Logo

What is a logo? A logo is a symbol that is meant to represent a company, organization, product, service, entity, or person. Even certain places have logos. A good logo should encompass a company’s philosophy, their purpose, or their goal. A successful logo will do all this quickly and succinctly, conveying all these messages in a glance. It should be clear, memorable, and easily printed on a variety of media. *br>
A logo should be unique enough to differentiate itself, and therefore the entity it represents, from other entities, especially those in the same area of interest. This can be done through the use of color and other elements such as typography or imagery. The McDonald’s logo can be identified in any language due to its color elements and its iconic arches that form the trademark “M.”

A successful logo should also be functional in a wide range of uses. It should be easily incorporated, or at least adaptable, into the standard business forms, such as envelopes, letterheads, and business cards, as well as any signage that might be needed. It should be able to be easily transferred to other less “forgivable” media, such as fabric. It should also be easily identifiable in either full color, limited color palettes, or in black and white.

Of all the principles that make a logo successful, perhaps the most important is that it should represent the brand or company appropriately. If the business represented is a chartered accountancy, using a cartoon turtle as a logo element might not be appropriate. The whimsy of the cartoon image might give the impression that the accounting firm doesn’t take their job seriously. Similarly, a logo for a skate park would most likely not work well with a pink daisy for a logo element. Skaters, being mostly male, will not be very likely to patronize a park they see as “girly.”

Logos can consist of a number of important elements. The elements that can be brought together to create a logo are typography, or logotype, the icon, and a slogan. The logotype can be a simple name, or it can be a long name, such as that of a law firm. The icon or symbol can be simple and elegant, or it can be complex. The slogan can be short and sweet or long and descriptive. It all depends on the company represented. The most successful logos are simple and elegant, but there are many which have a number of elements in them.

There are logos that are simply the company name in a distinctive font. Sony is a good example of this. The type style is simple and basic and if used in any other context, is most likely not going to be associated with the Sony Corporation, but string those four letters together and they are instantly recognizable. This is true not only because one can read the name of the company, but also because of the font used. Coca-Cola’s script font is another example of a name and font as a logo.

Sometimes they consist of only one element. The Nike “swoosh” is a good example of a logo that contains a single element, yet is completely recognizable worldwide. Part of that recognizability is due to the success and influence of the company itself, but it can be argued that their logo is a part of that success. Their logo was successful in conveying the company’s image to the buying public. As we see with Nike, a logo that can be incorporated into merchandise is a good choice for some manufacturers.

Many logos call upon or rely upon their company’s history as a means of conveying their message in their logos. Often this means that simplicity is sacrificed for brand identification. A cluttered logo, perhaps one that the company made its name with, and is easily recognizable, can be more successful than a slick new logo, if the brand loyalty doesn’t transfer with the new image.

There can be many associations between a logo and the consumer. Sometimes these are difficult for company executives or even advertising agencies to grasp, such as the emotional attachments people can have to products. The things they might have grown up with, for example. A good example of this is Aunt Jemima syrup. The image of Aunt Jemima can be considered racially insensitive and has been accused of being just that, yet the brand loyalty to that image/spokesperson, albeit fictional, is very strong. It would be difficult for a company to shed that iconic image without the risk of losing a huge customer base.

That is not to say that a company cannot revamp an old image and make it “new.” The logo for Aunt Jemima, a company that makes pancake flour and syrup, has indeed been redesigned a number of times. Originally depicted as a slave on a plantation, Jemima had a polka dot kerchief covering her hair and was depicted as a hefty kitchen cook. This image has been much altered until her present image is more motherly. She has lost her kerchief for a more modern hairstyle and pearls, and she is also much thinner. The change is not so radical that the company has lost its iconic image, but it has managed to shed itself of the negative associations that came with the older image. Slow and small changes to a company logo are sometimes more effective and practical than a sudden and significant change.

Color can be a very effective tool in logo design, though it should not be integral to the success of the logo design. A logo should work equally well in black and white and possibly other color variations. Many media will not be well suited to color printing, consequently even a full color logo should be recognizable in black and white. Nevertheless, many logos do maintain their market recognition through the effective use of color.

The study of color theory has shown that there are many emotional associations with certain colors. Far beyond the simple “red means passion” or “blue signifies cool” associations, colors can convey much when used correctly. Greens can convey the concept of environment, important for organic products or things associated with the outdoors. Light blues can evoke feelings of calm and peacefulness, while dark blues can be taken to evoke more strident feelings such as authority and order. Some colors are more straightforward. It has been said that the red and yellow of the McDonalds logo simply signifies the colors of mustard and ketchup. While this might seem elementary, the colors can also be further associated with food in general, the condiment’s colors evoking a feeling of hunger for their product.

Certain shades of colors can bring out certain emotions that companies might wish to attach to their products. Laundry detergents are by and large mostly blues or pastels, though there are some products that are fiery red. While no one wants to associate clothing with fire, the color choice may simply be to make their product stand out from the vast field of pastel blues and yellows and greens that they are competing against.

Company slogans are often incorporated into a logo design. Usually, they are used to reinforce the message that the icon is supposed to convey. An effective slogan often has more than one way of being read. A “brilliant” example of this is GE or General Electric. Their slogan is “GE: We bring good things to life.” This slogan conveys the message that GE is about the good life, about providing the consumer with products that will improve or enhance their lives. The second message it conveys is that they power those products. GE brings them to life through the use of electricity, which the company got its start providing. This also evokes the company’s long history of providing electricity. It is irrelevant whether or not they still provide that electricity to this particular customer.

