Whether it’s a golden arch, a half eaten apple or pink jagged numbers, a logo is the visual embodiment of a brand’s identity. It has the power to inspire trust, admiration or even disdain, so you need to think carefully about how it’s designed.

Creating a logo isn’t simply a case of doodling for a few hours and picking out your favourite sketch. You have to find the magic combination of shapes, images and colours that will reflect your brand’s ethos and appeal to your target market.

Designing a logo which also remains relevant for years to come is far from simple, but here are a few tips to get you started:

Logo design rules

At a basic level, your logo should achieve the following:

• Describable so people can easily interpret what it represents
• Memorable so people will recognise it and associate it with your business
• Effective without colour in case it’s printed in black and white
• Scalable so it’s legible even when small enough to fit on a business card
• It shouldn’t be too complex otherwise it will ‘gum up’ and appear messy when shrunk
• Have fairly equal dimensions. People prefer logos which are square or circular, rather than tall and thin or short and fat

Logo design types

Logos generally fall into three main types:

• An illustrative representation of what a company does e.g. the WWF’s panda
• An abstract iconic image e.g. Apple, any sportswear brand or car manufacturer
• Font based with a unique typeface e.g. Harley Davidson, Google or Coca Cola

The logo type used should reflect the nature of a business’ industry and appeal to its target audience. An obvious example is the WWF’s panda, which is far more effective at conveying animal conservation than if they’d chosen the sort of dynamic, abstract logos favoured by sportswear brands.

Whichever type of logo you choose, it’s sensible to keep graphic and text elements (e.g. your company name or slogan) separate. Designing these elements independently gives you more scope and flexibility in how they’re used in the future.

For example, when your company becomes rich and famous you might want to drop the company slogan altogether, and let your logo spell out your brand message on its own.

2012 Olympics logo - disaster or genius?

Despite a national outbreak of disappointment, a petition to get it replaced and claims it causes epileptic fits, a series of brightly coloured, jagged numbers are what will be used to promote the London 2012 Olympics. The fact that the logo cost taxpayers £400,000 to design probably didn’t soften the blow.

When launched, the Olympics council hailed it as ‘the vision at the very heart of our brand’ and an effort to reach out to the nation’s youth. The nation’s marketers, however, are less enamoured. In a recent survey, three out of five said they thought it was ineffective and didn’t quite give the impression of the UK being a world leader in entertainment, culture and sport as everyone had hoped.

However, 2012 is still four years away, and the logo is designed to be used in a variety of animated guises yet to be unveiled (and possibly still to be invented for that matter). And as people get on with supporting their country, they yet might find themselves warming to it, particularly if it starts being associated with yet another Team GB triumph.

The Nike Swoosh - pure genius

Ordinarily, designing a logo is a complicated process, requiring weeks or even months of research, sketching, conceptualisation and reflection. However, occasionally stokes (or one stroke to be precise) of genius can occur.

Perhaps the greatest example of how a brand’s logo can grow into a globally admired symbol is the Nike ‘Swoosh’, a simple yet effective representation of the wing of Nike, the Greek Goddess of Victory.

Created by a graphic design student in 1971 for a mere $35, the Swoosh was partnered with the ‘Just Do It’ slogan to brilliantly symbolise a lifestyle choice for millions of athletes and casual sports fans worldwide.

People are seduced into buying sportswear and equipment decorated with the Nike Swoosh because of how it makes them feel, the holy grail of brand marketing.

A logo should be for life

It takes time to build awareness of your logo and what it represents. So deciding that it doesn’t promote your brand message adequately and changing it a few years down the line can be expensive and counterproductive, which is why you need to get your logo design right first time.

So, whether you spend £400,000 or $35, designing your logo will require obeying the rules (whilst also daring to be different), hours of perspiration and a few strokes of genius.

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

‘If Coca-Cola were to lose all of its production-related assets in a disaster, the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola, the company would go out of business.” – unnamed Coca-Cola Exec

A business’ brand is the set of thoughts and feelings people associate with it. More than just an eye catching logo, a brand can provoke positive emotions, such as excitement, trust and desire, which seduce people into wanting a relationship with it.

People prefer to interact with those they like and trust. So a business’ brand is its biggest intangible asset because of its influence on customers; if you can influence the way they think you can influence the way they behave.

People don’t buy Nike trainers because they feel more comfortable, but because they want to buy into the lifestyle promised on adverts and endorsed by some of the world’s biggest sports stars. When Nike’s customers see their ‘swoosh’ logo they see a status symbol and feel a set of positive associations which they want to be a part of.

“A great brand raises the bar – it adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it’s the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness, or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you’re drinking really matters” – Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks)

It’s not always the best product which wins, but the one with the best branding

When people are in a shop choosing between two products they’re not merely pondering which has the most speed settings or loudest volume, but how the products make them feel.

People make buying decisions based on pragmatic and emotional triggers. So to encourage them to pick your box from the shelf, you need to make them feel good about you when they see your logo.

People are often happy to pay extra for a branded product because of the positive emotions triggered by the brand’s charisma (and advertising).

“Coca Cola does not win the taste test. Microsoft does not have the best operating system. Brands win.” – Bob Pittman (President of AOL)

Defining your business’ brand

When assessing what your brand should say about you and how it should make people feel, you need to consider:

• What’s your big idea – what makes you special? What’s at the heart of what you do? Ikea, for example, sells stylish furniture at affordable prices based on the big idea that well designed furniture should be available to everyone.
• Values – What do you believe in? What do you strive for in the service you provide? Easyjet’s brand is built on the values of easy and cheap.
• Vision – what are your aspirations and plans for the future?
• Personality – How do you want to talk to your customers? In a witty ‘Innocent’ drinks style or like a straight talking ‘John Smiths’ Yorkshireman?

These questions provide a blueprint for the thoughts and feelings you want your brand to communicate to your customers.

Communicating your brand

Once you’ve identified your big idea, values, vision and personality, you need to communicate your brand’s message through everything you do, including your business’ culture, customer service and advertising.

The tone, visual identity and appeal of your advertising must be consistent and carefully designed to reflect want you want people to feel when they see your logo. Whether it’s trust, excitement, reliability or prestige, the emotions triggered by your brand will influence how people respond to you and whether they’ll buy your products.

Selling bottled water is environmental insanity, with water being shipped half way around the world from Fiji and millions of barrels of oil used to make the plastic bottles.

However, the successful branding of bottled water as a purer, more natural and healthier alternative to what you can easily pour from the tap has seen sales increase 60% this decade and created a market worth £2 billion a year. This just goes to show that if you can influence how people feel you can influence what they’ll buy as well.

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.