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Last time, I talked in general terms about how to make your own successful logo. On the subject of design, I mentioned simplicity, alignment, and logic. Today I want to go more into why simplicity is so important.

Lovely logos you’ve seen

I’ll bet if you close your eyes, you can easily remember the logo for McDonald’s, FedEx, Nintendo, Subway, or Apple. What do they have in common? The most obvious answer, to me, is that they’re simple.

Simplicity is important for several reasons. It makes your logo memorable, understandable, reproducible and flexible.

Understandable

If your logo requires someone to study it to figure out what it’s about, it’s not going to be effective. Take a look at this logo for a sports bar. Ignoring the colors for a moment, notice that the logo involves several different images, drawing the eye all over the place. We have the words “sports bar”, a football, a baseball(?), and a checkered flag. An effective logo can be grasped in an instant. This unnecessary complexity interferes with what the company wants to convey.

What if, instead, they’d created a single image that indicated sports, without making the eye dart around searching for elements? This image conveys information very effectively (though without much pizazz).

Here’s another sports icon. It has problems, but the use of several different sports images is not one of them. They’re tied together in a way that makes them a unit.

Memorable

Simplicity also affects how memorable your logo is. This is a very (very) rough treatment, but look how paring down the Clovis logo changes how you perceive it.

Flexible and Reproducible

A simple logo is flexible and reproducible. Take a look at the Subway logo here. Its clean lines mean you can shrink it, and you can use it when you don’t have color available.

You can emboss it on metal, embroider it on a hat, or carve it into a picnic table. Any use that comes up, it just works.

You can even make it really, really small (which comes in very handy when you’re making a business card). Imagine what would happen to the Cazz’s logo above if you shrank it like this.

The apple logo is another excellent example of a simple logo. It’s recognizable and memorable, and amazingly flexible. In fact, look at all of it’s superpowers—stencil it, invert it, even shrink it, and it stays clear and convincing.

Simplicity can go a really really long way toward making sure your logo makes a positive impression, and helps your business grow.

Logo rants continue next week, same bat time, same bat channel.

I keep reading all this advice that says you must—absolutely must— hire a professional designer to create your logo. But we all know that when you’re starting a business with $1.27 and lots of gumption, spending hundreds —even thousands— on a first-class identity package is just not possible. So here’s some realistic help for creating an effective, attractive logo all by yourself.

1. Look

This post was born when someone sent me a link to Your Logo Makes Me Barf. I thought it was kinda mean, but I laughed a little anyway. Mean or not, it’s seriously a good place to go to see logos that don’t work. (Note: If you can’t tell exactly why a logo doesn’t work, don’t worry, because I’ll cover that below. I’ll tell you upfront, though, that if you can’t tell that they don’t work, you might want to get some help on your logo.)
More important than looking over the ugly logos, though, is noticing what logos you do like. Look through magazines, notice signs as you ride down the street, and visit a site like Logo Faves. Find out which logos make you feel good, and which don’t.

2. Think

Purpose

Consider what your logo is intended to do. You obviously want people to think of your business when they see it, but what else are you going for? Do you want them to feel excited? Comforted?

Audience

What kind of customers will your business appeal to? What’s special about your business?

• For “soft” businesses use soft lines. For “hard” businesses, use sharp lines.
• Are warm colors or cool colors more appropriate?
• Choose elements that make sense. (Don’t use a fish for a tree-trimming company.)

Content

What will you communicate in your logo? Don’t make the common mistake of trying to say everything about your business in one logo. If you have a pet store that also offers grooming, and has dog-training classes, don’t try to describe all that in your logo. If you have a farmstand at the local weekend market, don’t try to include all the food you sell in the graphic. Keep it simple, and choose something that says what you want to say.
When folks designed the FedEx logo, can’t you just imagine the owners saying “It needs boxes. Oh, and a smiling guy.” Someone else speaks up, “What about an airplane? You know, because we deliver fast?” Luckily, the designer knew something about simplicity. (Have you ever noticed the little arrow between the e and the x?)

3. Choose

Since you can’t include everything you come up with, you’ll need to narrow down your choices.

Ideas

You want to convey softness, if you’re a teddy bear company, or intelligence if you’re a code-breaker. Warm and inviting? Delicious? Reliable? Choose the most important of these. (If you try to include all the things you are and do, the logo will be a jumbled mess.)

Fonts or typefaces

Choose a typeface that’s interesting, but not too interesting. Two things mark an amateur logo: a very basic font like Times or Helvetica, that you see everywhere, or a weird font that distracts from the logo’s message. Think back to the logos that you liked. What kinds of typefaces were they sporting?
Great logos also ensure their typeface is appropriate to the topic. You can get by with a pretty cool font if your business is equally cool. But if you’re running a bank or a bakery, your font should say so.
Note that the awesome logos you’ve seen use only one, or at most two fonts. If you find you have a good reason for using two, make sure they’re different enough not to clash. I’m pretty sure there are no good reasons for using more than two. (Prove me wrong!)

Colors

Pick colors that convey your message. Bold, bright, or calm, but never washed out. Washed out makes it look like you don’t mean it. “We’re kinda brilliant” or “We’re a little bit reliable.”‘
A web graphic can use tons of colors, but your logo should use only a few. And —important— make sure the colors aren’t required. You will, at some point, need to use the logo in black and white. Be sure your version will work with various methods of reproduction.

4. Design

K.I.S.S.S.

Keep it simple, simple, simple. Have I mentioned simple? Look at the successful logos you’ve seen, and the ugly ones, and notice which are simple.

Align

Designers use guidelines and other tools for lining things up exactly. Even if you don’t have the same tools, you can remember to keep things lined up together, whether centered, right-aligned or left-aligned. Alignment applies to tops and bottoms, too.

Logic and Sense

Create a logo that’s describable. If you find yourself saying “Well, it’s kindof a rounded trapezoid, with, like, these thing coming off the side,” it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Your logo should not only make sense, but it should relate to the subject. If you have a lovely graphic of a mermaid for your plumbing business, you’d better have a good reason.

5. Criticize

You should know that the first logo you create will almost certainly not be the final choice. Take your time, and ask for lots of input. (And, of course, that means input from people who don’t like you too much. Spouses and parents will likely love anything you make, even the drafts that are a bit silly. Ask me how I know this!)
You’ll have to be thick skinned if you want a terrific logo. It’s worth it, though. This logo is going to be yours for a long time, so make sure you really love it before you commit to a bunch of documents and a website that uses it.

Before you slug me for not including any technical info in this article…

Coming soon! Details about the logo creation process, with some easy and powerful logo creation tools