A slogan can be the most effective way of bringing a company’s message to the consumer. While a slogan alone cannot be a logo, a slogan can tie an icon together with a message, making it more effective. The present Nike logo was not always just a single lone “swoosh.” It started out as an image tied to the company name, although in context, on the actual products, which were shoes, the swoosh was alone. Eventually the name and the swoosh acquired a slogan or tagline: “Just Do It.” A slogan like Nike’s “Just Do It” today can be incorporated into advertising in all forms of media, as Nike did in their very successful ad campaign. This tagline is considered one of the most successful campaigns of the 20th century and helped elevate the logo to the point where neither the name nor the slogan was needed any longer.

The design of a logo is a very tenuous thing. It should be simple enough to be understood in a glance, yet have enough depth that it can be viewed on a number of different levels. It should be complex enough to grasp the meaning of the entity it’s representing, without being so involved that it confuses the market it’s trying to reach. It should be concise and clear.

Some companies pay advertising agencies millions for one single logo design. The conceptualization and completion of that design can take as long as a year to finalize. Automobile manufacturers are a good example of this. Carmakers regularly pay large sums of money for agencies to come up with not only logos for their vehicles, but also the names as well. Some of these car names are simply gibberish words that are cobbled together to evoke emotion. Camry and Cressida are examples of this.

There are many extremely elegant and simple logos in the auto industry. The Impala logo for Chevrolet is an excellent example of taking the name of the vehicle and creating an iconic image that conveys the feelings that the company wants to evoke in their vehicle. The impala is represented within an oval. The sweeping curves of the impala evoke the smooth and sinuous motion of a car on a sweeping curve of road. The image of an impala brings with it the perception of graceful speed and prompts the viewer to think of the vehicle as a wild animal, an animal that the driver is in control of, or perhaps the animal is within himself or herself. All this is from a single, evocative image.

Auto company logos are perhaps more intensely conceptualized, resulting in purely brilliant solutions. The logo for the Infinity auto manufacturer, far from being a simple name of letter representing their company, is that and more. Again the oval, which, aside from being a simple compositional element, could represent the Earth or the consumer’s universe, encompasses two near-parallel lines meeting near the top of the oval. The two lines not only represent the “I” in the name Infinity, but also the parallel lines of a road, extending into infinity, into the distance, the future.

A successful logo must have an impact on the intended audience. In order to do this, the company needs to identify and target their audience. It does them little good if their logo reaches an audience that has no interest in their product or service. While there may be some crossover interest, for the most part, companies need to remain focused on who their product is for and avoid trying to be everything to everyone.

A good example of this is the truck industry. While it is true that there are many women who are interested and who drive trucks, truck manufacturers’ logos, indeed their entire campaigns are decidedly masculine. Part of this is simply because the things that appeal to men when it comes to trucks are the same things that appeal to women who like trucks. They represent toughness and individuality, as ironic as that seems in a mass-produced vehicle, and they would likely boycott a truck marketed as feminine.

For this reason, the majority of truck logos are essentially extensions of that philosophy: solid, heavy and reliable. Large, usually heavily metalicized logo treatments are the norm, often with machine-influenced elements like large bolts or rivets either in the logo itself or used to attach the logo to the vehicle or a magazine page ad.

This is not to say that it is impossible to crossover and market a traditionally masculine product in a more feminine manner. A logo design would be the lead element in such a campaign for most products. Cars and trucks themselves, however, have traditionally had a very masculine style to their logo designs, regardless of whether the target market were male or female.

Logos can bring consumers to a product or service, but they can also be used to increase consumer loyalty or pride in that product or service. Take, for example, a sports franchise logo. Most sports teams have a built-in audience, being based in and linked to large cities. While a logo can help draw in fans from cities and towns other than their own, or with fans who are disheartened by their local teams, for the most part, a team is not dependent upon a logo design to create its fan base.

A well-designed logo can boost team spirit, increasing fan awareness and participation. Fans can feel proud of an impressive logo design that illustrates what they feel are their team’s attributes. It can also boost the team’s secondary market: merchandizing. A team logo can be used to create a desire for a franchise product such as a team jersey.

A logo can also be used to increase loyalty and community within a company or corporation. There are many companies that have no real product that they are pushing to consumers and no identity to convey outside its own company walls, yet these companies will have some sort of logo. A well-designed logo can invoke a feeling of pride in the company. A logo can simply convey to the company’s employees that their employer is professional and dedicated.

The history of logo design is one of simplification, of distilling an idea or a concept down into a single, distinct, and meaningful iconic image. These icons often become part of our collective histories. Some of the most important images throughout history are its logos, the Christian Cross, the Nazi Swastika, the Star of David. These can all be considered logos, and one could argue that they each are an attempt to not only identify an entity, but also to sell it. An icon, such as the swastika, was used to call the faithful to the person or entity it represented. The Christian cross became the symbol of Christianity after its most important human icon, Jesus, was crucified upon one.

As with the cross and the swastika, the associations made to these icons are dependent upon the person perceiving them. Many find the swastika offensive for what the Nazi party did under its image, but the swastika has a much older history that has been all but wiped away because of that more recent past. Some Christians, like the Episcopalians, do not accept the Cross as the symbol of their religion because of its association with torture. They’ve chosen an icon that more closely represents the region their religion originated in and the occupation of the Apostles who followed Jesus and helped establish the Christian faith. The Star of David, while it has been used as an icon for the Jewish faith, it has also been used as a device to identify Jews in Nazi Germany, creating a whole new range of associations.

Logos can be very powerful images that can not only identify a company, convey its message, and give a product voice, but they can sometimes be used to change the world. Images bear significance in human culture, and that significance extends from icons like the Christian cross to advertising symbols like the Nike swoosh. Like the simple apple, a logo can come to represent so much more than just a piece of fruit.