25 Experts Share the Importance of Logo Design in Business & Branding

Your company logo has several jobs so it’s important to get it right.

1) With a single image, your logo tells prospects and current customers alike what you stand for. Your logo should clearly project what your company does. If your name doesn’t do it alone, be sure the logo includes a tagline that does.

Unless you are a nationally known brand, avoid the temptation to be cute and use images that don’t clearly identify the product our service your company provides.

2) Remember that your logo needs to look good in a variety of sizes – everything from a billboard to a business card. When working with a designer, be sure it looks great both large and small.

If you’re on a budget, keep in mind that the more colors your logo has, the more expensive it will be to print on anything. Stick to “standard” colors and keep it to a maximum of three. Be sure your colors are easily replicated on the web too.

3) Finally, choose fonts that are easy to read. Thin cursive or narrow fonts may look good on a computer screen, but become difficult to read on paper. Bold fonts that capture the eye are almost always better.

• Tim Bourquin of AfterOffers.com

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Brand identification is changing right along with the other shifts social media has brought about. It is no longer as much about the company logo, the colors, or whether we use our middle initial in visual materials or not; it is now about “Social ID”—our voice and the way we socially present ourselves online.

What is your Social ID? What identifies your brand (personal or corporate) throughout your social media interactions and offerings? If your answer includes the colors of your website, you need to think very carefully about where you are focusing your brand identity efforts. I’m not suggesting that colors and logos and graphic elements are not important, but I am suggesting that the way you interact with others online is the brand identification factor that will catch the most attention… and hold it the longest.

A Brand is what a Business does… a Reputation is what people Remember and Share.

• Ted Rubin of TedRubin.com

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A logo’s design looks different depending on if you have an offline business that sells physical products or an online business that sells digital products or services. You should be very clear about your expectations and explain to your graphic artist what your business is about.

• Minuca Elena of MinucaElena.com

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Logo design is important for a brand. It creates a cohesive element to the overall visual branding. But to be honest, more importantly is the tagline and mission statement that supports the logo. Too many entrepreneurs spend so much time on logo design, becoming frustrated over colors and font styles, when they should actually be MORE focused on the messaging behind the logo. I work with entrepreneurs and help them to step into the thought leader they already are–just by positioning the content for their brand in a strategic way. This work always starts with asking these two questions: What is the ONE thing you want to be known for in your industry/niche? and What is your brand’s mission? Answering these two questions are game-changers for brands–because when you fully embrace your expertise and have a mission, you become unstoppable. And your messaging reaches the right people–and that’s when your brand grows and your tribe rallies around your cause.

• M. Shannon Hernandez, Founder of The Writing Whisperer

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To me the logo helps set the stage for people to define in their minds what our company is about.  From the start, we set out to give people a good feeling about working with us.  We are positive people and we make people feel good.  With a name like The Happy Guy Marketing, a smiley face was a no-brainer base for our logo design. So the logo had to convey both a positive feeling and a sense of energy (because we get things done!) Here are the three iterations of our current logo at http://THGMwriters.com when we were designing the new logo.

Here is what the previous logo looked like, so you can see the improvement. Note that this was also professionally designed, but we felt that it was looking a little too 1990s:

Now, if you really want to see what a difference a professionally designed logo makes, here’s the original one I drew up back in 2004:

Here’s a great example of how we combined talking heads and animation and costumes for a little extra punch.

• David Leonhardt of THGMwriters.com

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Your logo is a critical element of your brand and business image. It’s the ‘face’ of your business and often not just the first thing potential customers see, but the one thing that they’ll see multiple times in different places that’s associated with your business.

Your website. Your Facebook Page. Your Twitter profile. Your business card.

Over and over, customers have the potential to be exposed to your brand, but in each instance, we have varying levels of control over that experience.

Therefore, not only is it important that you have a professional logo that’s memorable and representative of your business, but also that it’s consistent everywhere.

• Mike Allton of The Social Media Hat

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A logo is a visual shortcut to your brand, often creating a neural bridge from visual (which is more easily memorized) to a name and experience. For many businesses the logo is the cornerstone of their marketing efforts, but for others, it’s a footnote.

While a logo is almost always represented as a graphic, the more important consideration is Brand Identity and Brand Messaging. A Brand Identify, which is often articulated through the Logo, can also be something like your CEO being recognizable through their beard, bowtie wearing, their accent or method of presenting (just some examples). The content that typically works best for them is the content that contains their Brand Identity, both making it easily recognizable (like a logo), but also contributing to and benefiting from their Brand Messaging.

So when evaluating your need for a Logo, it’s more important to spend time first articulating your Brand Identity and Brand Messaging, and determining how those two factors should be visualized and utilized.

