One of the most important things for any business is to develop a brand. A brand is made up of a combination of everything your business entails, including; customer service, product quality, marketing materials, and of course, the logo. A brand is the way customers perceive your business and service as a whole. The logo on the other hand, is what identifies a business or product. It is the trademark symbol that quickly identifies who you are.

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Having an eye-catching company logo is a great start to promoting your business, but how do you plan to connect with your target demographic once you have the logo? How will potential customers learn about your business? Traditional advertising media—television, radio, and print ads—can be cost-prohibitive for small businesses, and marketing on the Internet is easier said than done. That's why promotional products are such an attractive alternative to businesses just starting out.
 

Promotional Items Advertise When You Can't

We have all seen promotional items—custom t-shirts, printed coffee mugs, personalized water bottles, and so on—but have you stopped to consider just how powerful they are? For example, in the Advertising Specialty Institute's annual Impression Study, the organization found that the standard tote bag registers over 1,000 unique impressions every month! What's more, such items are often perceived as less "pushy" than traditional advertising forms. Indeed, promotional items represent the most effective form of ambient advertising available today.

Promotional Items Are Cost-Effective

To extrapolate the example above a little further, let's say each promotional tote bag costs $2. This would put the cost per impression at 0.002 cents a piece. When considering the life of the bag can run upwards of 2-3 years, the products become even more cost-effective. When comparing that to the cost of running a television ad, renting a billboard, or running a pay-per-click campaign, it's easy to understand why so many businesses employ promotional items as one of their marketing methods.

Promotional Items Drive Business

In addition to being cost-effective and effective ambient advertising, promotional items can also contribute directly to additional business for your company. The ASI study mentioned earlier also found that recipients of a promotional item were at least 50% more likely to do business with the company that had sent it. If that weren't enough, in simply receiving the gift, recipients' opinions of the company also improve. So whether your business wants to stir up some goodwill among your client base or needs to generate more sales this quarter, make sure you think strongly about ordering promotional items.

There are many different types of software available for graphic design work which can also be used for a logo design. Let's start by discussing the two types of digital imaging:

• The first type is a bitmap image system that you are probably most familiar with. This system of storing digital images is very simple. It is a "pixilated" version of the image. Basically it is a visual image divided by thousands of different colored dots and each dot has its own color and coordinate. It is a very memory consuming system, and of course the more dots you have stored in your image, the bigger and more detailed it will become.

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Over the years, LogoBee has been designing logos and accumulating articles and resources for its clients. Finally, they've released a concise set of logo design tips to help you along with your project, and ensure that you end up with a logo that will perfectly suit your needs. So without further ado, here are LogoBee's top ten tips!

Keep it Simple!

These are probably the best words of advice, and it ties into almost all of our upcoming tips. A complicated logo will not only make your logo difficult to reproduce and maintain, but you will also fail to engage your audience. The logo is the ultimate 'elevator' pitch to your potential clients and business partners. You don't have time to recite your entire business plan in an elevator pitch, and the same concept applies to corporate logo design.

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After making sure that you are dealing with a legitimate company there are few more points to look at:

-There are two different types of logo design companies that exist on the Internet:

One is a company that sells pre made logos. What they do is very simple. They design a collection of logos related to a particular field of business and if you like one of them you can buy it. These logos are mostly iconic logos, or have a special font in it. There is usually very little work done on these logos and are the cheapest that you will find. There are downsides to going this route. First: you have to be very cautious about registering or even thinking of registering this type of logo. These are pre-made logos and usually are sold to many different clients simultaneously which means you may not be the only company that owns the logo.

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Often the designers will hit a roadblock when the exact vision of the client isn`t met. Rather than expecting the perfect logo on the first, second or even third time, look for elements in each of the samples that you like. Such elements can be fonts, color schemes, layouts, graphic elements. From there, you can make a note of the items you like from each sample (for example, the font in sample #3 with the color scheme of sample #8 and the layout in sample #4 etc….) The beauty of graphic design is that we can mix, match and change these things quickly.

Patience IS a virtue

When working on your project, it is important to consider that your logo design will, more often then not, take time. Logo design is a creative process, and it is important to remember that. Personally, I have dealt with patient clients and impatient clients, and I have found that trying to rush the process often results in the client not getting exactly what they asked for.

Beware!

In the last 5 years, we have seen a prolific growth in the Internet industry. Every conceivable field of business has seen the advantages the internet has to offer. One of these industries is logo design , which interestingly is considered to be the fastest growing in the world. You can now order any type of design from the comforts of your home or office and everything is presented to you in a timely manner.

With every moral, prosperous company out there - there are plenty just waiting to take advantage of you.

