What Makes a Logo Good or Bad?
You’ll often hear people talk about how they like this logo or that brand. While it’s good to have personal preferences there are also things that make some logos objectively stronger than others. So whether you’re evaluating a current logo, or looking at options for the future, here are a few tings to keep in mind.
A Good Logo is Appropriate for all its intended uses.
Before designing a logo it’s important to consider how it will be used. For instance, if the logo will often appear on printed materials like signage, letterhead or print advertising it’s good to use print safe colors to ensure consistent and accurate appearance. The Swiss Water logo is a good example of this. The logo uses one color that can be easily printed across many different applications from coffee bags to business cards.
Alternatively we have the Firefox Nightly logo. Because it’s a web browser brand that rarely if ever will appear on anything except a computer screen this the logo can make use of a wide range of colors and gradients that couldn’t be properly replicated in print.
A Good Logo Scales Well
Logos need to strike the right balance of having some visual interest but not so much detail that it becomes unrecognizable when scaled down. For instance, the original Apple logo shown below looks great at larger size but as it’s scaled down it becomes hard to see. Can you imagine this on the back of an iPhone? The reason the current apple logo works at every size is its simplicity.
A Good Logo can Accommodate Future Growth
When designing a logo for you company it’s easy to get trapped in the present and think about your company only as it exists today. A good practice is to think about the future of the company and envision what it might grow into and become. When Sony began their first product was a transistor radio. In the immediate case it might have made sense to include some imagery of a radio into the logo. If they had done that the Sony brand would quickly become obsolete as they ventured into movies, television, cameras and computing. By considering your potential growth up front you will end up with a logo and brand that stands the test of time.
A Good Logo Appeals to its Intended Demographic.
It doesn’t matter how cool your logo looks if it doesn’t resonate with its intended demographic. Think about your target audience up front. A bank that was branded with the bright, friendly, goofy look of Fisher Price wouldn’t attract many serious investors. To craft a good brand start by thinking of who you are trying to appeal to and what you want to communicate to them. From there it’s much easier to end up with a result that attracts exactly the clientele you want.
Want a logo that works for you? Contact me today to get started.
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