The Power of Logos
Many businesses understand and take advantage of the power of logos. Logos are graphic illustrations, sometimes with text, sometimes just made from stylised text alone. The logo becomes a shorthand reminder to people of the enterprise behind the logo, and what this enterprise stands for (the brand).
What Does A Logo Say?
Let’s think about the impression that a quality graphic creates in the mind of those who see it.
About Design Quality
Now, let’s look at the initial design concept of a logo. This is what we started with. It looks flat and boring. This is not a memorable logo. While it’s the same basic graphic as the final version below, it doesn’t grab our attention. In fact, it even looks vaguely threatening.
From here, we began to think about giving the logo a sense of purpose and motion, with contrasting colours and depth. We wanted to create something that was fun, interesting and different. Something to stand out in people’s minds.
Here’s the graphic developed further. It’s about fun, passion, and freshness. It’s crisp and clean. This relates to precision and attention to detail. The shading gives depth to the image – it has substance. It’s colourful, and the colours are strong and bright, attracting attention. There is a sense of forward motion – it’s on a mission and clearly going somewhere. This is a stylised logo appealing to people who want action and are open to fresh new ideas. Finally, it’s looking forward with its head up – it’s ready for any challenge!
Is It Worth The Trouble and Cost
It’s worth every cent to get a competitively priced logo designed/developed by a professional. It need not be expensive, and it can be used for newspapers, TV, the web, screen prints, stationery and whatever else needs to have a logo on it. It will be supplied to you in various high-quality commercial formats that printers, designers and others can use without quality degradation, such as in scalable vector format (so it can be resized without compromising quality).
Here’s our logo. It’s the same one we use on our website, created at a fairly high resolution in a commercial graphics program. The original is in .svg format (scalable vector graphic) so we can resize it with little or no loss of quality/detail.
It may be hard to believe, but creating logos can be quite time-consuming. To start with, we need to know about the business we’re designing for.
Then, a series of different designs and variations are required so the client has some choices to consider. Feedback from the client may require going back to the drawing board to do a re-work to properly fulfil the client’s vision of what they want. Designers will usually allow for a couple of revisions within the original quote.
It Will Pay For Itself
Large organisations pay substantial fees for professional graphics because they consider that their image is an asset that contributes to their ability to attract and retain customers, grow their business, and set them apart from competitors.
Some large corporate logo projects can run into tens of thousands of dollars. Small business logo designs are much more affordable.
Even though the benefits are intangible, we’re convinced high-quality graphics in logos bring in business, and we suspect Coke, GM, Sony, General Motors, Ford and Nike and any number of other successful corporations would agree. They understand the power of logos!
What Does a Logo Cost?
In our experience, professional designers will charge anywhere from $150 – $1,500 AU to design a custom logo for a small to medium business.
Where To From Here?
If you’re considering having a logo created, there are plenty of designers around who could do this for you. Just search Google for “Web Designer” in your local area.
Our first bit of advice is to get a written quote, and don’t pay the full cost upfront! At most, pay a small deposit if requested (say 10%), with the balance payable only when you’re completely satisfied with the end product. Get this in writing.
Secondly, make sure the logo is unique and hasn’t been copied from elsewhere. This isn’t easy, but you can request your designer to assure you of this in writing. Your designer will have the means to check their original design against what’s already out there. There’s never a rock solid guarantee that the same or similar logo isn’t already in use purely by coincidence, but you’ll at least have the designer’s written assurance that they have applied reasonable due diligence efforts to avoid their design knowingly infringing copyright or registered trademarks/designs.
Finally, make sure the copyright is transferred from your designer to you. A simple written and signed agreement is all that’s required. You should also consider having the design registered as your Trade Mark, at least in Australia.
Get in touch with us – send an email or call David on +61 419216000 if you need help or advice on logo design. Good Luck!