• David Kutcher of Confluent Forms

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When it comes time to create a new logo design for a product, brand or website, I like to let my audience decide on the winning logo. To set this up, I would start with a simple concept design in my mind, then write it up and submit it to an online designer marketplace. From here I could then gain access to several different designs and pick a handful that I enjoy the most. The next step in this process would be to combine all of the logos I like, then assign them each a number and post it to all of my social media outlets. This will allow all of my site visitors, friends and family to provide their feedback on the logo design and let me know which one the general audience likes.

Long story short… when it comes to logo design and branding, don’t just create or pick a random design simply because you like it. Make sure your audience likes it too!

• Kristel Staci of Marketing Infographics

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I think too many beginning businesses pay too much attention to logo design, but too many experienced businesses pay too little attention.

When you are first starting out your logo doesn’t matter that much–plus you don’t have the budget to have a really good one designed.

Not that you shouldn’t take any care in selecting a logo for your business.

Your logo will influence the overall feel and message of your brand, so make sure what you create is inline with that, but don’t worry about getting it perfect right away.

Do make sure you hire a professional though. It is very easy to tell when someone has designed a logo themselves and that can really hurt your brand, because it makes you seem less legitimate and serious.

Later on, though, once your brand is more established, you can evolve and change your logo.

We recently redesigned our logo at Simple Programmer to be a much more simple and elegant design.

We couldn’t have done this from the beginning because we didn’t know enough about the company and the direction we’d ultimately go to know what the perfect logo should “feel” like.

So, my advice is to get a professional logo from the start, but don’t spend too much money on it and don’t sweat it all that much.

Count on later making revisions or redesigning it completely.

Many big consumer brands have gone through dozens of logo revisions and you don’t even notice.

• John Sonmez of SimpleProgrammer.com

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Logo design is important to a point and here is why.

My businesses revolve around cultivating trust through the value we give through our funnels and content marketing.

The brand or logo really isn’t as important as the brand in our funnel is more my name and my face.

So the design would have little impact unless we were to reach into more generic audiences and cold traffic markets.

• Lawrence Tam of LawrenceTam.net

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Your logo is often the first introduction that someone has to your business. Just like someone sums you up as a person within the first few seconds of meeting you, before you ever open your mouth, people judge your business based on your logo, before they ever interact with anyone at your company. You want to make certain that it is a favorable impressionable that you are making. It is also your opportunity to show people what your company represents, whether it represents innovation, security, and stability, energetic, youthfulness, creativity, or whatever it is that uniquely represents your brand identity.

• Britany Bearden of AtLargePR.com

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Your logo sets the tone of your business. Generally, it is the first impression your makes with your customers. Your logo is the first thing that people see on your web site, business cards, or when they see your store front. The logo needs to create trust and sense of professionalism. Most importantly your logo is what people last remember about your business. A strong logo can trigger people remember the business. For example when you think about the two-tailed mermaid, check mark, bull with wings or bull’s eye symbol, it would be easy to recall the businesses associated to each of those images. This strong branding first starts at the logo level. So never underestimate the power of good logo design because at the end of day it could make or break your business.

• Bill Gassett of MaxRealEstateExposure.com

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• Erik Emanuelli of NoPassiveIncome.com

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I feel a logo design is important for your existing brand or business. First, it turns you from a blog to a brand. If people want to make money from blogging, they need to change their mindset from that of a blogger to the mindset of a content marketer. People are used to giving their money to businesses. Businesses have logos. Logos also make the blogger seem more credible in the eyes of the reader or the consumer. If Nike has a logo, and they are trustworthy, perhaps the blogger with a logo is trustworthy as well. I would highly recommend it for serious bloggers or content marketers.

• Janice Wald of Mostly Blogging

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I think a quality logo that helps tell people who you are and what you do can be incredibly helpful to the success of your website and your business. However, I don’t believe anyone should put off launching their website because they are waiting on a graphic artist to create their logo. I have succeeded mostly because I choose to do the work of promoting my site in spite of not having a great logo. In actuality, being a blind business owner I have no way of even knowing if my logo is working. I have a couple of great logos that were created for me by my friends. Lorraine Reguly came up with the one for theblindblogger.net and Kelly Corbin created the one for midway marketplace.com Unfortunately, I had to stop using it because it turned out the image we used was the property of another business. Kelly had no way of knowing this as she found the original image on a royalty free site. So, that site doesn’t currently have a logo. I would advise to spend your time creating good content and promoting the heck out of it. And on a related note, I also wouldn’t stress over business cards or other promotional materials. If you do your part and engage people at networking events a plain white card will make just as much of an impression as a glossy colored laminated one. It’s all about sharing your story, solving problems, providing a service, etc. Or as I like to tell people you have to decide to find solutions instead of making excuses.

