About logos and how important it is to tell a story

Instead of an introduction – a thought about logos

Very often we receive requests to create a logo (logo only), or sometimes a logo and a website. What most people don’t know is that creating a logo out of nothing is not only an impossible mission, but also a useless one — it is the wrong approach. We will explain why below. The saddest part about these requests is that professionals in our field have encouraged this kind of marketing/design culture, and many even create logos and visual identities starting from nothing or from far too little. Even more, this year we witnessed several national logo competitions that had no trace of strategy behind them, yet featured big names on the jury.

So how do logos actually work?

A logo is part of what we call visual identity — a set of graphic elements whose role is to differentiate a product/service/company/organization from all the others.

Visual identity refers to a set of elements related to “form,” not “substance,” whose role is to bring to light what we may call the “substance.” In other words, a visual identity cannot exist without strategy — meaning without an analysis of what a product/service/company/organization actually is. This analysis must also take the market into account (competitors, potential clients). In order to reach the point where you can even think of needing a logo, you must first think about targeting, positioning, differentiating points, branding elements — in other words, strategy.

Only after you finalize this part can you aspire to creating a logo. This step must not be skipped, because without it, you cannot build a relevant logo.

What should a logo be like?

It happens very often that you see around you very beautiful logos that are nevertheless irrelevant — logos that don’t express the essence of a brand, don’t manage to communicate with the target, and have no connection to the product/service/organization.

A logo must be:

• relevant – meaning it must reflect the product/service/organization and be built for the target and in alignment with the market
• simple – it must be easy to understand, to read, to remember
• symbolic – ideally, you should be able to create a symbol out of a logo, meaning it should express the essence of the brand effortlessly and immediately
• different – there are millions of logos around us, so you must build one that cannot be confused with another