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You have developed your business idea, finished your market research, and now you need to decide on a name. The name must earn your potential customer's attention and trust. Start considering names in the beginning stages once you have determined your field of business. Use a serious name for a serious company. Use a fun name for creative company or a company that markets children.

Before you finalize your company's name, consider logo design concepts. They are difficult to capture on the first try. This is why a company should provide a designer with more information than just the company name. Consider the type of qualities you would like your company to portray. There are various logo design styles that portray different qualities. If you want to represent a very aggressive, high tech, corporate, and cutting-edge company, you should not come up with the name like 'Sloopy' or 'Scroochy'. Belive it or not, some of the names for clients in the past have been so inappropriate that it is not worth mentioning. The logo would look like Tinker Bell in a hockey Helmet!

Here are a few of the most important rules to consider when coming up with the best possible name:

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Now the most important part is to get the concept for a logo. It is almost the same process as selecting the name. First you have to determine what your logo should say about your company. There are many different ways to represent a company.

•You may come up with an image related to a business like a house for a real estate company, or a car for a car dealership

•You could use just an abstract image representing the company`s philosophy. For example some kind of blocky image would suit a stable trustful company or even just a pyramid. A very dynamic image with orbits and swooshes, sparks, particles could be used for a very modern, young, high-tech company to represent electrical activities or just cutting edge meteoritic technology.

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A Logo is a design symbolizing ones organization. It is a design that is used by an organization for its letterhead, advertising material, and signs as an emblem by which the organization can easily be recognized, also called logotype. Logotype is a graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark, abbreviation, etc., often uniquely designed for ready recognition.

You may also think of a Logo as a simple visual mark to identify your company product or service. There are different types of signs and emblems easily recognized and associated with purposes. For example, crests are used to identify a country or family. There was a time when only big enough organizations could afford to make their own crest. They were in some cases very detailed drawing with many objects to enrich the crest. Cost was not an issue and more was considered better. Then flags were used due to their larger format. They were visible from the craft fields from long distances. Road signs were designed for informational purposes. They use such techniques as contrasting colors, simplified and yet stylish formats to identify and attract more attention and convey information.

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In part 1 of this blog post series, we looked at the process of developing a brief for a graphic logo design project. Asking the right questions in order to build up a scope for the project is a crucial first step for the graphic designer, who needs to obtain enough information about the company, its values and the image it wishes to portray, to be able to develop a striking and instantly recognizable logo. There inevitably comes a point in this process however, where the designer needs to start actually designing, so what happens next? While each graphic designer has their own modus operandi, the design process generally starts with a good old fashioned sketch. Forget your Photoshops and your Illustrators for the time being, a graphic designer’s real best friend at this stage is a 2B pencil and a piece of paper.

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It’s always a risky move for any corporation to change its logo, and when internationally known clothing retailer Gap tried it recently, they soon learned that the customer is always right!

With industry experts suggesting that Gap was feeling out of touch with its client base in these times of economic crisis, a Gap spokesperson said that “after 20 years, it was time for change”. It was out with capital letters and a serif typeface, and in with Helvetica logotype and a blue gradient box design element – to the outcry of graphic designers and members of the public all over the world. 

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The role of the graphic designer in creating a great logo for a particular company is a very important job – that logo will be used on the company’s advertising and marketing materials, on their website, on emails, on letterheads and stationery. It speaks volumes about the company’s ethos, its style, its purpose. A logo is a focus point for the eye, and a point of reference for the brain.

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Disruptive Business Models and Negative Incentives

Outsourcing has become a growing trend in a variety of industries. As firms become more specialized in the products and services they offer, the need to outsource certain tasks has become apparent. A small business will probably find it more cost effective to hire a tax accountant than do it themselves. They also will probably want to hire an artist to create their logo design and brand identity. This has all become intuitive to companies that need to focus more and more on their core business. But what happens when the service company out-sources its own contracts?

This model of 'double outsourcing' is relatively new in the business world. It leaves the service company with virtually no overhead, only control over marketing, advertising and administration. In the logo design realm, this means that designers from all over the world will be contracted to work on any given project at any given time, working through a centralized network to submit their work. This free-market mechanism allows designers to bid freely on jobs, set their own hours and work as they please.

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You've been in business for more than a couple of years. You've enjoyed moderate success through positive word of mouth and by delivering top-level quality of service, but your industry is becoming more and more competitive and the need for a more professional look is becoming imperative. Sound familiar? The truth is that in today's market even the best companies need to sell its image and brand in order to succeed. This is achieved primarily via the company logo as it is associated with all of the company media: letterhead, envelopes, websites, business cards, brochures and advertising campaigns.

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