• Maxwell Ivey of TheBlindBlogger.net

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I wanted a strong logo for Build Your Own Blog and invested in getting one created because I saw how effective a quality logo is for online business with my previous logo for freelance copywriting services. That logo helped me stand out from the crowd and get noticed.

With my current venture Build Your Own Blog I wanted that same effective branding. So I asked a talented designer I work with to created one.

The favicon symbol in the logo is my favorite part. People have said the symbol reflects a sense of building something. It’s a symbol of strength and makes one think of a steel chain link. That’s an important branding element that fits nicely with what the site wants to accomplish.

My recommendation for any online business is to invest as much as your budget allows into a logo that actually impacts people. You want it to stick in their mind and it should be memorable. If you (like me) are not a professional designer I would not try to do this on your own. Find an experienced logo designer and work with them. Don’t go the cheapest route just to have a logo. If it looks goofy or is a turn off then you are hurting your online business.

• Matthew Kaboomis Loomis of BuildYourOwnBlog.net

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For me personally, I try not to think too much about my logo design. I think though, it depends on each business of their audience. My audience are very much visiting me for my content and the services I offer. Would investing a few thousand dollars in a new logo for a positive effect on my brand? It probably would, and a long-term thing to think about would be the design and color of my site as it relates to the logo and brand as well.

That said, it’s far from a priority for me right now. It’s a bit like changing the colours on buy now buttons. It might have a positive effect, but it’s not worth the time investment at this stage, when I can do far bigger things to improve my brand instead.

• Dom Wells of HumanProofDesigns.com

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The logo is very important for creating a recognizing brand. Everyone loves good looking design, and the logo is something that a user sees first on a website, and especially on social media. For our business at Cross.Promo we decided to go for a colorful logo that grabs attention.

• Felix Tarcomnicu of Cross Promo

 

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Logo design is key if you are super clear on picking a logo that aligns 100% with your brand. I picked green lettering, palm trees and my mug. All align with Blogging From Paradise, and each element in the logo bleeds through my brand. Then, any time someone sees the Blogging From Paradise logo on my 126 eBooks, my 20 audio books, my paperbacks, on my t-shirts or on my blog, they know specifically what the brand is about, and get more familiar with my brand. Which expands brand awareness, which of course, is a sweet thing!

• Ryan Biddulph of Blogging from Paradise

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I believe that a good logo can make a big difference for most companies; and while it’s certainly important to me as well, and I’m very pleased with the design, in my case, I feel like my actual name makes a bigger difference than the actual logo.

• Lilach Bullock of LilachBullock.com

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I’ve always been a huge fan of brands and logo designs my whole life. Whenever I start a new website or blog that I know I’m going to be putting a lot of time and focus into, the first thing I do is create a logo. The reason for this is simple… over the course of a few weeks, months or even years, millions of people could be visiting your site. Every time they see your logo, it helps build your brand and sticks in the minds of your audience.

A perfect example of this can be seen on my blog with the mascot guy of me in the top left corner. When I went live with my blog back in 2007, this image was quickly building my personal brand and is a well-known icon in the world of affiliate marketing and blogging today. Creating something unique like this to allow yourself to stand out from the crowd is a no-brainer!

• Zac Johnson of ZacJohnson.com

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Logo design — and design in general — is critical. Having high-end branding and design is critical to winning your prospects and customers over. A lot of people underestimate this, but I’ve found that a solid logo design is your first and possibly only chance to create a lasting impression and establish a relationship.

• Arman Assadi of ArmanAssadi.com

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A logo is the “face” of your business. It is how your business is recognized. A logo reflects your personality and establishes your identity. Great logos tell a story. It can be a powerful tool for your brand.

• Brenda S. Stoltz of Ariad Partners

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We live in a world where users are exposed to literally hundreds of brands and logos every day. Possibly thousands. Consider Twitter and social networks and search and everything else out there are consumers are likely exposed to thousands rather than hundreds of brands every single day. But how many of these get instant recognition? McDonalds? Nike? These big boys have that holy grail. They are embedded in the minds of their consumers. But for most small businesses things are both different and the same. You still recognition. You need to be the first business to embed itself in the mind of your target audience. Your logo is a critical component of this recognition process. A visual aid for your business. So, to answer the original question – a logo is crucial to your success and in this fast paced environment it may just be more important than at any time before.

• Marcus Miller of BowlerHat.co.uk

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How to Create a Great Logo for Your Brand or Business

At the end of the day, we are all great at something… but logo design probably isn’t your expertise. The good news is, while you focus on what you are best at (content creation or marketing), we focus on what we’re best at as well — which is logo and graphic design!

Thinking ahead in terms of trends and time. We aim to create designs which will remain unique and iconic, in other words – timeless designs. You want it, we’ll give it to you. Give us a buzz here!