Creating Effective Logo Design

There are lots of opinion pieces on effective logo design and it can be rather confusing.

With over 20 years experience creating logos for many businesses from start-ups, to pubs, charities and large corporate businesses we have a good idea about creating an effective logo design.

A logo should represent everything about a business, from its commercial offering and positioning to its personality and key messages.

These should be represented by the logo’s shape, the fonts it uses and its style and colours.

That said, a logo doesn’t have to say exactly what it is that a business does, for example, a food business doesn’t have to feature food in its logo – the Nike logo doesn’t feature trainers or t-shirts!

Here are a few pointers that we’ve put together that can help in creating an effective logo design.

1. Be brave.

Avoid trying to create a logo that looks like one from your major competitors, or even a much larger unrelated business, with the aim of piggy-backing on their brand recognition.

It will backfire as you’ll struggle to create your own market share that you could have through having a unique and distinctive logo of your own.

2. Don’t be trendy, aim to be timeless.

Avoid following logo design trends, your logo should work for you now and for the future, and be the right fit for your business rather than trying to fit in with a particular scene or look and feel.

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3. Keep it simple.

The best logos are often the ones that aren’t too complicated and don’t need to be explained.

Take FedEx and Nike for example, they’re memorable yet simple logos and as a result, they’re timeless.

Complicated logos can sometimes be difficult to reproduce, or scale to different sizes or even work consistently both online and offline and can be lost in translation and this isn’t going to reflect too well on your business in the eyes of the consumer.

4. Be clear.

Create a clear brief on what you want to achieve with your new logo design. Research and see what types of logos you like and don’t like, think about how the logo will be used, online and offline.

Detail what core brand messages you want to convey through the logo and how you would like the logo to be perceived.

All of this information will allow your designer to have a clear picture of what it is you want to achieve, this can save you a lot of time, heartache and money along the way.

5. Invest time and money in finding the right agency for you.

Anyone can create a logo. But it takes craft, experience and understanding to create one that is the right fit and works for a business’s needs and requirements.

Your logo should represent many aspects of your business, it should be distinctive, memorable and convey your key messages.

This can take time to do, but getting it right early on can mean you have the building blocks there to build your business from, allowing consistency in the brand and building trust in the eyes of the consumer.

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Written by.

Chris Tymon

I’m the creative director at Toast, I look after our client’s design assets to ensure that everything we create for them looks how it should, works hard and is effective. I’m also involved in brand strategy and brand creation and I love getting involved with a brand as early as possible to bring those great ideas from the start. I encourage our designers to develop their skill sets and their craft, from idea generation to sketching before working on the mac.