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Logo Design

Your logo is a represents what your company stands for. A company logo enhances and creates a first impression of your business. Good logos build loyalty between your business and your customers, establish a brand identity, and look of a professional enterprise.

There are basically three kinds of logos. Font logos consist primarily of a type treatment. The logos of P&G, Panasonic and IBM, for instance, use type treatments with a twist that makes them distinctive. Then there are logos that literally illustrate what a company does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its logo. And finally, there are abstract graphic symbols—such as Nike's swoosh—that become linked to a company's brand.

A symbol is meaningless until your company communicates to consumers what its underlying associations are. The Nike swoosh has no meaning outside of what's been created through savvy marketing efforts that have transformed the logo into an "identity" for an athletic lifestyle. Most  growing businesses can't afford millions of dollars a year of required impressions in order to create these associations, so a logo must clearly illustrate its company position.

Before you begin sketching, articulate the message you want your logo to convey. Write a one sentence image and mission statement to help focus your efforts. Decide what you want to communicate about your company. Make it clean and functional. Your logo should work as well on a business card as on the side of a truck.

Use your logo to illustrate your business's key benefit. The best logos make an immediate statement with a picture or illustration, not words. Don't use clip art. However tempting it may be, clip art can be copied too easily. Not only will original art make a more impressive statement about your company, but it'll set your business apart from others.

Colors - One thing you need to be careful of as you explore color options is cost. Your five-color logo may be gorgeous, but once it comes time to produce it on stationary, the price won't be so attractive. Nor will it work in mediums that only allow one or two colors. Try not to exceed three colors unless you decide it's absolutely necessary.

Protecting Your Logo - Once you've produced a logo that embodies your company's mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

Then, once it's protected, use it everywhere you can—on business cards, stationary, letterhead, brochures, ads, your Web site and any other place where you mention your company name. This will help build your image, raise your company's visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.