Lesson 3: Name, Logo, Business Cards, Letterhead, Website
Designing and choosing a logo
Good logos are difficult to get. Large companies spend a lot of money on logos and often get barely acceptable, mediocre results. While you may be able to get away without one, a logo anchors your business card, letterhead and other documents and your customers expect one. Even a simple one you can create on a word processor is better than nothing.
Let's look at what characteristics a good logo should have:
1. The logo presents one important piece of information about your business. If your business has only one clearly defined product or service, it makes sense that the logo is a representation of that item. If your business has a whole range of products and services, the logo can represent the field of activity or simply the name of the company.
Many companies which have a wide range of products go for the initials of the company name in their logo. If it's a short name, a stylized representation of that name is also popular. But if you're selling gift baskets, your logo should be a gift basket.
2. While your logo can be in colour, it has to look good in black and white. For many applications you won't have colour and your carefully matched maroon and blue are going to end up the same shade of gray. In fact, in some applications you won't even get gray - just black and white - and your logo should still be recognizable.
3. Your logo, even if it's text, is a graphic image. You'll have to insert it in documents, send it to printers and put it on web pages. You'll need it in a format which you can e-mail, put on floppy disks and use on your computer. The most common format is JPEG or GIF which are handy because they are Internet formats but they are compressed files and so don't give the highest quality. I've found the TIFF format to be very widespread but, however you keep it, it will have to be an electronic image file.
4. Your logo is going on your business card, letterhead, other forms and in ads and promotional material. Don't make it an odd shape. You'll have no end of trouble if it's long and narrow or unusually high. Stick with an overall squarish or circular shape where the length is not much more than the height. That will be the least trouble to accommodate and you won't want to waste time worrying about how to fit your logo onto things.
So, how are you going to get this logo?
If you have any ability to create graphics, even if it's just in your word processor, that's the way to go. Create something simple and basic. If you need an image of your product, get a public domain image off the Internet or buy one from one of the many image galleries. You'll save a lot of money and you'll have control of your logo if you have to make changes.
Many people will not be able to create a satisfactory logo. Sometimes it's worth trying just so you see how far you can go and to get what you want clear in your mind. Find a local graphic artist and give him clear instructions to create something very simple. The cost should not be more than $250.00 and could be a lot less. Even a coloured square with a frame containing a word about your business may be enough and it certainly doesn't take long to create something like that. Just remember - it has to appeal to your typical customer.
