What Makes a Great Logo?

There’s a lot more to your brand than just a logo, but for many companies, it’s the first step in cultivating a consistent and appealing brand identity. Good graphic design is about more than just aesthetics: it’s also about meaning. Your logo is a symbol that embodies who you are and what you stand for. Whether you’re a fun, lighthearted apparel brand for 20-somethings, or a B2B software as a service startup catering to stodgy accounting firms, your logo is a portrait of your brand.

What makes a logo great? Some logos are unforgettable: Coca-Cola, Disney, Facebook, and Twitter come to mind. Good logo design balances simplicity, visual appeal, and evocative symbolism. Logos may seem simple, but the graphic design process that leads to the final product is surprisingly complex.

Principles of Good Logo Design

As graphic design specialists, we spend a lot of time sculpting the perfect logos for clients. When we’re creating a logo, we adhere to a few key principles to create something unique, memorable, and impeccably on-brand.

• A simple logo is visually impactful. If your logo is too cluttered and complex, it’s harder for people to process at a glance. The days of baroque corporate logos are long gone, and today, it’s all about minimalism.
• Your logo needs to scale upward and downward. It needs to translate to physical print, including grayscale. It needs to look just as good on paper as it does at the top of your website. A simple logo is a versatile logo, and less is more.
• People need to remember your logo and, by extension, your brand. It should only take a cursory glance to process its main components. If it’s too busy, with too much going on, it’s meaning and significance might not be readily apparent.
• The elements of your logo should form a cohesive gestalt that makes sense together. For example, a minimalistic design with clean lines and simple shapes doesn’t gel with a Jokerman font.
• There’s a reason why major brands occasionally change up their logo. As time moves forward, tastes change, and trends in the world of graphic design will inevitably wax and wane. Yesterday’s vogue for three-dimensionality and skeuomorphism have given way to today’s material design. Who knows what the next trend will be? Great logos have a modern feel, without being overly trendy in a way that will date them too quickly.

 

Make Your Logo Something Special

At NAx2 Creative, our top-tier graphic design team creates logos that stand out from the crowd. To find out more about our creative marketing, branding, and graphic design services, reach out to us any time via our online contact form to get in touch with one of our friendly representatives.