Logo Logic: Creating Your Distinctive Identity
People are flooded with hundreds of brands every day- think of the ones you interact with just on your smart phone. What makes your brand stand out?
When it comes to creating brand awareness, an effective logo is a significant part of your efforts. It many times functions as a first impression, and becomes the image associated with the experience and face of your brand.
A lot goes into developing a memorable logo. Whether you’re developing yours for the first time or re-branding, ensure that your logo is:
Distinctive
A good logo is recognizable. It stands out from others in the market and is quickly recognizable from across the room. Take time to think about what would set you apart when placed next to other brands. Get creative- stray away from simply using an icon that spells out your product or service. We like the fact that our customers can quickly identify us from across the room at an event due to our unique look.
Timeless
Avoid the trends and fads that come and go in logo design. For brand permanence, consider a design that can be lightly adapted with time while remaining a recognizable aspect of your brand. We have upgraded our typeface over the years but believe our thumbprint brandmark is here to stay.
Simple
Don’t over complicate it. Keeping it simple lends itself to adaptability – your logo should be able to be used in different circumstances and mediums. Our thumbprint brandmark looks great in the corner of a business card or plastered on the side of a bus. If it loses clarity or functionality at an exceptionally large or small size, you may want to make some changes.
Considerate of Color
There is a whole world of color psychology to consider when developing your brand. The brain reads color before it reads content, and color expresses the personality of your brand. For example, whereas red may denote a tone of aggression or caution (we know this because we tried it in 1999), green is generally considered soothing. We like to think it helps send an overall positive message that says, “Relax, we got this!” to our clients and applicants.
Meaningful
Every logo worth talking about represents a story or leads back to a deeper meaning. Take Amazon for example. The yellow arrow looks like the smile customers get when their packages arrive, but also points from the A to the Z to imply that they sell everything from A to Z. Let your logo speak to your brand and reflect something about the business.
Our thumbprint represents key parts of our brand identity – individuality, human-centric, and a high-touch approach (more on that here). It doesn’t have to be complex. In fact, your employees should be able to easily talk about it.
The most memorable and long-lasting brands stand for something and use their logo as a vessel for their meaning. The HTI logo represents our identity as a company- just as every thumbprint is unique, we know that no two clients or client situations are alike and develop custom solutions every day. We believe in the importance of considering the individual needs of every job-seeker we work with, as well as leaving a mark on our communities. Learning about the HTI logo is one of the things that drew me to HTI originally, and constantly reminds me why we do what we do.