A logo will help to brand your business to help it stand out from the crowd to differentiate your business from your competitors, but what exactly does all this mean to you as a business owner and exactly what are the benefits of having a business logo?

As a business owner you will most likely want the pure facts and not necessarily be interested in the marketing and business jargon as such we cut to the chase with this factual concise post about the importance and the benefits of having a unique logo design creation.

What is a logo?
 

A logo is a graphical element, symbol, or icon that, together with its logotype form a logo trademark or brand. www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo

What are the benefits of having a uniquely designed logo? 

Ø  Appear like a business not a small home based one man band - As a customer looking to purchase a product or service who would you choose: a business with a branded professional looking logo and stationery or a person that hands you a homemade, home printed business card that has a graphical clip art logo image inserted?

Ø  Recognition: a logo will enable the customer or potential customer to instantly be able to recognise your business.

Ø  Branding – a logo is one component of a companies brand (might I add a particularly important component) as it is generally one of the very first introductions that a target customer is likely to have with a business.

Ø  Stand out from the crowd – a uniquely designed logo will help to create an identity for your business which will help you to stand head and shoulders above your competition particularly if you continue to follow everything through within your branding such as a website that is designed utilising the same colours and look and feel that you wish to portray about your business as well as any marketing material that you produce and utilise to market and promote your business.

Ø  A point of difference: a logo can provide a point of difference depending upon the various shapes, images, fonts and colours that are utilised it would help to differentiate one business from another within the same industry or in a similar market.  A logo can start to tell the story about how you conduct business as well as the way in which you operate that makes you stand apart from your competitors.

Ø  Create more of a professional appearance – a logo will help to create the right sort of impression for your business. 

Ø  To create an ever lasting impression – by having a logo it can help customers and potential customers remember your business a lot easier.

Ø  Commitment - A logo and professionally- designed & printed marketing material will help to demonstrate to your target customers that you are a professional business who is committed to both your business and your customers.

Ø  Established – In the minds of the consumer a business with a brand which includes a logo and branded marketing material is established and is therefore far more likely to be trusted.

Ø  Are you creating a job or a business – if you are opting for the later then you will know that profitable business’s with regular clientele are worth money and as such can be sold.  A business that has a brand such as logo and stationery, ‘a business identity’ are perceived to be polished and professional and as such can be sold for  more money

Ø  A picture is worth a thousand words the old saying 1 picture can have the same sort of impression and impact as 1000 words

Ø  A graphical image is far more memorable than text alone and as such a uniquely designed logo creation will help target customers to easily remember your business.  

Ø  A logo will help to provide your business with some sort of identity whereby people will be able to associate your business with a particular perception be it that of quality, professionalism or cost cutter or in some instances cheap skate!

Ø  A logo can help customers to identify what your business does; your business name may be unusual or may not be very specific though through the use of a logo, it can help to capture & illustrate components of what your business actually does.

Ø  Attract more customers – when a customer is going through the buying decision process one of their criteria would be for them to establish trust prior to being able to go ahead with a purchase. 

Think about it, a business that utilises inferior graphic designed logos from logo packages or clipart logo packages and low quality printed marketing material such as business cards & stationery will create the wrong sort of impression in the eyes of the target customer. 

The customer will think that if the business supplier can’t be bothered to put the time and investment into their own business, then they may not be inclined to put the time and commitment into providing the customer with the right sort of products/services nor level of customer service & so on & so forth that they so require. 

Logo Design Creations:

The look and feel of a graphic design logo can range from a: corporate logo, a trendy logo, a professional logo, a classical logo and so forth there are many different types of logos out there and as such a unique logo design creation will help create that uniqueness so that your business can stand out from the crowd.  

Although it must be said that most logo design company’s utilise logo design packages or clip art to create a logo, meaning that none of their logos are truly unique one off creations, as a result customers end up with logos that utilise graphical objects that have been utilised in hundreds of thousands of other people’s logos. 

Some popular examples that spring to mind are:

if you are outsourcing your logo design then ensure that you do not get fobbed off with inferior overproduced over utilised clap trap always ensure that you are provided with a logo design that is truly a unique one off creation?The following hints and tips may be very helpful if you are thinking about obtaining a truly unique business logo / company logo?  Tips when looking for a logo designer or a logo design company:

• Never utilise a logo designer or a logo design company that utilises logo design packages or clip art.
  
• Always ensure that the logo designer creates unique one off logo design creations.
  
• Take your time to look through the logo designer (or logo design companies) logo portfolio, pay particular attention to the look and feel of the logos.  Do they look like unique one off creations or do they look like standard logo package designs.  
  A key tip here is to look or ask for samples of a previous customers design brief so that you can see how the logo was created from inception to the final creation of the logo.
  
• Always ensure that the logo designer is a graphic designer (graphic design artist) in particular an illustrator as they will have the artistic flair and capabilities of being able to create your truly one off logo design creation.
  
•  Always obtain a certificate of authenticity to verify and confirm the logo’s originality and let the graphic design company know that you intend to trademark your logo.  
  
• Take some out to peruse government international property – logo trademark websites to ensure that your logo is unique.
  
• Spend some time perusing the internet to browse through direct & indirect competitors within your industry nationally and internationally also start to look at graphic design companies to gage the sort of designs that you like, the sorts of designs that you do not like and also start getting an idea about the sorts of designs that have come from logo design packages & clip art.
  
• Enquire to make sure that the logo designer that will be designing your logo will be utilising MX Freehand or a similar illustration package where they will construct your logo illustrations before pulling the final artwork into the likes of adobe illustrator.
  
• Remember it is not about quantity it’s all about quality – when perusing the web you may notice that many graphic design business’s rave about the number of concepts provided within their logo design packages, any graphic design company that creates unique logo designs using freehand software tools, has to meticulously  create each and every logo from scratch and as such will only be able to provide a select number of uniquely designed master pieces as opposed to a logo that is merely inserted from a logo package or clip art.  

Think about it anyone can purchase a logo package, type a search for a particular category and within seconds have a large number of different logo’s to choose from there is truly nothing unique or custom about this sort of logo not even through the use of different colours or the insertion of another business name, these sorts of logos are two a penny & can be produced in no time at all and as such enable the graphic design business’s who utilise them to offer many concepts as part and parcel of their logo design packages.   

Though for graphic design agencies who provide truly unique one off design creations utilising the likes of Freehand to carefully craft each and every logo design from scratch well naturally it is only these sorts of agencies that can whole heartedly say that there logo design creations are truly unique one off design creations!  

A sample of a client design brief and the steps involved in the design creation process:

Logo Design Brief - LeChic

The Client requested for the logo to be: Professional, Unique & Eye Catching yet still classy one that was capable of portraying the perception of a business that provided superior high Quality premium products.  Overall the ever lasting impression that they want to portray is ‘a very professional, well organised business that is easy to deal with’. 

Logo Design Concepts:

 

Logo for ‘Lechic’  

 

Unique logo design creations that do not cost the earth – you will be surprised to learn that you can have a truly unique one off logo design creation without having to pay the earth for it  Brand Art - Logo Design Graphic Design Experts