For your new business, a cheap logo could cost you a lot more than you think.
If your new business is going to offer the right products or services to the right people at the right price, then congratulations; what you have is almost a perfect formula for success. However, even with those criteria satisfied, there are obstacles to overcome. You will have to let all those right people know what you have to offer and (where it really comes to the crunch) convince them to believe what you are saying.
This is difficult enough for new businesses but even with established brands, customer perception and confidence are persisting requirements. Logos can be a vital ingredient in that complex persuasion and, going forward, they become signposts of what customers do and don’t like. A logo is also the foundation of all else that makes up your branding; everything that convinces people to pay attention and to trust you.
Whilst established logos give confidence and a sense of security when it comes to customers deciding how to spend their money, the arrival of a new purchasing choice with a new logo can be refreshing and incite curiosity. First impressions really do matter. Badly designed logos or ones that look irrelevant to the intended customers, will struggle to survive.
With so much at stake it’s no wonder that a well-designed logo is the result of a complex thinking and research process, followed by a good measure of intelligent graphical experiment and a cooperative effort by designers, marketing experts and a helpfully responsive client. It also needs a suitable amount of time, a sensible budget and good communication between you and the design company.
It is well worth taking the time to think about the brief before you approach a design agency to commission the work. Almost certainly you will have thought about the competitors you are going to face. Your business may even have been inspired by what competitors do and more particularly what you aim to do differently or better. Now consider not only what their logos are like, but also why. Think about how they use them, where are they applied and what messages are given by their overall branding.
Take a little more time and think about your own personal design tastes and what words you think describe the character of your own business: like modern or traditional, serious or fun & friendly, expensive or low-cost, cuddly or slick and so forth. Think about colours, not simply what your favourite colours are but which ones might suit your company identity and yet again, ask why.
It is also worth considering what else a good, experienced marketing design agency can help you with. Have you chosen your company’s name? Is it worth getting advice
on why or why not that choice is the right one? Does it communicate your business’s values and character? Is it suitable for how it will be used, especially in the complicated realm of the Internet? Do you have a strategy in mind that includes the name of your business? A really good design agency can help you develop your strategy further and will use this to create the logo design that brings it accurately to life.
For many new businesses the attitude to getting a logo done is defined as a cost; often thought of in isolation and without reference to the overall business plan. An astute approach to getting a logo done would consider the expenditure as an investment, because the potential success of the business should give the logo a tangible value, see it become an asset in its own right.
Now think about how much you should allocate for getting your logo made. But bear in mind that really talented graphic designers and marketing design consultants are not going to give away their time or provide cheap services to ensure the happy commercial future of other people’s new businesses. Any professional, just like you, will expect to be paid a suitable rate for their talent and experience and in return they will be delighted to give you the best possible logo you could ever ask for.
When you spend time on the Internet it is tempting to think that you can find anything and everything there and buy any of it for an extremely low price. Some people assume all things are somehow equal and a logo from one supplier is like a logo from anywhere else and the only difference is the price tag.
Experience and talent however are quite unique properties and their value is totally relative to quality. The only design services that can be bought on the cheap will not include expertise, originality, commitment or an input of the actual time that quality professional design requires. The result may be technically compromised. It might include royalty-free clip-art or a highly clich graphic device that will make your logo similar to hundreds of others. The worst option might include outright plagiarism.
Instead of buying the cheapest logo you can findbuy the best logo you can afford. Someday, your new business will thank you.
Have you had an interesting experience of commissioning a logo or designing one for a new business? Whether there was a good outcome or a bad one, we’d like to hear about it and what you think went right or wrong.