Why You Need More Than Just a Logo
April 20, 2023
Category: BRanding
why you need more than just a logo
Spoiler alert: Unless you’re Nike, you need more than a logo.
Let’s dive in! There are two BIG reasons you need more than just a logo design — especially if you’re a small biz!
1 | You’re not nike
I mentioned this already buttttt unless you’re an established corporation you need more than a logo. Nike and Target, for example, are instantly recognizable by their swoosh and bullseye because they’re both global brands that have been around for decades. Small businesses have a more specific audience and niche. They're likely creating a product or service for a particular individual and, even if they have a few locations, they’re likely still not a brand that’s widely known. It’s hard to remember one single logo, and using the same logo across everything as a small business is boring and repetitive. But if you create an entire FEELING through patterns, illustrations, colors, and fonts, you’ve got a brand that’s memorable, is more likely to stay top of mind, and creates brand awareness.
2 | Your brand needs to be adaptable
Next, your brand needs to be adaptable! From packaging and print materials to social media, marketing, and your website you need to have branding that works across all platforms, is cohesive, and reels your audience in. All of those are very different spaces that require a logo and elements to fit into. Think about your website, for example, what logo design will you use for that little favicon on your web browser? Your primary logo will not be able to read at that tiny scale — enter your secondary logos, brand marks, and illustrations.
Build a brand, not just a logo. So often we see brands using just a logo before they launch their product, then when it comes to their packaging or website they’re disappointed in how the design turns out. Why? Because they skipped out on building a solid visual foundation for their brand and in turn are now looking to find ways to create more assets to work with. It’s so much more visually sound when you build the brand right from the beginning.
Trust me, your business will thank you later! On that note… let’s walk through what all you get when you work with Brighten Made on a strategic brand identity.
A peek into the brighten made branding experience
If you haven’t already noticed from Instagram — or let’s be real, this blog post — we like to go allllll out when it comes to branding. When you work with us you never get just a logo, and this is something we’re clearly super passionate about.
We always start off by getting to know our clients and creating a strategic brand identity to start as our base. Our brand strategies involve us diving deep into the goals of your brand, your target audience, and your competitors so that we can not only create a visually cohesive brand but so that we can design a brand with intention and strategy behind it. Within the brand strategy, we create an overall mood board along with a visual plan for your branding. When it comes to anything creative, it can often feel overwhelming to jump head-first into the design process without a clear direction. That’s why we establish a game plan before diving into any actual design work. This also gives our clients the opportunity to speak up if something feels off or doesn’t quite resonate with them.
Once the overall direction feels really good, then we dive into branding! With branding, of course, we provide you with a primary logo but we take things a step further by adding secondary logos (flexible and adaptable versions of your primary logo), brand marks (your brand in its most simplified form), and other elements such as patterns and illustrations to really round out the whole experience. We pair the whole thing with carefully selected typography and a fully formed color palette.
The result is creating a BRAND. A brand that’s memorable, one that has enough elements that seamlessly work together across platforms, and that you won’t get bored of or outgrow in just a few years.
Plusssssss, when it comes to all of these goodies we won’t just leave you hanging. We want you to feel confident and empowered to use your brand with ease. We know that not everyone is a #designer so we’ll do our absolute best to set you up for success by providing you with links to specific fonts, color codes, logo usage guidelines, and so much more.
Just listen to what one of our past clients had to say about the brand guidelines we provide, “I wanted to share how incredibly helpful the brand messaging and brand guidelines documents are. Even with having a degree in graphic design, I was a little overwhelmed with ALL THE AMAZING things my final brand assets included but these documents brought me back to all the work you had me do in preparation for this, and remember, ok this is my goal, my messaging and how to be able to create and share it. Just wanted to let you know that those are SO HELPFUL!!” — Peyton, Peyton Lind Photography
Let’s uplevel your brand and #allthethings that go along with it! We’re here to help you with your website design, custom packaging and collateral, and SO MUCH MORE.
So reach out! The magic is waiting.
