Your Logo and Your Brand – How to Choose a Logo
Developing your brand and business will entail creating a beautiful and relevant logo, but finding the perfect design can be a real challenge. A logo is a chance to broadcast who you are to your target audience and catch their eye. It is, however, too easy to get caught up in mimicking other logos or creating one that does not fit your brand and will not sell your products. Instead, take time, do your research, and follow some advice we’ve picked up from experts on how to choose a logo.
Don’t Jump the Gun
A common issue in the early stages of brand and logo development is simply getting ahead of yourself. Often brand founders will pin down their product or products, find a name, and immediately create a logo. They think now is the time to throw money at the problem until they find a design they like. Perhaps they’ve researched who they perceive to be direct competitors and decide that to compete, they must have the same style. Instead, this whole rushed process is leaving out many factors that go into choosing a logo.
The Logo as Your Concept
Let’s go back to basics—in many ways a logo is the finishing touch of your marketing process. Consider that your brand has value in its concept. Take time to map out exactly why your brand exists, why you’re on this journey, the ethos of the brand, what you’re saying, who buys or will buy your product, and why. Spend time figuring out how to communicate what your brand means to yourself and to others. Make this coherent and concise if possible.
How it Feels to Interact with Your Brand
When you know more clearly why this brand and product exists, you’ll be better able to identify your niche. In addition, focus on how it will make the user feel—then you can target the design and name of the product to that goal. Is your brand based on luxury? Ease of use? Affordability? A specific place or time? A botanical or ‘earthy’ stance? List out everything that is relevant, and what you associate with those descriptions. This may turn into a valuable brainstorm that can guide you on the rest of your brand’s journey, and how to choose a logo of course.
Your Target Market
You have your product(s), and you’re ready to hone in on your target customer. Identify who is an ideal client for you, their interests outside of beauty, and where they tend to shop. Rich women have their own reasons for buying the products they do—your high-end good may not automatically appeal to them. A good way to tackle this problem is go in to relevant stores to absorb the ambiance, ask store associates what sells well and why, and observe what you can.
Bringing Elements Together
Now that you have a feel, a story, and a target audience in mind it’s time to design your logo. The challenge here is to create a visual representation of all those elements. These include the name, colors, shapes, thoughts, and ideas behind a logo. Do the groundwork to nail these features—you need to believe in the brand and its visual representation completely to sell it completely.
Unless you are very confident in your graphic design skills, you will likely consult a logo designer. Experts in this realm can combine concepts and specific elements into an image that can beautifully represent your brand, so it’s worth an investment. If you can, come prepared. Present to them your lists and what you hope to instill. Tell them about your target customer and retail locations. After all, the visual appearance of beauty products is a whole story itself. Also remember that you are not bound to the same over-used look, color, or words to describe your product. You don’t have to only use the word ‘natural’—in large part that has no real meaning in the market at this point. Instead, use words like ‘wild’ or ‘wild-crafted’, or perhaps ‘hand-gathered’ or other emotive words.
As you move forward with your chosen new logo, there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, once you have a logo design and packaging, seek feedback from your target audience. Ideally the people you ask are not all friends and family, but instead strangers. You could give free samples and ask for feedback, or ask store associates in your target locations to give their input. And secondly, once you have pinned down your look, stay consistent. Your website, social media, flyers or inserts, and retail boxes should all portray the same thing your hard-won logo does.
Once you have your logo and brand aesthetic locked down, create a Branding Guide to serve as a reference in the future. If you need to design other marketing materials you or a designer can refer to it. This ensures consistency across the brand and helps things look professional.
Summary
In summary, when you’re thinking about how to choose a logo you need to take a step back and do the groundwork. Analyze the purpose of your brand, what it does, why you are doing it, who your audience is, why they are buying it, and the feelings you want your product and brand to elicit. Then you take your insights to a graphic designer and work with them to hone your new logo. Get feedback from target customers, and create other materials that are consistent. We hope this helps you choose a logo that’s a perfect match with your brand!
