Apple, McDonalds, Google, IBM, Nike and many others wouldn’t have attained the staggering levels of success they are currently enjoying if they never invented their time and resources in having great logos. Therefore, note very strongly that it is possible for your logo to cause your business to fail and that can happen in one or a combination of the following ways.

Alienating new clients or prospects

One of the primary reasons of having a logo for you business is to stand out from the crowd and attract new prospect clients. With a poorly designed logo, you lose the competitive edge to be conspicuous amongst the competition and you will be effectively alienating the prospective clients whom would have been interested in doing business with you. Additionally, a poorly designed logo may attract the wrong crowd which is not suitable for your business and this will do nothing but stunt your growth potential. Therefore, be sure that you are not locking out potential customers by having an ill-designed logo.

Sending out the wrong message

When it comes to using business logos for branding, the logo must have the ability to send out the right message to your potential and current clients. The logo should essentially portray what the business firmly believes in and it should tell the potential clients the business has what it takes to meet their specific needs. People will be more confident in engaging your business if they feel they will get value out of doing so.

And since your logo is the first point of contact between you and your clients, if it delivers the wrong message, then this is likely to make your business fail. Therefore, if you don’t want your logo to fail your entire business, it is imperative to ensure to get the messaging right.

A poor logo may suggest poor quality standards

It goes without saying that success in any business is greatly pegged on the ability to deliver quality products or services. It is a must for the clients or customers to believe they are getting their money’s worth by working with you. A poorly designed logo may create an impression that the business does not take quality seriously. If they can’t design a high quality logo, why should a potential client think that they will get quality products or services from the business? This is another way through which a logo can make a business to fail.

Lack of a great first impression

A successful logo must have the ability to standout from the crowd and make a lasting impression when a potential client sees it for the very first time. This ability to be noticed from amongst the competition is what will be responsible for continuous flow of potential clients to the business. In this manner, it will not be possible for the business to win and to retain prospects if the logo can’t make a good and lasting first impression.

Not only this, but the lack of a good  first impression will have other implications on the business like making the prospects doubt your values and every other thing you claim to stand for. As a matter of fact, it will be an indication that you never took much time and effort to create the logo. Thus, it will not be possible for your business to realize its ultimate growth potential with such a logo.

Affecting talent acquisition

It is important to have in mind that business logos are not just for attracting new clients, but also attracting the right employees to the business. A bad logo may not only drive away talented and experienced employees, but also it can prevent the business from attracting talented professionals from applying for open positions.

A poorly designed logo will send a message to the potential employees that the business is not keen on connecting with their employees, leave alone the customers. A potential employee will thus be left wondering if the business will have any interests in investing in them. If your business is unable to attract the right talent in the industry, then moving forward will be very difficult and the business may as well fail.

These are some of the ways through which a logo can make a business fail. It is imperative to consider each keenly so that you avoid curtailing the growth of your business due to poor logo design.

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This might seem like an arduous task in the beginning, but with practice and experience, you will be able to understand your client’s businesses well so that you come up with great designs to demonstrate their vision to their clients. Presented here are some of the pertinent questions you need to ask yourself as a designer to help you bring out the client’s vision in your design.

What is the most suitable logo type to use?

There are different types of logos in use today and each will be suitable for various kinds of businesses. A good understanding of your client’s business vision will help you choose on the right type of logo to design and which will help the business in portraying their to present as well as potential clients. The following are some of the common logo types you will find yourself working with most of the times-:

Woodmarks logos – these are free standing logos featuring multi-letter abbreviations like the logo for CNN, IBM, Google, eBay etc.

Letterform Logos – these logos use a single letter as in the case of Honda, Uber, MacDonald’s and Unilever.

Pictorial Logos – pictoral logos are illustrated using common symbols such as the logos for Twitter, Starbucks, and Playboy amongst others.

Abstract Logos – these logos don’t represent anything which would otherwise be recognizable. A good example of an abstract logo is Nike’s swoosh.

The choice of the specific logo type to use in designing the client’s logo will depend on factors such as the length of the company name as well as if there is a common symbol that the company would like to be associated with. In some cases, you may blend the two or more logo types to come up with a hybrid logo depicting multiple logo types.

