Logo Design: Something to Consider

November 17, 2007

One thing I see on occasion, something that I always find problematic when dealing with a redesign, is a logo that was poorly done at the time of a company’s creation. Now, I realize that branding is a big deal and that you need to keep some consistency so that your audience has something with which to connect, but there’s also something to be said for getting a great logo up front and avoiding some pain later on. Though I haven’t focused my career on logo design, hear me out.

When I approach a potential website redesign one of the first things I look at is the logo. The logo of a company is the element that will dictate what the rest of the site looks like. You can only do so much with a logo before it looks out of place, well, that is unless your logo is simply your company’s name in a serif font. Though I see companies doing that, I don’t think it’s the normal practice for a newly created company.

Let’s look at a fictitious company, “The Neue Company,” they’re a tech firm from Delaware with a product that helps you catalog media. This is their logo was designed by an unspecified third party, or maybe someone within the company.

(Yes, I realize this logo is terrible and that Sand is ugly. But the point is to show a bad logo, no? And by the way, I didn’t have a particular company in mind when designing this logo, it was just the first awful design I came up with.)

It’s bad enough when I as a potential redesigner look at this logo but it’s another story when I as a client look at the logo and think “are they really a serious company?” As a redesigner, I wonder how it is that I’ll be able to make their company look professional but yet keep that logo that they insist cannot be removed or redone. It might even mean taking a lot of extra time in the design process, which could cost the company more. Let’s face it, there’s only so much you can do with a cyan colored faded box and the name of a company in Sand before it just starts looking either ludicrous or out of place.

My point in all of this is that if you’re a serious company and you want to appear that way, don’t settle for a poorly designed logo. If your designer, myself included, gives you something that doesn’t match what your business stands for they are probably not the right designer for the job.

Your logo is such a big deal, it will be on all your stationary, business cards, your website and whatever other promotional material you release. It’s the first impression someone will see of your business in a lot of cases. Plan way ahead, get the designer you need, and don’t settle for cyan and sand.

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