The Importance of Logo Identity
When analyzing your brand, your identity may look great to you and you may love your logo. However, if there are too many words or images, it can make it extremely hard for people to understand your brand and what you do. More importantly, they won’t be able to retain your name or retain a visual of your logo in their head. In the case of a logo identity, staying simple while still being unique is key.
The Design
A lot of the time, logos are over-designed. Designers need clear ideas and a clear strategy from their clients. If there is no strategy behind it, there is a high chance it will be too much for customers to look at and too hard to retain. When looking at national brands, they’re clean, the name of the business is predominant, typography is clean, and there is usually a visual representation separate from typography. This gives you the advantage to have visual branding elements in your material and leads to consumers eventually being able to see the logo or mark and be able to make that connection. For example, almost anyone in America (and even some people globally) can make the connection for logos from Target, Mcdonald’s, or Nike. The red bullseye, the golden arches, and the famous swoosh on all of their materials resonate with consumers and allow them to make the connection between the logo and brand. However, you don’t have to be a national brand to take advantage of strategies that will help you get better marketing results.
Retention
National brands pay attention to retention. Retaining the name and image are the two things they really focus on in branding. In national brands, graphic design is done well while still being simple allowing the brain to easily remember them. When you have so many graphic design elements going into that space, you can’t retain the visual. Many times this is a classic problem with small businesses. They put so much into their name. In your graphics and branding, If your company name and what you do/industry are the same size and weight, you should reconsider. For example, if your company’s name is Smith & Co Plumbing, plumbing should be a smaller size and at the bottom. When customers are talking about you, they don’t say “Smith & Co Plumbing,” they just say “Smith & Co.” This is how they’re able to retain your name. Your logos should be clear about what you do but shouldn’t be the main focus. All other information can be condensed into a tagline, copy points, website headlines, etc. When all information is jammed together in the logo, people will often tune it out.
Don’t Let The Market Change Your Name
As we’ve seen in times before, if your brand’s name is too long, your customers will likely shorten it on their own. A great example of this is Federal Express. Are you familiar with Federal Express? If not, that’s probably because you now know them as FedEx. In the early 2000s, the market decided to shorten FedEx’s original name since it was too long to fully say. Once consumers started using this newer and shortened name, the company quickly caught on and decided to officially change it altogether. The main takeaway, don’t let the market change your name for you. You’ll get much better brand awareness if your name reflects how the market will retain it.
