11 Sep 2018

A logo is one of the most important parts of the brand’s identity. It’s present in all products, advertising and other materials which have a reference to a company. It should transmit a clear message, be consistent with the brand’s ideology as well as be appealing and easy to remember for customers. That’s why the creation of a proper logo takes a lot of time, efforts and attention to the smallest details. Still, there are some hints which will help you make the logo creation process succeed.

Avoid clichés

Dig deeper into the story of your brand. Try to find a unique feature which you can use in your logo and make it an indispensable part of your brand’s identity. Incarnate this feature in your logo. In such a way, you’ll be able to create a particular set of unique associations related to the brand. Logo, in this case, will become a tool for incorporating these associations into the mind of customers, so next time they will come along your brand they won’t mix it with something else.

Make it simple

Think about logos of the most widely known and expensive brands in the world – Apple, McDonald’s, Pepsi, Nike, Mercedes-Benz, etc. – all of them are very simple, even primitive to some extent. This simplicity is reflected not only in shapes but in the selection of colors as well. Besides visual and aesthetic value, there is another advantage of simple logos – they are more appealing to our brain, as, let’s admit, it’s lazy enough to like simple things, as they are easier to understand and to remember.

Make it memorable

Memorability is the logical consequence of simplicity. Simple logos are very easy to remember and thus form associations with. This is crucial for a good logo - make customers think of the brand even when they don’t interact with it directly but just see something resembling its logo (take, for instance, a nibbled apple).

Make it consistent

The consistency of the logo means that its design correlates with the brand’s identity and reflects its ideology. When customers see a consistent logo it creates a particular set of associations which in its turn form the concrete image of the brand in their brains and make them behave in a certain way. In a nutshell, the consistency of your logo is a direct demonstration of how you are good at paying attention to details as well as at reconciling the ideology and goals of the brand with customers’ preferences.

Don’t forget about colors

Colour directly influences both the message your brand transmits as well as the way it is done. A properly chosen shape and design of the logo may not ring the bell with customers if it’s rendered in wrong colors. Colors are so important, as they are responsible for particular emotions. That’s why brands selling baby food will rarely revert to red color in their logo, while audit companies will be reluctant to use yellow or brown. You can find more insights on how the color affects your brand perception here.

Test your logo

When designing a logo it’s important not only to consider all the aforementioned advice but also to test their viability. You can’t be sure that your logo will hit the target without conducting an assessment before rolling it out. Surveys and heatmaps are two best neuromarketing tools perfectly fitting this purpose.

Use surveys

The best way to try winning the lottery is to buy a lottery ticket. The same is with marketing tests. It’s always better to ask a representative sample of customers about their opinion regarding your new logo before presenting it to a wider audience. The feedback from customers will provide you with valuable insights by analyzing which you will identify which parts of your logo require improvement.

Analyze heatmaps

This tool can be used as a supporting to surveys or as a separate one. Heatmaps are the reports produced after the eye tracking which demonstrate those sports of the tested object which attracted customers’ attention the most. It’s a very handy tool which can help you identify the most and least attractive parts of your logo with the ultimate precision. With the help of simple eye-tracking equipment, you can register the gaze movement of respondents without giving them a chance to control it and influence the outcome of the research, as this equipment tracks and records even the slightest changes in gaze patterns. If coupled with a survey, it provides a holistic picture of how customers’ words correlate with what they actually think about your logo.

As you can see, the creation of an ideal logo isn’t a one-off action. It’s rather a never-ending story which accompanies a brand through its lifecycle. The only thing you should remember is that any changes to your logo should be research-based, and the more information you collect via different research tools, the higher are the chances that you will succeed.