The logo is often looked at as the “face” of a business. It may be the first visual representation of your business that a customer sees and it embodies who your business is. And as we all know, first impressions are important.
You may be wondering if your own logo needs an update at this point. As a marketing and branding company with years of experience in designing and updating logos, we wanted to talk about one aspect of design that sets great logos apart from mediocre ones.
There will likely be times when your logo needs to be shrunk down—such as on banner ads or the tags of clothing—or appears smaller when a customer sees your logo from a distance. Logos with too much going on will end up displaying poorly in these circumstances and will be difficult to discern.
This happens when logos have poor readability.
As a rule of thumb, your logo should be readable even when it’s scaled down to a size as small as a quarter. With that thought in mind, you can see why you may want to opt for sleek and simple as opposed to cluttered and busy.
But readability isn’t only about clarity, it also results in simple, easy-to-remember design. Ideally, you want your customers to be able to recognize your brand at a moment’s glance and be able to remember it easily. However, the more complicated a logo is, the less likely you are to achieve this recognition.
Taking tips from the logos of major brands shows how they favor clean, readable logos that look great when shrunk down and are easy to remember.
Apple is a great example of this. Not only is their logo straightforward, but it’s also easy to recognize because it consists of a symbol we are all familiar with, an apple. Even the quarter-theory works for Apple because their logo is so readable and recognizable.
When you’re considering a redesign of your logo remember, just keep it simple: use your business name and a symbol. Anything added will only serve to distract and decrease its readability. For example, including a tagline may seem like a good idea to communicate who you are to your audience. However, unless your logo is displayed in a large format, most people may not be able to read it because that text will be small in comparison to the rest of the logo.
If you are looking to update your logo or have an entirely new one designed for you, set up a consultation with us today.