International Business Culture & Environment

The function of a logo, no matter what sector it is intended for, is to create a memorable impression in the mind of a potential client or customer.The logo is the very heart of your company’s corporate identity and one of the key ways that you establish yourself as unique in your sector of the market.Logos are often indistinguishable from the concept of branding and brand values and often logos can represent the entire brand image in themselves, without any extra or supporting information or material.The professional logo designer must remember that, although the job of a logo is to mark your business and brand out as unique, that expression should not be overly complex as it’s equally important your logo is easily identifiable.

Generally speaking, there are four types of custom logo design to consider:Textual logos are devices that use text, i.e. easily recognisable word and letterforms that may be slightly modified, but are still recognisable as text and letterforms, in a logo format. The font type can appear in various shapes and sizes to convey your message. A thick font conveys the businesses’ power or strength while a more script-based font could convey some nice style and elegance.  For many years, any product that was Scottish or Irish in origin or had vague Scots or Irish connections used a typeface called American Uncial to reinforce the “Celtic” connection.  A good example of a long lived and powerful textual logo is that for IBM.

Illustrated logos are pretty much what they say on the tin – illustrations that are used for logo purposes. These illustrations can be as simple or as complicated as you like but it is better to keep the illustrations simple as it is likely to attract the attention of the intended audience.A really good example of an illustrated logo is that of Pepsi which features the red, white and blue textual rendition as well as the bottle cap illustration.  This is a significant development from the 1940’s, when the Pepsi-Cola logo was entirely textual and mirrored the rival coke’s symbol almost exactly.

Symbolic logos are increasingly popular over the last few years and have many advantages to them.Using a symbol to portray an abstract representation of the company can work well across many international markets but a great deal of collateral and marketing or advertising budget has to be spent to successfully get that symbol associated with the company.When it works, it can work very well and a good example of a symbolic logo is the Apple logo.Combination logos can really be anything the company likes and can be a mix of any of the previous discussed items. A really good example of a combination logo is America Online which features a symbolic device in the triangle and the textual device AOL underneath.  Both design elements are registered independently so they can be used separately if desired.  Whatever design approach you select for your company logo, remember that it will have to be carried through into all aspects of your brand communication, including custom stationary, advertising, packaging and online marketing.