Your Guide to Designing a Compelling Brand Logo

Developing Your Logo – Why It’s More Important Than You Think

In today’s digital age, having a recognizable and visually appealing brand logo is essential for your company’s success – from the landing page of your website to the bio of your social media account, your logo is front and center. It helps tell the story of who you are and what you do, setting you apart from others in your niche.

Although it may seem like a low priority initially, especially if you are a newer company with a neverending list of tasks required to launch a business, nailing down a logo early on is a crucial step – it’s much easier to build and sustain your brand recognition if you get the logo design right from the start rather than switching it after a few years and losing the valuable brand equity and goodwill you have already acquired.

But fret not, as more than ever before, online resources and tools – several outlined in this guide – make creating your perfect company logo accessible and affordable.

Double-Checking Your Logo’s Uniqueness – Use Web Search to Your Advantage

When brainstorming possible logo designs, Google Images is an invaluable tool and an excellent jumping-off point. Google Lens, a button on the right of the Google Images search bar and a standalone app, allows you to import a photo into the search function. When you do so, by copying an image link or pasting a picture into the search prompt, Google will work its web-scouring magic and find any images identical or similar to yours. In addition to ensuring that another company is not already using your logo, you’ll get a sense of the overall uniqueness of your initial design.

As an experiment, start with a generic Google search for “tree logo,” right-click on one of the image results to copy the image, then paste it into Google Lens. Google populates the right side of the image search results with over 60 similar tree designs. From there, you can buy a trademarked image from companies like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, or iStock, and modify it with your company name, making it easy and relatively cheap to create a logo quickly.

However, if you want to arrive at a more distinctive logo, it is best to hire an independent designer and go over ideas and thoughts about how you would like your logo to look. 

The Subtle Art of Logos – Strategies and Examples

Arriving at the ideal logo involves a lot of experimenting, as the aesthetic “feel” should match how you want your business to be perceived. Run through multiple changes in color or variations in font until you hit upon the combination that speaks to you. If you are working with a graphic designer, don’t be afraid to ask for several versions with slight edits and gather feedback from friends, family, and co-workers.

When we create your logo at Maia Internet Consulting, the first pass at the design will offer you a big variety of ideas, various icons, colors, and fonts. As you focus on what you like and don’t like, our design team can create new designs by taking from your favorite icons, fonts, and colors. After about three renditions of logo design, we are usually pretty close to what you might like. After we have an approved design, we will create files that can be used in a huge sign at your property or the smallest size for a Facebook icon. 

Aim for your logo to be distinctive while remaining clean and simple. The brand logo of this Volcano bed and breakfast exemplifies this combination – two shades of green create the logo’s image of a volcano, with the green lettering below also hinting at the lush rainforest locale of the lodge. It’s this subtlety of storytelling that makes a logo design memorable.

Also, think early on about possible variations of your logo, with some more stripped down and useful for specific purposes. For instance, using the previous example of Volcano Village Lodge, perhaps they would use the volcano logo with the abbreviation “VVL” rather than the entire “Volcano Village Lodge” text on a business card or on a complimentary wine glass, where space is more limited. Or, opt for the volcano logo alone on a t-shirt. One of the most mainstream and widely-known examples of this logo tactic is Nike’s iconic swoosh and the phrase “Just Do It” – sometimes you see just the swoosh, while other times they are used together.

Whatever stage of the brand and logo development phase you’re at, our team at Maia brings expertise in website design and marketing – let’s tell your story, beginning with your logo and expanding to new horizons from there.