Recently in my role as advisory marketing director for a mobile phone clearing company, a fellow director sent me a link to a website in the US for logo design. $99 for a full logo design. You fill out a form, three creative teams submit their logos, you pick one, change a few colours or fonts and once you have made your final choice, they will send you the relevant file formats. 99 dollars! I might as well unplug the Macs in the studio, pack up and go home. And yet it got me thinking. Is this a case of the tail wagging the dog? What kind of company gets their logo designed on the internet by people who they have never met? Well, first of all, the company must have very little money, so probably it doesn’t matter because their logo is the least of their worries. If there is a budget, then what is the justification for a professionally designed logo? Let’s consider what a logo really represents. Firstly it is a branding device, a simple badge of recognition - an identifier and if that is its only role, then to the internet you may go. But for most organisations it has to be more than that. A logo must be distinctive in a competitive sense; it must evoke familiarity, trust and promise for all those who come across it. It is one of the best sales people in your organisation because it speaks to your customer when you are no longer there. So designing a logo that can do all of this cannot be achieved by throwing bits of artwork at a wall and waiting for one to stick long enough to make the stationery print run. In my organisation we describe a logo as a “full stop at the end of a paragraph” a device that provides context to all that has gone before. So your approach to designing your logo should be to define your core values and your business proposition first. In this way your logo designers can create an expression of these and give you a logo that works, not a pretty design that you’ll soon see as out of touch with your business. Barnaby Wynter December 2007
Content by: comms unit
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