10 Commandments for Better Logo Design

Your brand Logo design is one of the most important factors in creating a strong brand recall. Designing a great logo is more than just how it looks. It is how it feels to the customer. How it resonates with them time and time again.

Your logo is the foundational graphic design element that lives on all marketing materials you create. It lives on the shelf where your product sits and, done right, will live in the hearts of the brand consumer.

When created with consideration and tested for consumer response, this deceptively small form of brand identity can make or break a product’s long-term success. Whereas most companies look for a good logo design, after following these ten commandments, you will understand what it takes to create a great design.

This article teaches you how to make an effective logo so strong that it becomes a brand element carried forward onto all future products.

Ready to learn what it takes to make your logo stand out? Great, but first, let’s talk about strategy and research. 

Learn What Makes a Good Logo 

Copywriters have swipe files and so should you. Compile a group of successful companies that have strong brand recognition, in part, because of a unique company logo. Looking for what these logos have in common make for a good first step when developing your on package brand strategy.

These details help you find commonalities among the good logos that we understand to be unique and distinctive. While you will not make your final design decision based upon your graphic design swipe files, it allows for design ideation. In this process you can be creative and provide insights to your graphic designer helping to guide them in the right direction.

Appreciate the Challenge

To the industry outsider, they seem like a simple project. In reality, however, a good logo takes a talented designer who thinks outside the box. There is a balance where they should have the right combination of both simplicity and drama.

For you to stand out amongst your competitors, you must have a strong brand identity. That brand is ‘You’. It shows others what you stand for, what you believe in, and why you exist. Let’s take a deeper look at the big picture and what it really takes to design a great logo.

here are the 10 commandments:

Make it Simple

Sometimes it is what you don’t do or say that makes your design stand out. There are endless opportunities to make a logo stand out by using the latest design technologies.

A strong logo is often a simple logo.

Consider the Amazon and Apple logo. Both have a minimal look, yet live in the consumer’s mind longer than one that uses the entire color palette. You find a simple apple with a bite out of it and a name with a smile appearing on the arrow. 

Both companies have used their logo as a major component of their brand story. 

The most effective logos are not over-weighted by unnecessary ostentation. The more elaborate and baroque a logo design appears, the less meaningful it may be to the consumer. 

You’ve probably heard of the K.I.S.S. method: Keep It Simple, Stupid. This is a great mantra that you should encourage your logo designer to follow.

A simple logo that performs is one that is memorable, versatile and easily recognizable. It’s unique without losing accessibility to the general public. It is a nonverbal driver that speaks to the consumer beyond the company name.

Make it Scalable

Great logos should look strong whether appearing on the tab of a web browser or branded on a billboard. A scalable logo is on that transfers from your web design, product packaging, and marketing campaigns. Testing for scalability should be a part of your logo design process.

Ornate design concepts might look great on an infographic or tattooed on an arm, but they rarely look good as a company logo. Keep your detailed designs for custom logo work used for a single purpose and leave the brand logo as a simple, scalable solution.

Make it Evocative

When considering your design ideas, begin with the end in mind. Be aware of the direction that you want your brand to travel. What is the demographic you hope to serve and how will you serve them? Having a future focus helps identify the emotions you hope to evoke and what you want the consumer to remember from your company branding.

A near perfect logo isn’t just one that is simple and scalable, but is a design that can communicate your brand message clearly. While this is the most troublesome part of the design process, it is a necessary step for creating a logo that lasts.

Test your logo design to determine if it brings powerful images, memories, and emotions to the demographic you hope to purchase your product.

Make it Vibrant

The color choices for your logo should be eye-catching, eye-pleasing and indicative of the brand identity you want to convey. This is true if you are changing an existing brand image. The existing brand will need to be aware of its current logo and determine the effects a color change will have on brand recall.

Be aware that vibrant does not mean the same thing in every consumer packaged goods category. The logo of a product in the accessories aisle of best buy may use a different color scheme than a can of chicken noodle soup in the grocery store. There are no universally accepted colors to use for a logo design.

Don’t fall victim to the assumptions that certain color schemes work for the emotion you hope to create. The SmashBrand methodology removes subjectivity from the package design process. We test brand elements to determine how changes positively or negatively affect a product’s on-shelf performance.

Make it Black and White

Don’t assume that in this color filled culture that black and white is a thing of the past. Whether it is in newspapers, on t-shirts, on awards, or for hundreds of other reasons, your logo needs to look just as good in black and white.

The practice of creating your initial logo in black and white helps ensure that a designer does not add excessive elements to the logo. While it may not be a common request, ask logo designers to first provide your custom logo design without color. 

Scrap or change the design if it looks like too much is going on and it is hard to understand the logo’s impact on your brand personality.

Make it Unique

While your swipe files are great for inspiration and finding successful elements that carry over from product to product, you should never appear to have copied an existing logo. Most times, copying a logo doesn’t work for the next brand in line.

Here is an example. You know how the swoosh design worked so well for Nike? Did you also know that every semi-large corporation known to man ultimately appropriated the swoosh design?

This made the swoosh one of the biggest jokes in the graphic design world? Don’t be one of those poor, unoriginal souls. We’re looking at you, CapitalOne.

Make it Timeless

Just like clothing styles, there are design elements that come and go. Sure, sometimes it is important to grab hold of a trend and attach it to your marketing efforts, but it’s dangerous to your logo design.

Do your best to avoid aggressive logo design trends, which can look dated as quickly as six weeks from the original unveiling.

You don’t want a design so groundbreaking that it’s outdated in six months. One hallmark of a good logo is timelessness, not trendiness; research logos that have shown impressive longevity and study those designs for examples of an impressive logo shelf life.

Make it Memorable

It’s surprising how memorable a simple, elegant design can be. How do you feel when you think about McDonald’s golden arches? This logo is not complex, but it is instantly recognizable. It has a design that is one of a kind but without being bogged down with an excessive amount of elements.

There has been no need to change this look in all the years that McDonald’s has been in businesses.

Make it Relevant

Remember how we told you to avoid trends? You should, but you must also keep the prevailing cultural sentiment and current technological realities in mind. 

Be aware of the way the wind is blowing, so to speak. Make sure that your design team includes people from different stages of life and with different lenses to view the world from.

Although your logo should be creative and eye-catching, it should not be a design that has nothing to do with your product, industry, or consumer.

For example, the Evernote elephant is a great representation for a productivity suite designed to help you remember and organize things. It makes sense, connects directly to their product, and creates a conversation with the consumer. 

Your logo should do the same.

Make it Challenging

Not so challenging that the logo is difficult to look at without having a stroke. It should be challenging enough to provoke thought and make people intrigued but not so much that it creates confusion and cognitive fatigue.

Work With A Designer That Follows These Rules

Don’t be fooled by the deceptive appearance of the humble logo; take the time to find a design agency that will meet your needs. A good designer will ask plenty of questions about your goals and your company, and understand exactly how important a logo is to your success.

By following these ten commandments, you’ll have a better appreciation for the process required for designing a remarkable logo. You will also understand how to choose the right candidate to create your next trademark.

In our current world of marketing immediacy, an instantly recognizable logo is almost as vital as your product itself.

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SmashBrand is a package design agency that helps brands increase their products on-shelf performance. Through our package design process and proprietary testing methodology, we can help your brand outperform the competition. Book a time to discuss your project with our team.

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