What are the key points about the business that the logo should present?

In order to fully comprehend the vision of your client and bring it out in the logo design, it is imperative that you get to know the key selling points that the business have. These should be those specific things setting the business apart from the competition and which they will use to attract more customers.

The knowledge about the key points about the business will then form your decision on some of the logo design elements so that you make designs which will cover the key selling points. This knowledge will ultimately dictate the choice of colors, the symbols, the shapes, the type as well as the orientation of the entire design.

What are the goals of the business?

Equally important as knowing the strength of the business is the goals of the business. By understanding the goals of the business, you will be in a better position as a designer to know what exactly the business aims to achieve and also the kind of branding approach they are likely to consider.

This will give you the ability to design a logo to communicate the goals of the business to the clients and help in convincing the clients that the company has the solutions they want. Without knowing the goals of the business, the design will be blind and without any objectives hence totally useless to the business.

Where is the client’s industry headed?

By knowing the general direction of your client’s industry, you will make better decisions on the kind of approach to adopt when signing the logo. The reason for knowing about the trend is that you design a logo that will be dynamic enough to retain its relevance even if the industry has moved on a decade from the time you did the design. But while designing the logo, be careful not to base the design on the logo design trends. This might render the logo redundant once the trend has passed.

What is the client’s range of products or services?

Knowing the range of the products or services offered by the client will also help you understand their vision and design a more appropriate logo. For instance, if they are dealing with one product line, you will have a different logo compared to when they are dealing with different product lines or they have operations in multiple industries. You can simply ask them about their product lines and possibly if they intend to diversify in the future so that you make the logo to have such dynamism in line with the client’s vision.

Check out these top 5 luxury brands!

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However, a total rebrand may be avoided if you want to update an existing logo with a few subtle changes. This implies that the main branding components of the logo will not be affected, but the changes should be conspicuous enough to let the audience get the intended message.

Before delving on how to make such subtle changes to an existing logo, it is imperative to first know when such changes are necessary. The following are some of the situations which might warrant the need for a logo change.

Change of name – if the business changes its name, it implies that the whole identity of the business will be changed as well. This will include the logo as well as other marketing and branding materials.

Changes in the organization – if there are policy changes or a change in the line of products and services offered by the business, a logo change would be necessary to reflect these changes to the present customers as well as the potential clients.

Poorly visualized logos – logos are strong visual branding elements. They should spread the brand message of the business. If initially a logo was designed in a poor manner because the business was pressed for finances during the startup stages, it will be important to update the existing logo and make it reflect the ideals and the ideas of the business in a more professional manner.

Logo revitalization – sometimes, updating an existing logo becomes imminent when the company decides to pump in more life to make the logo fresh and appealing. This is usually the case when a logo has been used for a long time without any major facelift.

Making updates to the logo

After you have enough justifications to update an existing logo without necessarily altering the entire look of the brand, here are a few tips on how you can do so without causing a major failure in the brand-:

Determine the logos best qualities

For you to successfully update an existing logo, you should not do away with the strong branding points of the logo. Essentially, the newly updated logo should maintain all the strengths of the previous and also have additional ones for extra performance. Therefore, it is imperative that you first identity the strong features of the current logo and isolate them before making any changes. These could include logo components such as the typography, the symbols used or the colors. After isolating the best qualities of the logo, you can then go ahead and decide if you will be changing them or making a few adjustments to them.

Consider the past brand for ideas

If this is not the first update for the logo, it would be a good idea to have a look at the past logos and see the sequence taken by updates in the past. The reason for doing so is to identify if there is a pattern that is consistent with all the updates. In this manner, the changes you are about to make should be in tandem with the overall feel of the logo.

Additionally, you can use the past logos to help you decide on the particular items to add or remove from the current logo. In some occasions, you might find that updating an existing logo to past version would have very great results.

Focus on the colors that matters

Colors are very important when you are updating an existing logo. They help to create the visual identity of the brand hence you need to very keen on them. Ideally, you need to focus on the colors that matter the most to the business. If the logo uses lots of colors, you can update it by trying to harmonize the colors so that you remain with a few, but the most important ones. You can also do away with the ones you feel are not very helpful to the business.

