Your company'due south logo is the foundation of your business organization branding. It is probably the offset interaction that you lot volition have with your customers. An effective logo can establish the right tone and fix the proper ethos. After years of crafting logos for different projects, I've come up with a set of questions that I always enquire myself before delivering a new logo.

1. What emotions does the logo evoke?

Above all pattern guidelines, the virtually important criterion is whether the logo reflects the character of the company. The emotions that the logo evoke should be appropriate to the company values. For example, the Disney logo evokes a sense of happiness and optimism. The curvy, fun typeface is appropriate for a company that has been making cartoons and animated pictures for kids. All the same, a like logo manner on a sales platform would not exist appropriate.

Designers should empathize the psychology of colors and the effect that typeface has on the design of a great logo. For example, green promotes relaxation and usually reflects growth, health, and the surroundings. Ruby, on the other mitt, may evoke danger and passionate emotions. Similarly for typefaces, Garamond, Helvetica, and Comic Sans all elicit very different sentiments. Serif fonts like Garamond promote the idea of respect and tradition, and are hence more suitable for an environs that demands integrity such as a academy or a news publisher. Sans Serif fonts like Helvetica are clean and modern, and are well suited for high-tech businesses. Casual script fonts similar Comic Sans are probably all-time left for fun companies such as toy companies. A good understanding of the psychology of colors, typefaces, and shapes is an important part of making a great logo.

The styling of the Disney logo is appropriate for a company that aims to be fun, but such a style would not be appropriate for a sales platform company.

2. What's the pregnant behind the logo?

Backside every slap-up logo is a story. A great logo is non well-nigh slapping your business name on a generic shape, which is why choosing from ready-fabricated logos is a poor idea. A logo has to accept a meaningful story. A expert designer first understands the culture of the visitor, the tone of the product, and the vision of the business, much before embarking on ideas for the logo. The finish result of a quality logo is reflective of the philosophy and values of the company.

The arrow in the logo represents that Amazon sells everything from A to Z and the smile on the client'due south face when they buy a production.

3. Will the logo stand up the test of time?

How will the logo wait in two, ten, 20 years? Designers should avoid getting sucked into flavor-of the-calendar month trends. Trends similar ultra-thin fonts and flat shadows are design styles that will probably not stand the test of time. Simple is far better than complex. A elementary all the same memorable logo can be used in 20 years without looking dated.

A proficient style to test the logo is to let information technology sit with y'all for a while before releasing it. Some logos grow with y'all–the more yous look at it, the more you like it. Some logos commencement to feel nauseating afterwards a while–the more than you lot look at it, the more you hate it. If later a couple of weeks with the logo yous find it slow, the logo is probably not potent or timeless enough.

The simplistic outline and shape of the Apple tree Inc. logo allows information technology to suffer the test of time. The showtime prototype of the logo would definitely not be suitable today.

4. Is it unique? Tin can it be instantly recognizable?

A great logo is distinctive, memorable, and recognizable. Even if you have simply seen it once, you should nonetheless exist able to remember what it looks similar after a period of time. A adept way to test this is to show your logo to a friend, then cover it up and have your friend draw the logo in a week. A fresh pair of eyes tin exist very effective in figuring out the most memorable components of a logo.

In addition, if the logo reminds you of others yous have seen, information technology is not singled-out enough.

The logos of Path and Pinterest are very like.

five. How does it look in blackness and white?

When I brainstorm designing a logo, I e'er start in black and white. Designing with this limitation first forces you to brand certain that the logo is recognizable purely past its shape and outline, and non by its color. A strong logo is ane that is still memorable merely by its contours.

A 1-color logo also provides the benefit of using your brand easily in multiple mediums with unlike backgrounds and textures.

It is much harder to recognize the National Geographic symbol in one case we remove its signature xanthous colour.

6. Is it clear and distinct in small dimensions?

Another way to make sure logos are elementary and recognizable is to scale it down dramatically. Even at tiny resolutions, a potent logo should still be recognizable at a glance. This is also a good test to make sure that the logo is not complicated with unnecessary design flourishes. Here, yous come across that the Nike, McDonalds, Twitter, and WWF logos are all the same very singled-out at small sizes. The GE and Starbucks logos are far more cluttered, and less recognizable when they are small.

These are non hard-and-fast rules, just guidelines for making an effective logo. It is however possible to brand a strong, complicated logo, but understand the merchandise-offs.

This article was edited and republished with permission from the writer. Read the original here.