A great logo design is one of the key elements to any successful business. Your logo becomes the ‘icon’ which identifies you from your competition.

think of many of the major global companies, such as Nike, Apple, McDonaalds, Microsoft….you can just catch a quick glimpse of their logos at for a moment on a product and instantly recognise who the product belongs to and what the brand represents.

A great logo is essential for every single business, large or small.

So what are the main principles to a great effective logo design for a successful business?

There are 5 basic elements to a great logo design:

1. Your logo design must be simple.
Keeping your logo design is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is usually much easier to identify a simple logo. Think about Apple or Nike, or Commonwealth Bank for instance. Their logo branding is so powerful that you can just look at the icon without actually needing the text to recognise who the logo belongs to. The logos also stand out easily, so even with blurred vision you can probably identify the brand!
Simple logos also are usually easier and cheaper to reproduce. Most of the largest business’s logos are only 1 or 2 colour designs, which can save them hundreds of thousands of dollars on their printed material costs every year as it, plus it is easier to produce marketing material around the brand with simple colour guidelines to stick with, creating more powerful integrated marketing.

2. Your logo should be timeless
When designing your logo, think about if it will still suit your business in 5, 10 or even 30 years. Again, looking at simple icons such as Apple, their logo could now be used to sell cars if they wanted to, because it is an icon and identifies with their name, not their products. The Apple icon will probably still be a modern logo in 20 years time without a doubt, because it is simple, isn’t ‘ultra modern’ so it won’t date and is accepted by a wide audience – men, women, young and old. It’s almost the perfect logo!

3. Your Logo needs to be flexible
Make sure your logo is flexible and easy to reproduce for marketing. When designing the elements of your logo think about how it will be used and it’s application. Will it work well in print, on uniforms, fashion accessories, signage, etc?
Always make sure your logo is provided in a vector format, which you can take to a signwriter or printer that they can easily work with. If you are having your logo professionally designed make sure they provide you with a VSM (Visual Style Manual) which outlines the correct colours used, the elements of the logo and the alternate variations the logo can be reproduced in (eg, mono, greyscale, reverse colour, etc). All these variations are usually supplied in the correct file types ready for instant use. This makes reproducing the logo so much easier when you need to, saving you time and money.

4. The logo design needs to be appropriate for your business.
Is your logo design appropriate for your business? Does it reflect your target audience? Does it reflect your products or services and your business personality?
For instance, if your logo was for a Jewellery Store, you wouldn’t use some thick ugly bold font or a Comic Script typeface, in bold bright cheap colours…this will become the image people perceive your business to be like. You would aim for an elegant sophisticated design to capture the audience that appreciates fine elegance in jewellery. Before designing any logo, write a design brief and think about who your audience is and how your logo will reflect your products.

5. Your logo must be memorable!
Keeping the design simple, people remember your business icon much quicker. Choose clean simple colours which won’t date, a font style which is clean and visible and try and give your brand the ‘iconic’ touch, so people instantly recognise it anywhere.

Author: Chris Bourke of Devision Design Australia – www.Devision.com.au
Chris is a graphic designer and brand development consultant, creating thousands of logos over the years for business of all shapes and sizes.