6 Things To Consider When Designing A Logo & Brand
When you’re starting up a business there’s a lot to think about. For example, what you’re selling, start-up costs, storage or where you’ll operate, staffing, inventory and of course, marketing your new venture.
As part of your marketing, you need to think about the basics like your business name, logo, website and branding.
If you’ve already got some ideas for these, that’s great! But if you’re starting from scratch and looking for inspiration, there are some important factors you need to consider first.
In the guide below, we’ll share some of the things you need to think about when designing your brand and logo.
1. The three P’s
The best place to start when designing your brand is with the three P’s: position, personality and promise. Having a better understanding of these three things will help you to design your brand and create visuals that reflect this.
But what do we mean by the three P’s?
Position
Your brand position is driven by awareness, value, difference, accessibility and emotional connection. Essentially, your position represents what makes you different from your competitors and why your customers should remember and favour your brand.
Personality
A brand’s personality is the way it is personified to shape how consumers feel about its goods, services and mission.
This is usually expressed through tone of voice, behaviour, communication style and visuals, and gives the brand human characteristics that consumers can relate to, such as being fun, emotive, compassionate, etc.
Promise
Finally, your brand will make a promise to customers. This is the value or experience they can expect every time they interact with your business. It’s vital that you can deliver on your brand promise as much as possible.
This might sound like a lot to focus on in the first instance, but once you have a better idea of what will make you different from your competitors and how you’ll add value to your customers, this can really help to shape the rest of your branding and your logo.
2. Your brand name
When choosing your brand name you need to make sure that you keep it short and simple. It also needs to be relevant to what you’re selling or your mission. On top of that, you also need to make sure it’s catchy and memorable.
And if that wasn’t enough, you need to look out for any trademark issues and consider the SEO implications of your brand name. If you’re concerned about any of this, it might be better to employ the service of a professional marketing company to help you get started.
3. The colour palette
When the time comes to start on the visual elements of your brand, you want to think about the colours you should use. It’s a good idea to keep these colours consistent to make your brand and logo more recognisable.
It’s also best to have one or two dominant colours for your branding, and as you look for inspiration, think about the connotations of each colour and whether these reflect your brand.
For example, if your business is eco-friendly or places a lot of importance on sustainable practices, then you could choose green as your primary colour to reflect nature and the environment.
4. Your logo
Once you have your colours, you can begin to design visuals like your website and your logo. There is a lot to consider when creating your logo, it needs to be clean and stylish, and any typography used needs to be easy to read.
So during the early stages, remember to think carefully about:
- Your chosen colours
- Imagery or visual elements
- Fonts
- Shape
- Outer and inner space
- Gradients
Your logo also needs to reflect your brand or what you’re selling, be easy to recognise and finally, you need to make something that’s completely unique to your brand. This will help to foster brand loyalty and start to build on the personality of your company.
Again, we understand that’s a lot to focus on, so if you’re not feeling confident in your ability to create something striking or memorable, don’t panic. You can choose to work with a professional graphic designer who can help you with your logo and any other visuals you want to create for your brand and business launch.
5. A tagline
A tagline is just a few words that make up a memorable phrase or motto. These are used to express purpose and mission. Some famous examples you’ve probably heard include:
Tesco: Every little helps
Specsavers: Should’ve gone to Specsavers
Kit Kat: Have a break… have a Kit-Kat
Disneyland: The happiest place on Earth
Nike: Just do it
Now, not every business has or needs a tagline, but it can help to add more personality to your brand and to give more details about your position and/or promise. So if you choose to include one, you need to make sure it is catchy, makes sense and most importantly, reflects your brand.
When generating your tagline, try to tell a story and give some context and meaning to your company. This can be tricky, so this might not be something you settle on straight away. Give yourself some time to play about with words and trial a few taglines before you choose one.
6. Your website and social media
Lastly, in today’s digital world, creating an engaging and user-friendly website is a must, particularly if you run an e-commerce business.
There are lots of platforms that can make building a website much easier. But once again, if you’re not confident in this area, choosing a professional web designer or developer can take off the pressure.
Your website needs to reflect your brand, your colour scheme and should include your logo and tagline.
At this stage, you might also want to set up at least one social media profile. Which platforms you choose will depend on your preferences and the preferences of your target audience.
You should also include your logo and tagline on these profiles too.
