21 Tips for a Better New Logo for Your Business for 2019
Looking for a new logo or brand for your business? Here’s a few tips for Startups and existing businesses who are looking to develop a new logo!
WHY do you Need a New Logo?
1. It’s a New Business: Let’s get past this quickly, if you’re a new business, no matter how large or small, you will almost certainly need a logo of some description. Today’s world is a visual, speedy, screen scrolling, finger flicking fickle one. Your business will undoubtedly have a presence on the web somewhere be that social media, business listings or its very own website. Looking good and catching customers eyes online is as vital as any potential touchpoint you logo might appear on. Even if your business operates wholly offline, it’s likely that potential customers will look at what you offer on the internet first (probably on a mobile device).
2. Make More Money: A new logo should help you to attract more business, both new and recurring. There’s very little point of change for change sake. Rebranding shouldn’t be taken on lightly, even if you’ve already identified the need to change your business look, take time to ensure the end goal of more profit remains the focus.
3. Resonate with your Target Market: Falling out of sync visually with your target market can prove to be a limiting factor. Culture, technology and lifestyle trends race forward at a blistering pace. Don’t leave your brand standing still when your clients have moved on! A brand refresh can realign your business with your customers or perhaps evolve to target new opportunities.
4. Refresh your Business: A new logo can be a great signal to both clients and staff alike that the business has a new focus. Perhaps the business has recently taken on new senior staff or re-evaluated its key principles or goals? Signalling this rejuvenation can go alongside a refreshed logo design to help tell the world that your business is setting off with a new mission!
5. Shake off Negative Historical Associations: The flip side of that is if your business has had a bit of a rough time, perhaps service had slipped or the quality dropped, launching a new logo and brand in conjunction with improvements to your offering can help customers old and new to understand that the past has been cleaned up and the future is where you’re heading.
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Kieran Harrod has been creating successful brands big and small, in the UK and overseas for almost two decades.
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WHERE does your Logo fit into your overall brand?
6. More Than a Logo: Your brand is more than a logo, it’s more than visual elements users interact with. Embrace a more coherent overview of the brand your business projects and where a new logo can fit in, reinforce and project this overall brand.
7. Part of an Overall Brand: Consider the logo design alongside the culture, presentation and people of your business. The way the logo describes your brand should match the way your staff describe it. There’s very little point having a logo that for example says your B2B business is serious and professional if your customer service staff don’t deal with customers in a serious and professional way.
8. What does and what Should your Brand say? Take time to look at the business holistically, talk to staff, customers and others around you to see what they think your wider business brand is currently presenting and what it should look like. Use this information to help decide what your logo should do and say about you.
WHAT should your logo say about your Business?
9. The First Thing they See: Your logo and visual branding is often both the first touchpoint with customers. It’s like a secret agent for your company, working diligently on your behalf to speak to clients when they see it.
10. Perhaps the Last: It may be the last to, a bag, an appointment card, a package, an invoice or a business card handed to them, your logo may be the last step in the funnel. That final interaction could be the important factor that ensures they get in touch or come back to use your company again.
11. Keep things Flexible: When planning a new logo, you should have the above flexibility in mind, your logo could find itself needing to adapt to all sorts of situations, from a small icon on a phone screen up to, perhaps, a huge billboard! Ensuring you can apply your logo across a range of applications (or your designer can) is an important consideration.
12. Your 24h Ambassador: Whilst you sleep, your new logo can be working full time, around the clock as a 24-hour ambassador for your brand! Keep this in mind to make sure your brand is doing the right job, attracting the correct clients and winning the best business!
WHO should design your Business logo?
13. Plan your Budget: This will perhaps be a leading factor when looking for a designer to create your new logo, how much will it cost. Like me, most designers will have a range of solutions to suit lots of budgets and as with most things, you get what you pay for. My services start from around £500 and scale up depending on the work undertaken and the size of the organisation.
I don’t usually work at price points below this as in general, the time to research, sketch, draft and develop a successful design takes time, skill and creativity that can’t be achieved for less.
14. Trusted, Professional and Reliable: You’re spending your businesses money, so you need to spend it with wisdom. Look for a designer who has a track record of successful designs, happy clients and great designs. You should be able to browse past logos on a designers website or online portfolio and get a feel for their work and the brands they deliver.
15. A Partner not a Contractor: You should be looking for a designer who you work closely with, someone whom you have mutual respect, whose advice you can trust and whose experience you can respect. The most successful brands and logos I’ve worked on have been when the client and I have created a fantastic partnership that’s allowed both the space to create a creative solution that hits the brief amazingly.
16. Discover the Brief: If you follow even a handful of the tips in this article, you should quickly notice that you’re developing a useful brief to supply to your designer. Getting the brief right is vital to ensure your designer understands your business and you understand what the designer is going to deliver. Your designer should also be armed with the tools to draw out information that improves the brief. I find this is always best in a discussion, ideally over coffee, but a call or two, perhaps a video call, will usually do the job!
17. Every File You’ll Ever Need: Your new logo should be yours to use as needed. I provide “Every File You’ll Ever Need”; theoretically, that’s multiple filetypes, layouts and lockups, variations, colourways and sizes, including original files that will scale indefinitely. One particular job with a wide colour palette was delivered with over 1200 files!
WHEN should you launch a new Logo?
18. When it’s Ready: A pretty obvious one, but ideally you shouldn’t launch a new logo until it’s ready! As I create a logo design things develop and evolve at every stage, small improvements, adjustments and tweaks always arise right up to the last point as I don’t deliver anything until it’s spot on.
19. During a Product Launch: Thanks to the reach of the web, launching a new logo or brand can create traffic for your business at any time. Tagging your logo launch alongside the reveal of a new product can create some synergy between the two reveals and increase the impact.
20. At an Event: If you’ve got an event, internal or external, creating a buzz around your new brand in person with staff or customers can be a great opportunity.
21. Alongside a Notable Date: Hooking into a big holiday or date can be a great time to launch a brand, especially if you can link the day to your business or brand. Even if not, especially in the social media space, using events with hashtags or just the general increase in talk about the event can improve the launch impact.
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