5 important elements for commissioning your logo

Are you launching a new brand or looking to update your visual identity? Whether you are a young company or undergoing a change of direction, your logo is a central and essential element. As a vehicle for your values and your identity, it must make an impression and communicate your activity and your unique selling point at a glance. Having a logo designed by a graphic designer or a communications agency can feel daunting. How can you ensure the result will be what you want? Today we detail 5 elements to take into account in order to make this step less stressful and to obtain the ideal logo under the best possible conditions.

1. Context and brief

Your logo must speak about you and clearly convey the message you wish to share through your services. Your story — and that of your company — matters. You can therefore share with your designer your sector of activity, your services, the way in which you deliver them to your clients, what led you there, and the characteristics of your clientele. All this information may seem trivial or off-topic, but it has its importance. A logo will not look the same depending on the audience it is speaking to and the way you want to address them. Concretely, a mobile phone retailer will naturally take a different approach depending on whether they operate in B2C or as a B2B wholesaler. Equally, the qualities emphasised will not be the same for one as for the other. A B2C seller might play on closeness with customers, whilst their B2B counterpart might prefer to highlight their professionalism. More broadly, explain why you want a logo. This may seem obvious but it will help clarify your expectations in precise terms. Similarly, if you are changing an existing logo, explaining why you do not wish to keep the old one is also useful.

2. Target audience and message

This connects with the previous point: as a communications tool, your logo must speak to a specific target audience. You can therefore briefly explain who your services are aimed at: a young audience, older, professional, consumer? You will not communicate your message in the same way depending on your target. And in the same way, your logo will differ according to your type of client. Colours and shapes all respond to specific approaches. Think also about the message itself that you want to convey. What idea should your logo communicate? Should it inspire trust, project a tone of serenity? Or on the contrary, should it feel dynamic, energising, suggest something innovative and in motion? What you want to convey to your prospects and the tone adopted to do so is crucial information for your logo design.

3. Brand name and strapline

Do you already have a strapline for your brand? If so, what is it? A strapline carries the ideas and tone you wish to share with your prospects. The logo will therefore need to be in harmony with it. In addition, you need to decide whether the strapline, or the brand name, should appear on the logo. You can opt for a purely visual logo (generally the preserve of an already well-established brand — Nike, for example, needs only its stylised swoosh to be recognised), a wordmark, which incorporates your brand name (particularly useful for a new brand — Nike again, in its early days, before the swoosh alone was enough), or a combination of both. Depending on what you are looking for and your company's context, these decisions can significantly shape the logo.

4. The competition

With rare exceptions, you are inevitably operating in a competitive sector. Listing a few of your direct competitors can help to better analyse the visual codes of your market. The purpose of comparing competitors' logos is not to imitate them but to differentiate yourself from them. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses in competitors' logos will allow your designer to select the important elements and spot those to avoid. The aim is also to avoid producing a generic logo. It is always possible that several people have the same good idea or approach. Consequently, several businesses may independently arrive at similar logos without even realising it. Knowing the competition will help avoid this and ensure a unique logo.

5. Examples to follow and to avoid

You can list briefly the elements you would like to see in your logo and those that must be avoided at all costs. What colours do you have in mind? Which would you definitely not want? What shapes, what feel, what style? This will give your designer a solid footing on these specific elements. Of course, as a professional, your designer knows the current major trends. It is therefore possible that they might suggest a colour or idea that does not immediately convince you, if they genuinely believe it could be important or that a different approach would go against contemporary conventions. This does not mean they are not listening to your brief — it means they feel that discussing the points in question could be beneficial. For example, perhaps you are opposed to green in your logo, yet it may be the shade best suited to conveying your values. It is therefore important to distinguish personal taste from objectively important factors. You may dislike a particular logo from a purely subjective standpoint, even though it is objectively perfect for serving a brand's message. Discussing these 5 elements with your designer can only help them create the logo that is right for you. It will make the process less stressful for you and make your designer's work more efficient and straightforward. For any questions or logo creation, Http5000 is here for you.