framework. It’s why we always hear people saying to follow what you’re passionate about instead of pursuing what will make you the most money.

Why is it so difficult to bring this type of purposeful focus into your brand? Your logo?

Sunny Bonnell, co-founder and creative director at the wildly successful branding agency Motto talks directly to this idea of purpose-driven branding:

“…an organization that exists without knowing and practicing its purpose is like a ship sailing around the world without a compass. You can’t really rely on instinct alone and so a company that knows what it believes wins hearts.”

She goes on to say,

“By definition, I would say that purpose-driven branding is knowing why you started the company, what you set out in the world to do, and anchoring all your decision making whether it’s from building a brand or building a culture on that purpose.”

A major part of the “anchoring” she speaks to is the most important visual solution for your brand…the logo.

Once you know your brand direction and purpose, you have the compass to more easily navigate your logo design project.

Creating Brand Personas

To come up with brand personas, you have to define separate customer identities within your target market. For instance, your new athletic shoe brand is trying to target young adults between the ages of 18 and 35. Paige, Aly and Daniel and are three personas that would describe your ideal consumer.

Think about what these personas want to see in your brand. Thinking this way helps not only with designing a logo, but also with developing a website, products and marketing materials. More specifically, you can develop personas for your customer identities.

Create a fictional backstory for each persona. Pretend that these are close friends of yours.

• Create a fictional backstory for each persona. Pretend that these are close friends of yours. Where do they live? What do they do for fun?
• What do these customers want? What is their motivation? What gets on their nerves? What’s most important to them?
• What do they like and dislike about other brands similar to your own?
• Create a strong visual identity for each persona. What do they look like? What are they doing daily?
• Build connections to these people. How will they find you? Where do they hang out online? What social networks are they on? How will they access your website or products?

I found that asking these questions more than anything gave me a more honed idea of what my brand and logo needs to look like.

Define the personas that make up your company and expand from there. Also, if you’re a startup, no worries—just try to define the future personas you envision for the business down the road. Here are a couple examples:

1. The ‘Trep

• Startup/Small to Mid-Sized Business
• 25-55 years old
• Men and women
• Predominantly United States
• Lack of Social Media Presence

Cynthia is a small business owner who just stopped working that 9-5 job to pursue her dream of running her own realtor business. Based in Phoenix, AZ she has a true passion for helping people find the home of their dreams.

She knows Arizona is the best place to run her business because she loves the warm weather and picturesque mountains for when she goes hiking a few times a week. She knows she needs a logo designed to start to build her brand. She even has an idea of what she wants the logo to look like but needs a professional to take the reins.

She’s not too keen on companies who say one thing and do another. “Under promise and over deliver” is the motto for her own company and she expects the same from everyone else. Her cautiously optimistic personality suites her well as she asks good questions and is open to mutually beneficial collaborations.

2. The Designer

• Freelance graphic designers
• 18-35 years old
• Men and women
• International
• Social Media Savvy

James is a graphic designer who wants to take his freelance business to that next level. He’s confident in his abilities as a designer, but wants to get more of those big jobs. He tweets out about design on a fairly consistent basis and has his portfolio in place. He is driven to dream, create and make an impact through his design work.

He’s confident, but also knows he can grow in his design abilities and ability to market himself. Reading industry-specific blogposts and finding resources catered to designers helps give him added confidence on how to run his business more efficiently.

James isn’t a big fan of designers who use crowdsourcing because he believes that it commodities and devalues his industry. He places great importance on his time (professionally speaking). He wants to clearly communicate the value he will provide to his potential customers to establish trust from the onset.

The Skinny…

As a direct result of clearly defining your brand persona, it will be much easier to know the best direction for your logo.

Identifying the true needs of your brand by writing it down or even talking out loud can help give more focus on finding the best solution to a problem or idea. In this case, the solution is your brand persona.

This is the power of getting your thoughts out in the open.

You’ll weed out the bad ideas from the good and more clearly define the ideal customer identity within your target market.

9 Practical Tips For Logo and Branding Cohesion

So by now you have a good feel for your brand—perfect. But how does the logo come into play? How do I make sure my logo is a true representation of my brand?

