Newsletter
| Each month we deliver the Pylon Page directly to your email inbox. The Pylon Page email newsletter provides important information about internet marketing, web sites, graphic design and other issues that our readers find interesting. You can sign up to get your copy, we'll be happy to send one to you. You can read current issue below and past issues listed on the right. February 2008 What is a Logo? Logos, are ubiquitous in business and in our culture. Yet they tend to be misunderstood in content, role and function. A logo is a pictorial representation of your brand, it's a visual shorthand for representing your company, but it isn't by itself, your brand. In short, a brand is a large encompassing concept about your business or company. It's everything from your mission, to how you work with customers, to the corporate culture. It also encompasses the identity of your business, that is: colors, fonts, images and of course logo. And so even though the logo is only a small part of the brand it does a lot of work to represent it. But let's break it down a bit because not all logos work the same and not all companies have logos.
Generally, a logo is a symbol, emblem or image that represents the identity of a company. Also, for the most part, the logo can stand apart from the name of the company it represents; for instance, the nike swoosh. Most of the time a logo does not just stand alone and accompanies the name of the company which is displayed in a stylized typeface. According to some definitions this is a logotype (image and text together). If the brand is very well known, again like Nike, the logo or the name set in the specific stylized type can be seen separately and still be recognized. Wordmark Some companies don't use images at all to identify themselves but instead use a wordmark. A wordmark is a usually a distinct text-only typographic treatment. A couple good examples would be IBM or FedEx. When to use which When clients come to us for help in this area we first look at the business, what they do, what their brand is and try to determine the best direction from there. In short, it all depends. Some businesses have names or brands that lend themselves well to a logo design. There may be a concrete idea behind the name, like Apple Computer. Yet other times it might be abstract but something suggests itself to the designer–I'll point again to the Nike logo. In the past Company logos, at one time were complex arrangements of images, text and concepts. A lot of logos involved human forms made up of parts or pieces that had something to do with the company's products. Others would use animal forms using a lot of detail. Toward the middle of the 20th Century logos became more simplified and abstracted instead of using complex images or combinations of images. This trend also extended to companies that primarily used their name to represent themselves like International Business Machines or American Telephone and Telegraph. In these examples, even the names were eventually simplified. Keep It Simple Today, designers still take a more abstracted and simplified approach. The best logos or wordmarks are the ones that can be reproduced as basic black and white images or high-end color 2-D reproductions. And although there has been a trend lately among large companies like UPS, John Deer and others to use gradient shading for a 3-D effect; it's still best to stay with simple two dimensional imagery and stylized type for your logo design or wordmark. 2-D Despite the low cost of color or black and white reproduction through advanced print technology and the internet, it's still best to start with a 2-D black and white design. Why? Time and Money. The more complex an image is the more time it will take to prepare it for a variety of media. A simple graphic is more flexible and can maintain its integrity from low-end resolutions on the web to high-end resolutions for magazines and print ads. Having a logo with this kind of flexibility requires less prep work from your graphic designer or printer. This costs you less money and headache in the long run. New logo or redesign If you are planning a new logo or a redesign of an existing identity, keep in mind that the designer you work with should start with basic black and white designs that don't try to incorporate too many concepts in one image. Remember, if your logo design can get it's point across in a low-resolution black and white format, it will work in color or any format. Visual punch is ultimately what you want. So keep in mind that the best, most recognizable logos are easy to remember because there isn't a lot to them. Back to the Newsletter page Sign up to get your copy of the Pylon Page |
Past Issues • 3rd party Labels And Logos • Greenwashing Part 2 • Biking to Work • Energy vampires • Social Responsibility & SRI Promote your own sustainablity–take a vacation! • Greening up your marketing materials Part 2 • Greening up your marketing materials Part 1 • Greenwashing • The 'alt' tag • Preparing internet graphics and photos • Time Management • Marketing your business, a gardener's perspective • Go back to the drawing board and promote your business better. • What are you doing New Year's Eve? • What is Green Business? • Is your web site not showing up on search engines? • Some rights reserved: copyright & creative commons • CSS and search engines • email marketing success: a case study • How To Marry Form and Function, and Drive Revenue • Tuning up your web site • The importance of copy on your web site • A 4 Step E-Newletter program • Summer is here, now plan for Fall • CAN-SPAM act of 2003 • HTML email |
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