Corporate logos are the face of any company or business. They represent the true picture and image of the company in front of the customers. This is why great care must be taken while designing logos for companies. Many a times, logo designers face issues in creating corporate logos that are memorable and unique.

Today, I aim to help logo designers in assessing the rudiments of designing corporate logos. Over the years, I’ve learnt quite a few things through my experience as a logo designer and thought of sharing some useful tips with you.

Following are 6 tips that will help you in creating perfect logos for corporate logos.

1. Start with a Brainstorming Session:

As soon as you get an order for a corporate logo, do a brainstorming on your client’s company. Sit down with a pen and paper, and analyze all the aspects of the company. Think of whatever comes to your mind regarding the company and its relevant industry. Write down all connotations and allusions that come up during the brainstorming session.

2. Constantly Involve your Client:

Always remember, the best corporate logos are a result of a two-way process between the client and logo designer. It is better to get a logo design brief from the client that describes exactly what they want the logo to be like. Constantly obtain feedback from your client and involve them in every phase.

3. Follow your own Trends:

Another tip in designing corporate logos is never to follow trends prevalent in the logo design industry. This is because following trends involve the risk of plagiarism and unimaginative work. When you go after set patterns and already implemented designs, there are chances that your corporate logo may not stand out from the rest of the crowd.

4. Keep it Simple:

The best of corporate logos are simple and uncomplicated. There are scores of examples around us that suggest that simple logos are easily recognized and remembered by the customers. Famous corporate logos of brands like Nike, McDonalds and Honda are simple, uncomplicated and memorable.

5. Start in Black and White:

Did you know that the Google corporate logo was first designed in black and white and then the colors were added? Not only Google, but all great corporate logos we see were first created in black and white. This is because without color, you will have an unbiased approach to choosing symbols and fonts. Once you’re done with the design, add colors in the end.

6. Learn from others:

Another valuable tip that logo designers can benefit from is to learn from others. This involves learning from success and failures of other corporate logos. Not only you need to learn from successful corporate logos, you must also analyze which corporate logos failed badly and why. For example, the Nike logo shows that simplest logo is the best. On the other hand, London 2012 logo shows logo design mistakes to avoid.

Holiday season is a great time for small business owners to promote their business products and services. It is a time when the customers are emotionally responsive to the marketing activities. Taking advantage of holiday seasons like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, many companies tweak their corporate logos in order to blend with the occasion. This provides them with the emotional connection with their customers that gives a sense of belonging.

Christmas, the year’s most awaited and celebrated holiday is round the corner. This gives a great opportunity for companies and small businesses to redesign their corporate logos and infuse their business image with the Christmas spirit. This shows a sign that you are connected with your clients and share their joys and happiness with them on all occasions.

Following are 20 festive logos that are inspired by the Christmas season:

Xmas Time

Joy of Java

Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

Meu Melhor Natal

Christmas Media

Kids Santa Letters

Angel Tree

My Team Tree

Perfect Puds

X-mess tree

raindeer

NorthPole

Merry christmas

Merry Xmas

Genius Christmas

Universal City Christmas Ho-Down

Santa Christmas

Totally Christmas

Ski-King

Snowflake

Picking the right corporate logo can take your company to the pinnacle of success while a wrong selection can put you in real trouble. However, there are some definite elements which contribute in making successful corporate logos… so if your logo is comprised of those aspects, your business will never fail.

Always remember that a company logo is unbeaten if it rightly conveys your business nature and builds a strong corporate identity. Let’s have a look at the features of a corporate logo which can help your business flourish and get potential customers to your doorstep.

1. Memorable:

A logo which imprints in the mind of a customer proves to be the best corporate logo. Your logo should be so recognizable that your customer remembers it for years. If you look around you will see so many logos which instantly remind you of the brand it is promoting.

2. Distinctiveness:

Do you know that all the famous logos of the world are similar in one way…distinctiveness. Have you ever thought how we are able to differenciate betwwen different brands? Their unique logos concepts make them stand apart from their competitors.

3. Long-term style:

So many logo design trends come and go but always remember to follow the long-term style. Corporate logos which are very trendy start looking outdated after some time. A logo should be designed in such a way so that it holds the image of a company forever. 

4. Readability:

An effective and attractive logo is useless if it fails to say anything to its customers. Your company name and tagline on your logo explains a lot about your business. Therefore, try using clean and simple fonts, so your targeted audience easily gets to you.

5. Attractive and Catchy:

A logo must be appealing and catchy for everyone, including general and targeted audience. If your logo fails to attract every human eye then it won’t be able to win any customers for your business.

6. Simply Elegant:

Many of us think lots of graphical elements and funky colors contribute in making a logo design attractive and catchy. However, we don’t realise that nothing excessive is good. This idea can make your logo too cluttered and take away its elegance. Try to choose simple logo design concepts as they are more professional and effective.

Tools of corporate branding:

A corporate identity is very much established by the marketing and communication strategies of the company. When people get acquainted about your services, they come to you to experience them, thus making your company a better success. You can communicate your brand with following branding tools:

• Corporate Logos
• Business Cards
• Brochures
• Letterheads
• Stationery and Gift Items

Corporate brochures are very influential in communicating your brand as you get to dispense them to a wide variety of people residing in your area of business. Brochures help in describing your company, its specialties and services to the masses, therefore creating awareness of your presence.

Influence of Corporate Logos in brand communication:

When laying out a promotion strategy, you have to make sure that all marketing communication materials have your corporate logo on it. This enhances your credibility as a professional enterprise. You hand out business cards for potential clients for them to remember you and your company, there will be incidents wherein you have to send letters to different companies.

