3 Considerations for Your Next Logo Design

Something has happened that’s never happened since we opened our doors almost 14 years ago… we designed a new logo!

It was an eventful trip and we wanted to share a few things we learned along the way.


Considerations for your next logo design
1 – Logos Aren’t Everything

• Obviously designing a new logo was a long time coming for us. We had to remind ourselves that the logo is not our brand, just a small part of it. Dan Pallotta wrote a great article that hits the nail on the head, “Brand is much more than a name or a logo,” Pallotta said. “Brand is everything and everything is brand.” In a nutshell your brand is your whole business model encapsulated; strategy, marketing, internal and external communication, customer service, product, etc. not just the aesthetic awesomeness. The “walk the talk” principle embodied.

2 – Be Inspired

• Thanks to our one true love, the triple-dub (AKA World Wide Web), we were inspired by the work of so many other companies and designers; a simple search pulls up many articles and resources. UnderConsideration’s Brand New offers “opinions on corporate and brand identity” with many before-and-after logo examples. Logo Lounge was another favorite places to gain inspiration and see their idea of logo design trends.
• We paid attention to banded styling, with secondary dabbles using opacity and gradients to draw lines between colors in an elegant way.

3 – Timing

When to design a new logo? To do it, or not to do it; that is the question… Timing is an important part of launching a new logo and although we were flexible with the timing of our logo launch there are a couple good rules of thumb to follow. It’s good to know when to launch a totally new logo and when to brush up the current one, especially logos associated with a single product.
• If you are releasing an update to an existing product then a brush up is appropriate. Brushing up the logo indicates something has changed while sending the message it’s not completely different. See our example above or Photoshop’s last three logo renditions.
• If you have completely changed the product and the user experience has drastically changed then a new logo (even consider a new product name depending on the scale of the change) could be the route to take. A new logo obviously indicates a new product and/or a big change.
• Another big reason to change the logo is simply because it looks like that outfit you’ve been wearing since 9th grade; you know, the one your significant other keeps trying to donate to the thrift store because he/she can’t stand to been seen with you in public. Such was the case with us; it was time for a better, newer image. 🙂

The Photoshop logo is a good example of one that has changed over time. With new enhancements etc. they’ve released a new logo; sometimes a brush up, sometimes a totally new design.
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I’ll be honest, it was very hard to see the website with the old logo replaced because it has been with us since we began! However in just a few days we got over it and it feels great!
Thoughts on the new logo?
Been through this yourself or have an opinion? Please share!