How important is a logo?
Nick Rice at Small Business Branding published 9 Branding Tips For Small Businesses.
Some excellent points, but I have to disagree with the first one, where he states…
“The design of your logo really doesn’t matter.”
What do you think? Leave your comment here or there.
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16 appreciated comments on “How important is a logo?”
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I absolutely agreed with your position David. I dropped my 2¢ off over there. All comments disgreed that I could tell.
David heres my take..
I did read Rice’s article, and much of it did make sense.
I think the design matters. In the broader perspective, if you have sufficient business, then within context of good business, the logo design shouldn’t matter so much, as life is good anyways right?.
But from a branding point of view, it should matter. Anticipating growth is difficult. Sometimes you may just grow and after your logo is identified with a strong customer base, redesigning is very difficult, as your customers may not associate you with a new logo. You are more or less stuck..
I have seen that quite a few businesses, just start off anyhow and once stabilized, pour lots of money into a branding exercise, which could probably have been avoided with a little anticipation and planning.
Thanks for your comments Ed, and good points over on Nick’s article.
Lakshmi, I completely agree that businesses end up ‘stuck’ with a poor logo.
The key word in your reply is planning. It’s a shame that so many people open their doors for business before thinking enough about their corporate identity. It’s just leading to one of two things – either being stuck with an inferior appearance or needing a large cost outlay for a re-vamp that could have been avoided at the beginning.
Without a doubt a businesses logo DOES matter. If it’s good it may not have a “conscious” impact (unless it’s outstanding) but if it is poor it really will produce a negative attitude to the business as a whole. I see much of this on the web – home produced logos and site graphics – what message does it convey about the business? To me it’s one of can’t be bothered. Will they be bothered about service & my custom?
David an addendum:
I did post this one at Nick’s site, though its taking ages to show up :)
A beautiful logo with no business cannot be salvaged, but a good business with a bad logo can be salvaged albeit with some outlay!
What if you have no logo? Anything can’t be wrong without a logo. Take Nike or Adidas as an example. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t care about logo, there are more important things for me. The trademark for instance. IBM, even FBI, Specnaz or Ferrari. Logo? No. Trademark? Yes.
Jan, IBM, Ferrari and the FBI have logos. I don’t know what Specnaz is, but from your other examples, I guess they have a logo too.
Of course, they have logos. But the point is somewhere else. What do you think about when anyone speaks about those companies (or so)? Their logos are the last things in my opinion. Actually, I am not thinking of logos at all. For me a logo can be a simple text of including the company name.
Specnaz are Russian special forces, btw :) .
When someone speaks about those companies I think about their brand, for sure, but more often than not, I see the company logos rather than hearing someone speak. So in that case, the logo is the first thing I see when creating an image of the brand.
The logo, or at least the modern-ness of the logo, these days seems very important. Something that looks like it was made in the 90′s seems to be a big downer..
Instead of having an inferior logo, why have it at all? And if you prefer to have it, why don’t read up a bit on the subject and do it as well as you can.
OTOH, if you think a logo is not necessary for your business, drop it boldly. But you know you can tell a story with your logo, why miss that opportunity.
hi,
It all comes down to the quality of your product and or service. Even if you have got the most amazing logo and crap offerings it doesn’t matter. I think companies can do alright without a logo.
according to my research in business a logo plays an important role, this is to say it helps you with recognition from your customers and sets out a difference between you and other companies.
Hi David,
first of all, thank you for I’ve always been inspired from reading your post for many years.
You quoted that “The design of your logo really doesn’t matter.” however I must disagree in some terms with this one as to my experience, logo tends to play a big role in branding recognition for a company or certain individuals.
Some previous years ago, a few of my work consists of clients wanting to design their logo similar to other companies (which I’m ashamed of) .To me its very much like duplication and just adding a few changes (For Example: using APPLE’s logo and add extra enhancements..) to justify that the logo isnt the same as the copied one. I understood one point of the client; they wanted a duplicated logo as a shortcut in bringing their company brand to a higher level than starting from bottom, meaning older logo’s are more recognisable than newer ones.
Later after some periodic time, the clients later found out that people tend to mistaken their logo as “another type of service” than their own and somehow are lost in their brand identity. this is just one example i can show.
My experience has taught me that the logo design plays an important role in the branding identity and accurately defining a companies position within the industry, however action speaks louder than words. If they were wrong judgements to my comment, please guide me.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ali Goldie
You’re very welcome, Ali. We think along similar lines on this topic. All the best.
I know this is an old post but going through your articles, this one freaked me out.. A logo is the face of a company, guess the face doesn’t matter.. Can’t believe someone would make that statement..
Very irresponsible of him to make that statement and sad too.. It hurts the design industry which is why everyone and their mothers who have Photoshop thinks they’re a designer..
He should sell that domain name and let someone do justice to it.