The following tips will give you practical, easy-to-use advice for brand and logo cohesion:

1. First Impressions Happen Once

Your logo celebrates and introduces people to your brand. It’s on the front lines. It’s that all important first impression to your potential customers. Let’s make sure your customers have a clear alignment of brand and logo from the onset.

2. What Makes Your Brand Unique?

Most logo design tips start with shape, text and color, but what do some of the best logo designers all have in common?

It’s an element of singularity that builds upon the ground where other people tread that really works. It’s uniqueness. That is, it’s not blending in. It’s deliberately standing out from the pack.

We will dive into what makes this concept work later on in the book.

3. Know Your Audience

• What are the demographics of my target audience?
• Are they young? Old? Male? Female?
• What colors will work best for my target audience?
• What designs already appeal to my audience?
• What companies or organizations does my audience already trend toward?

For example: I’m a shoe retailer selling high-end sneakers; I should look at logos for Foot Locker and other brands that relate to my audience for my inspiration, and then think about what effectively communicates the way I am different to that same audience.

4. Colorful Logo Design Tips

Color will play a larger role in your logo than what you may initially think. We all subconsciously perceive color to represent something in our lives through latent associations to our experiences and culture.

Here is a breakdown of colors and what they can represent:

Red: Energetic, passionate, bold
Orange: Fun, bright, friendly, youth
Yellow: Inventive, happy, sunny
Blue: Medical, peaceful, trustworthy
Green: Healthy, organic, instructional, new
Purple: Passionate, wise, spiritual
White: Clean, innocent, pure, minimal
Black: Bold, powerful
Pink: Young, fun, vibrant
Brown: Earthy, historical

For more color inspiration, take a look at this awesome infographic talking about color and logos.

5. The Parts That Make Up the Whole

Logos most often break down to two key elements:

A company or entity name and a symbol or icon. (We will go more in depth into these parts of a logo in Chapter 4).

It also can be beneficial to have a tagline or short description below the company name. This can further represent what the company provides or what it stands for. This also can add a nice hierarchy of text which has a certain professional feel to it.

Stay away from including your phone number, address or email in the logo. This may go without saying but it’s been done before. There’s no place for contact info in your logo. Save it for the marketing collateral and website.

Companies like Skype or Ford use lone typography as their logo. This is a less common route, but can be extremely effective if it’s done right. An icon or symbol isn’t absolutely essential. If you do need a type-based logo, make sure the past expertise is there. There are some incredible script designers out there who specialize in this one specific niche of logo design.

This recognition of the pieces that make up the whole logo will give you the blueprint you need to move forward.

6. Focusing on Versatility

In today’s digital age, logos must go beyond print.

They have to be crisp and eye-catching online, on mobile phones and in print. It is often helpful to look at other simple yet popular logos that are easily recognizable around the world. For example, FedEx is a household name with a unique, minimal logo.

The FedEx logo uses colors and type in multiple ways to remain simple and still be instantly recognizable. The logo even includes a subtle arrow pointing to the right which adds more versatility through use of negative space.

7. Utilizing Online Tools and Resources

Sites like Logo Design Love, Just Creative and Smashing Magazine are just a few places you can start looking. These are free, quality resources at your disposal.

In Chapter 2, I will introduce you to a super helpful tool to help you find more high-quality, targeted logo inspiration.

8. Grabbing the Attention of Your Audience

In order to get the attention of your target market, the logo needs to instantly pique your client’s and potential customer’s interest.

Whether the logo is on a business card, billboard or website, it should be iconic to your audience across all mediums. You want to draw in your target audience in such a compelling way they can only want to learn more about the business as a result.

9. Going Further With Your Logo Presence

Successful brands are able to go anywhere and fit all types of social networks.

They are easily understood, liked and shared between several demographics at once. The brand ADIDAS, for example, is world renowned for its athletic gear.

The ADIDAS logo works so well because its iconic and simplistic design is easily recognizable all around the world.

More complicated logos are rarely recognized in the same way.