Think of new trends but hold on to classic traditions

It is also possible to update an existing logo to adapt to new trends in the market. This is important if your market is responsive to such trends. If this is the case, you can adjust the logo slightly to reflect on the trend but you must remember to hold the overall concept of the design to classic traditions. Trends will pass away but traditions will remain.

Enhance readability

Another way of updating an existing logo is to enhance the readability of the logo simply. This might mean playing around with the typography to make them more readable and recognizable to the target audience. In this case, you don’t have to touch any aspect of the logo expect the letters used.

Use the tips above to help you update an existing logo for new looks but without changing the look and feel of the entire brand.

Check out these legends of logo design!

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It is always embarrassing to the management and designers to come up with a design for a logo for it to be rejected by the fans or brand followers. Such a rejection will in most cases compel the concerned parties to go back to the drawing board and come up with a design that will be accepted by the majority or simply retain the original design. Even though it is not possible to please every fan or follower with every new logo, the new design should at least not upset the majority of them. This is especially true if the venture is a sports team that relies on the support of their fans for continued sustenance. A typical scenario of such a rejection was when the 49ers changed their logo and the fan revolted due to the new design.

The logo redesign by the sports team was considered as a generational blunder and probably the biggest logo related disaster ever witnessed in Bay Area Sports history. The design of the new logo was awful and it was mocked by every newspaper and new agency in the region. It never went down well with the fans and they literally revolted, prompting he owner to revert back to the old design. It happened 25 years ago and here is the story of one of the greatest logo controversies in the sport’s history.

The logo controversy was sparked off when the supposed to be new logo was unveiled in the Chronicle and every local television station. Once the fans saw the horrible design of the helmet, it became an immediate story. The Chronicle began receiving lots of letters while the team started to get lots of phone calls from fans complaining just how horrible the new design was. The majority of the fans had the opinion that the initial logo was classier than the new design which looked plain and simply annoying.

With all the funfair created, the major media outlets picked up the story and started writing articles about it. Two days after the logo was unveiled at the press conference, a writer for The Chronicles did a cover story where he interviewed the irate fans about their feelings on the new logo. Most of the fans expressed their anger and disappointment at the new design given that the 49ers were considered among the greatest dynasties in the history of sports.

The fans, therefore, expected something that would reflect this status other than a goofy looking design which could be easily mistaken for a signage advertising onions for sale at .49 cents. The logo lacked the character as well as the tradition that was associated with the old 49ers logo. It meant that using it will make the sports team lose their visual identity which was now permanently etched in the minds of the fans.

It was not just the graphical presentation used on the logo that made the fans mad. Even the choice of fonts was a total failure. One fan compared the font to the fonts used on a New Kids on the Block album or container of sugary cereal breakfast meal. More damage was inflicted on the new logo by the decision to unveil it side by side the old logo in a televised press conference. This allowed the fans to compare instantly the two, and it emerged immediately that the older one was the outright favorite.

So horrible was the logo that it was suggested that other than the NFL officials and 49ers executives, only two people approved the new design. This was a complete flop compared to the enormous support the football team had. The new design immediately became the Gary of Cherone of logos, and this prompted the owner of the team to admit that the new logo was a mistake on the part of their organization and he had no option but to revert to the initial logo.

This was considered a good move since it illustrated the fact that the fans are very important part of the team and the team has an obligation to please them in every way possible. If you can lose the support of the fans, then being in business would not be possible in such competitive sports.

Once the old logo was adopted, all the rhetoric toned down, and fans were pleased once again to have their beloved team’s logo. The failure of this attempted rebrand left the team’s executives with crucial lessons to learn. Perhaps the major one is that wide consultation is paramount when you need to embark on such a branding that will affect thousands of the team’s supporters. If only the 49ers executives had expended some resources for thorough research before the logo was designed, maybe the reception would have been a bit different, or they would have come up with another design that the fans would have loved just as they did for the old logo.

Check out our impressions of the LA 2024 logo here. 

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