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To get your business recognized you deserve a remarkable logo, for your customers to easily identify and connect with your brand.

A logo has a major impact on how your customers will perceive your brand.

So naturally, you want your logo to be outstanding. But how do you get there?

Let start with this illustration, from the time you wake up, taking your breakfast, taking a walk or drive to work, you encountered lots of visual brand identity such as the logo.

Major business strike to create their visual identity from logo design in order to evoke the certain feelings and experiences associated with the brand.

This could be used to influence audience?s perception of the company, business, product, service or person.

However, your customer’s perceptions of your brand are not limited to the logo design. The bare truth is that visual brand identity goes beyond a logo.

This is not to dispute having a logo as part of your brand development in communicating the overall message, values, and promise of your brand through it.

Few statistics to bring you up to speed on the logo design:

  • It is stated, first impressions are incredibly important to develop loyalty to your brand; 48% of consumers report that they are more likely to become loyal to a brand during the first purchase or experience.
  • It only takes consumers 10 seconds to form a first impression of a brand?s logo, but it takes 5-7 impressions for consumers to recognize the logo

As a business, you would wish to have a logo that serves as a reminder of your brand, company or a product to the target audience.

Let?s jump into the guidelines you need to master in logo design for effective communication of your brand message.

 

01. Logo Design Principles

The root of outstanding logo design is simple. It?s all about is being distinctive, appropriate, practical, graphic and simple in form, and communicate the intended message to the customers.

So, how well is the concept and execution of the logo able to serve your audience with the intended message?
Your company should consider the following basic principles:

 

#1. Simplicity

With the application of the graphics become more versatile. A simple logo design could be easily recognized and remain memorable. The logo would require the ability to adapt to the change in medium.

A simple graphical identity can be used in print, on the business card, on a banner and also on the T-shirts or on a responsive website.

 

#2. Memorable

The drive to develop an identity can sometimes compete with the need to create a logo that will communicate to your audience and still remain memorable.

Consider the value that your communicating graphically and keep it simple yet appropriate if you were to keep the logo design memorable.

The fact that there are millions of logos currently in existence, and hundreds, if not thousands being crafted every day, it is increasingly difficult to design a logo that is memorable. The ability to strive for a simple yet appropriate logo makes the identity exceptional.

 

#3. Timeless

Trends in logo design have proven to fade off with time. An effective logo should last for at least a decades without the need for major redesign.

In the conceptualization and the execution of the logo design, the designer needs to have this in mind.

Logo design as a constituent of visual identity for a company, business or person is identified to building trust and loyalty in a brand over the long-term.

So avoid, trendy typefaces, imagery, and colors will be out of date within a relatively short period of time, therefore their use undermines the ability of the client to build long-term value in their brand.

Some facts, not many clients would want to have their logo redesigned every few years.

 

#4. Versatile

A well-designed logo ought to be usable across a wide range of media. The logo should look good on a business card, on the T-shirt, or on a clients website.

In a number of cases, the clients might specify in the design brief that their logo will only be used for one specific medium, e.g. on their website. Be aware of this.

The requirements on the given logo often change and therefore it is usually advisable to always design a logo to be used across all mediums.

In terms of versatility, vector format is a close runner-up. The logo should be designed in vector format to ensure that it can be scaled to any size without compromising image quality.

Designing in black and white is also the basic standard for the versatility of any logo design. As a designer, you are able to focus on the concept, form, and shape which is fundamental to the color.

 

#5. Appropriate

A good logo design will be appropriate to the industry, the client, and the target market.

Designing a logo for a kindergarten should precisely communicate that. It wouldn’t be fair if it appears like it was designed for a bank, and vice-versa.

So, to develop a relevant logo the design brief should be the guideline.

Every client in their respective industries differs, no matter how straight-forward they may seem at first glance.

Conducting further research, it will help to create a relevant and appropriate design that communicate directly to the intended audience.

 

Read More on Design Mistakes To Avoid At All Cost

 

02. Establish your Logo Design Process

Before starting any design work take your time to learn and understand the business story, goals and target audience to create a concise set of goals.

Most Designer would easily formulate their own design process, and in most cases, it is rarely linear. Use a concise logo design process to ensure the final outcome not only looks good but also functions for the client.

In a nutshell, the design process, often a time referred to the branding process from the initial stage to the final can be adopted from this general guideline:

 

#1. Briefing the Design Project With Your Client

The initial critical approach to solving design problem through a well-formulated design process is a briefing.
In short, the client gives the designer a design challenge or need(s) for the company or business.

As a graphic designer, you would require gathering as much information as you can about the client?s expectations, their company’s mission, vision, and goals, as well as their products or services.

However, it’s worth noting that designers need to go beyond the surface level of what the company does and shift into the benefit client propose to the customers in order to translate into a visual identity.

 

#2. Researching Client’s Niche

On receiving a brief overview from the client, the designer would get into every possible material and begin the research.

The overall purpose of this is to give the designer a wholesome view of the client’s niche and generate solutions that fit the market, industry trends, and the client’s customers.

An expert designer would seek insight from the competitors, point of differentiation, market, audience, trends, and future prospects.

Once you have a perspective on the client’s market, it is much easy to begin formulating possible solutions around your client?s current and potential customers after understanding the target audience.

 

#3. Brainstorming and Developing Concepts of the Message

In any element of an identity sends a message to the target audience that is the choice of color, or typography to alignment.

Therefore to open a path to producing relevant ideas when combining the briefing and research, put the pen to paper by brainstorming the design ideas. Each element ought to be given considerable thought before having the ideas any decision making.

The importance of the exercise is to allow for a creative exploration of how the possible elements can work together to support the message.

Generating numerous ideas could help in the sketching phase.

Start with a paper and pencil, drawing rough sketches of your ideas so as to be able to quickly iterate on rough concepts.

Only when comfortable with the progress, you could progress to the computer to further the concept.

 

#4. Building the Design

Now it’s time to get down to business. Use your design software and start creating several versions of your selected ideas. The several variations of the design allow you to present options to the client to choose the most suitable design.

Consider trying different color palettes, typographic pairings, and a grid structure to create variation.

The point is, try to have fun!

It would be important to receive client?s feedback on your working progress from the draft. But don?t be limited to the client?s thoughts and opinions, seek a diverse view from a third-hand party.

This review would be valuable especially when it comes from the target audience.

 

#5. Presentation and Refining the Work

With a final design concept, now is the time to prepare for implementing the presentation phase of your work.
Based on the brief prepare either a printed graphical work with a print-ready file format. In the case of a design intended to be used on the website consider choosing the right file type.

Point to note ensure that the final design work aligns with the brief?s objective. Otherwise, you might end up spending much time that could be avoided by taking note of the draft and preliminary work process.

In this phase give the client the opportunity to review the end product and provide feedback.

 

#6. Design Production Phase

Finally, with the approval of the client, you would require preparing the design work for production.

You would require familiarizing with the file format and handling of the design work for production. The basic is CMYK is for printing while RGB for the web.

In the instance you are handing the final work to the client or to the third party for production, be sure to include any specific instructions that may be required.

 

What logo design factor have you considered for effective communication of brand message?

Paul Simiyu

Founder and Team Lead of Simpaul Design, a brand strategy and design agency in Nairobi, Kenya. Here at Simpaul Design, we work with brands across various categories with a focus on connecting with consumers and building brands that people want to be a part of. We specialize in brand identity and strategy, UX/UI, and brand transformation.