• One reason that small businesses fail is they lack consistency in their communication strategy. Corporate logos are a mark of your Identity and the values that you hold as a corporate entity.
• When you use your corporate logos across all mediums like TV and print media, it gives consistency to the communication plan.
• It aids in generating recognition and recall of your business identity in the minds of the customers.

It gives credibility to your business, as people perceive you as a whole organization even though you might be a single small business owner.

Origami is the conventional Japanese folk art of paper folding, which started in the 17th century. It takes its roots from ori meaning "folding", and kami meaning "paper". The idea behind this creative skill is to carve out a refined figure out of a plain paper sheet by folding it. At first, this art was restricted to the hand-made side of art and designing. But now, this technique has also taken precedence in the world of corporate logos.

Origami logos, is an interesting addition to the logo design variety. An essential factor for the effective business logos is that the designs must be up-to-date with the latest trends prevailing. Applying the origami art in corporate logos is an entertaining but difficult practice.

Following are 20 creative origami inspired logos that are a source of inspiration and motivation for making fresh corporate logos.

Business logos designed in the correct way can do wonders for the image building of the business. But a bad business logo can be a disaster to the business as a whole. A logo design is the first image of a company which is viewed by the customers. It is the first impression and as the saying goes…The first impression is the last impression.

However, if a business logo is not able to communicate the desired message of the company to the customers, then it poses a downfall for the company. A bad business logo can confuse them and they might drift aware to another company as competition is fierce in the market. Hence, creating company logos with a purpose is critical for every business.

So What Makes a Bad Logo?

Inappropriate symbols and colors: 

Ever wondered why the London Olympic 2012 logo was a disaster? That is because when it comes to designing corporate logos, appropriate use of colors and symbols is imperative in generating the right response from the target audience. The symbols used in the London 2012 logo designed by Wolff Olins were unsuitable and not according to the needs of the London 2012 brand name.

Too many details and confusion:  

A logo design crowded with too many elements spells trouble for a brand. Small business owners and other businesses cannot afford to create confusion among the minds of their customers as to who they are and what they do. Hence, logo designers must be careful of the risk of using elements imperfectly in corporate logos.

Inconsistent with the company purpose:

Sending irrelevant messages to your customers is the last thing that small business owners can afford to do. Hence a bad business logo includes a logo design with an inconsistent message that is not parallel to the vision and purpose of the company. This is one of the reasons why small business owners fail. It’s because they cannot express their company purpose to their clients.

Unappealing to the customers:

Company logos are useless if they do not have the power and charisma of appealing to the target audience. The major purpose of a logo design is to compel customers to retain your company name and recall at the time of purchase decision. If your business logo is not relevant to your target audience, it will not be appealing to them.

A corporate logo is, by far, the single most important aspect of a corporate identity. It provides you the means to promote your business in the marketplace in an efficient and effective manner. Think of corporate logos as a visual clip of your business. It directly communicates the purpose of your business to your customers and leaves an everlasting impression in their minds. Hence it is extremely vital for corporate entities and small business owners to invest sensibly in their corporate logos.

Elements of a corporate logo:
A corporate logo is a combination of several elements. It is an amalgamation of various graphic design components. Following enlisted are the most common elements of corporate logos:

• Color
• Symbol
• Font
• Size
• Tagline

But a branding disaster happens when these elements are incorrectly used in a corporate logo. To strike a perfect balance between the elements is the most difficult task for a logo designer. He must be aware of the do’s and don’ts of company logos

Incorrect use of elements in a corporate logo:
As mentioned earlier, if a correct equilibrium is not achieved between the elements of a logo, it may end up as a total failure. Let us analyze how each element, if wrongly used, can impediment the purpose of a corporate logo.

1. Inappropriate Colors:

Color plays a major role in the logo making process. Every color has its unique connotation and contextual meaning. Inappropriate use of colors can severely dent the show of your corporate logo.

2. Irrelevant Symbols:

Symbol forms the core portion of corporate logos and carries the image of the business. One of the logo designing mistakes that logo designers make is use symbols in a logo that are irrelevant to the nature of the business. This ruins the corporate image of the company.

3. Unsuitable Fonts:

Although actions speak louder than words, but in the case of corporate logos, it is the entire opposite. The words used and the typography in which they are used is extremely essential. Be it typography logos, using unsuitable and unreadable fonts can create a negative image of your company. For example, using casual and informal fonts in a luxury type business can seriously dent the class of the corporation.

4. Improper Size:

A logo too small becomes unnoticeable, too large becomes uncanny. In short, if the correct size is not made, then the identity is useless to use. The size should be determined keeping in view all places where the logo is to be used. Sometimes, a large size logo becomes unclear when resized.

5. Lengthy Taglines:

A tagline or a slogan comes as an added feature of the logo. It serves as the message platform where you define your business in a few simple but effective words. But if a tagline is too lengthy, it can damage the corporate logo as a whole. Additionally, when the logo is resized, the tagline becomes unreadable.

There has been a persistent tendency of small business owners designing their company logos themselves. The prime reason they give is that it saves them money. Let alone the argument that business without a corporate logo is saving or losing, what is a few dollars saved compared to thousands lost? This is because a corporate identity has the strength to decide the future of a business. But designing corporate logos is not as simple as a house paint job. Heaps of future dollars are at stake when a corporate identity is created.

Nowadays, many designers are unable to come up with a creative and innovative logo design because of lack of logo design ideas. A little inspiration always instigates the creative flare inside a person. It gives you new and innovative ideas to build your company logo on.

Here are 24 fresh and inspiring logos that are sure to provide novel ideas for corporate logos.