What is Your Logo Saying?

Apart from telling people the name of your company, your logo is speaking loud and clear about what you stand for with its color, font style, flourish and tag line. Companies used to cling to their logo for fear of confusing the market or diluting the brand but today many large corporations are tinkering with their logo without hesitation to realign with their market, reach out to new clients or simply better reflect their corporate personality. 

If you look at some of the recent logo changes, you’ll find that:

Bold, block letters are out. Lower case is in. The logos appear softer, friendly, inviting, and neighborly.

Flourishes such as leaves, sprigs and bursts are being added. They also make logos friendlier, almost to the point of smiling.These embellishments symbolize renewal, growth and spring, the perfect message to send in these economic times.

The economy has been the main influencer of logo color as well. Logos are being infused with optimistic hues such as electric blue, yellow, red, purple, orange and green. Green =sustainability. Blue = environment.

Take a look at your logo … is it speaking your language? Is it conveying who you are? Maybe it’s time for a tweak.

Here are some examples of recent makeovers by large firms.

Logos courtesy of BrandNew, a division of Under Consideration

Just one more word on logos accented with misplaced punctuation marks … Media such as the New York Times and the Associated Press don’t recognizea lower case treatment, a period,an exclamation point or even a company name in all caps. And even in your press releases and marketing collateral, it can become awkward to try to write a grammatically correct sentence. The journalist in me doesn’t get odd punctuation in company names, but if you must, keep the exclamation points and periods in your logo but treat your company name as a proper noun in your copy.