Logo design today is often undervalued. Many people do not see the full value of a good logo, and how valuable it is to their company. Here is a motivation why it is worth investing in the logo and not skimp on the budget.
But before we talk about logo and logo design we need to know first what is a logo?
If you look in the dictionary it will give you the definition, something along the lines of “A logo is a symbol, a sign or an emblem.” so that’s the definition of a logo.
Now we do need to talk about it a little bit more than that. If we went back to stone-age times we would see our human ancestors using symbols to get across messages, ideas, concepts and thoughts. They didn’t have written languages back then. They may not have even had proper verbal communication, so symbols were vitally important.
If we fast forward today we still use symbols to get across concepts ideas and thoughts. But today we call them logos. Logos are designed for the recognition of organizations for businesses or groups. They’re used to build an identity within or around those organizations. The logo is the tip of an iceberg in that brand.
HOW THE LOGO SHOULD BE?
In order to understand the purpose of a logotype, one must first consider what a logotype really is. A logo aims to create immediate recognition, convey confidence, admiration and loyalty. It is part of the company’s commercial entity and its shape, color, fonts and images. Usually differ from others in a similar market. Logos are also used to identify, for instance, charities and other non-commercial companies.
In other words, the logo should have an impact and should be striking. There are millions of logos out there, therefore you need your logo to stand out from your competitors. It needs to be solidly designed and it needs to cover all the bases. It is what most people will use to identify a brand. The public will see a logo and it’ll instantly trigger a thought or a feeling about that brand. Certainly, the larger brands that market a lot.
There was a study done with toddlers three to four-year-old who can identify a name well-known brands from the logo before they could even read or write. That’s the power of a logo, of a symbol used well.
You will see logos on multiple things from business cards, letterheads, vehicles advertisements, websites and social media platforms, you see logos everywhere. For that reason, logos also need to be adaptable. They need to be able to be reproduced at sixteen pixels in the address bar in a web browser. They also need to be recognizable 100 feet high or 100 feet wide on the side of a billboard.
As you can see, logos are important and are essentially symbols that convey a message of a larger brand. With all this in mind, you understand why it is important to put resources on a well-designed logo.
TYPES OF LOGOS
Now we’re going to talk about all of the different types of logo designs that exist in the world. There are 5 different types of logos that can be categorized as follows:
WORDMARKS
The wordmark is basically what it says, the logo is made up of a word. In these cases, what you will find is that the brand will create their logo using a unique font, they will have a designer write the name of the business, but they will do it in a font that isn’t available anywhere else. That keeps uniqueness with that design. They won’t just jump into Microsoft Word and use Arial or Comic Sans.
Examples of wordmark Logos would be Coca-Cola, Facebook and eBay.
LETTERMARKS
A letter mark is similar to the wordmark but a lot shorter. Letter marks will generally use the initials of a company. There could be a few reasons for that. It could be that the company’s name is really long and it’s just not going to fit well as a logo.
It may be that the company’s name is quite hard to pronounce so as we said about the symbol it may be that the company has a long name as German companies for instance, and it’s quite hard to pronounce for people from other countries. This is usually done by taking the initials and shorten them down and make a logo from that.
Examples of letter mark logos would be HP (Hewlett-Packard), CNN (Cable News Network) and IBM (International Business Machines).
SYMBOLS
This type of logo represents a brand in a simple but bold and even more confident manner. In most cases, the image is abstract or stylized. You’ll generally find these types of logos for large brands.
Brands that serve the whole world. The reason behind that is that if you serve the whole world, you’re going to be serving populations, who have different languages, different traditions and you need your brand identity to be recognizable quite easily, without having to understand words. So, having a symbol or an icon is ideal for those types of businesses.
Examples of those businesses would be Apple, Shell Oil and Nike.
COMBINATION
This kind of logos utilizes a wordmark and the symbol in one, so you kind of have the best of both worlds there. You’ve got adaptability, you could use the symbol on its own or you could use the wordmark on its own.
There is a danger, though. You would only really do that if you have a well-established brand and you’ve spent a fair bit marketing your logo so that everyone knows where it is that’s instantly recognizable. Only then would you be able to really take these two separate elements and use them in their own situation, because you have the confidence that people would know what it is.
But it gives you adaptability for different marketing situations as a print, digital, screen, all that sort of thing.
Examples of a combination logo would be Pizza Hut, Adidas and Burger King.
EMBLEM
Now the emblem is also quite similar to a combination mark. It has the company name and it has a design. Not quite a symbol, though. The reason it’s an emblem is that the company’s name is fully encapsulated within the design. Think of it more like a shield or a crest with the company name inside of it.
Examples of that would be Harley Davidson, BMW and Starbucks.
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