Don’t Start With a Logo

So you’ve started a company, congratulations! You want to give people a great first impression, so you start designing your logo. You find that you’re not quite able to get it right, so you hire a designer to design your logo for you. You figure that you’ve got some ideas of what you want it to look like, so it should go pretty quickly. If you’ve met with a designer (or design team) that is familiar with branding, they’ll start asking you all sorts of questions that you may not have answers to…

What gives? You just need a logo. You didn’t need to define your entire company, right? Well, not quite…

Different Types of Logos

You’ve started a company, and now you’ve decided you need a logo. Your beautiful logo will be what people will see on your signs, on your business cards, and it’ll be what people think of when they think of your company, right? That’s only part of the story. A logo is just a piece of what’s referred to as a visual identity. A logo, by itself, isn’t very helpful.

A logo is a logo is a logo though right? Well, kind of… We’re going to go over a few different types of logos, and discuss how they fit into your broader design strategy. First, let’s go over the difference between different types of logos. There are logotypes, logomarks, and combination marks. Each of these types of logos serves a different purpose.

Why Branding is Important

You need to stand out in a world of businesses that are competing for people’s attention. Having a solid brand is critical, and its impact on your business is powerful. Your brand is what helps you stand out. Your brand is a representation of you, and represents how you wish to be perceived. It can create interest and engender trust, creating new business and helping current customers to be happier. Having a strong brand is the foundation from which the rest of your identity, processes, products, and services will be built from.