One of the Single Highest Yielding Investments You’ll Ever Make
A logo represents your business’s face, and as your brand identity, designing a logo should be considered one of your company’s most potentially profitable investments. While many creative professionals may try to save money by making their own, designing an effective logo requires skills the average person doesn’t possess. So why invest in hiring a professional to design your logo? Let’s discuss 5 of my top reasons:
#1 BRAND RECOGNITION
Every U.S. town has a dozen hair salons sporting the same silhouette profile of a lady with long, flowing hair. Stand out! Branding is essential to creating a memorable identity that people readily identify with your business and to avoid confusion amongst a sea of competitors. Brand recognition requires more than just slapping a name under an image of your product or service and hoping people remember you. Think of global brands such as Pepsi, Starbucks and Apple, none of whose logos include even a visual hint of their product, and yet have come to be synonymous with what they sell.
Working with a professional designer will help you yield a logo that evokes your company values. A designer will consider your business’s personality, discussing such details as color, typeface, what atmosphere you want to project, etc. They will research your competitors and audience and employ marketing strategies such as color and shape psychology, gestalt principles of grouping, dual-coding theory and scalability. Ultimately, a professionally designed logo should be as uniquely, identifiably yours as a fingerprint AND should attract potential customers.
#2 CREDIBILITY
Designing a professional logo builds your credibility, helping customers to trust you as a business. Imagine pulling up to a car service center you’ve never heard of with no sign or a generic, poorly designed one. Would you feel safe leaving your car with them? A thoughtfully designed logo can be as classic or wildly creative as you are but should still communicate your business’s legitimacy and stability. Customers shouldn’t have to worry that they’ll return to find the business closed up and their interests mishandled. To the customer, the same care with which you project yourself visually will translate to your services and products also.
#3 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Your logo is potentially your first impression or your last to a potential customer. As reported in PsychologicalScience.org in response to a Princeton study, most people form an opinion about you within 1/10 of a second after seeing your face. That initial judgment doesn’t tend to change over time. The study focused on traits such as attractiveness, likeability, competence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. If a logo represents your business face, then you should consider how your customers perceive you when they see it. A professional will provide both the objectivity and exposure to what makes a memorable brand to help you put your best face forward.
#4 INGENUITY
Ingenuity refers to the skill or cleverness in devising or combining. Creativity will only take you so far in designing a logo. It also takes experience, software know-how and an eye for cleverly crafted logo design. Professional logo designers have access to programs that allow for complete customization. They’re also highly trained in how to use them. Their familiarity with typefaces, techniques and trends equip them in bringing your brand’s identity alive.
#5 COMPLETE PACKAGING
You’re going to need more than just a JPG file for your logo. And you’re going to need more than just a full-color version. For instance, if you ever plan on screen printing or embroidering your logo onto merchandise, this requires a vector-based 1- or 2-color file such as an EPS. If you don’t have this, you’re going to pay the printer to convert it for you, and they will lack the finesse a logo designer would provide. They also may charge more than you would have originally paid someone professionally!
What makes vector format so desirable? Vector files allow you to scale your logo as large (e.g. signage) or as small (e.g. business cards) as you will ever need it without losing image quality like you would with a JPG. They’re are also easier to edit and can be separated into layers or separate components should you need to extract just a portion of your logo for design elements. Vector files can only be created using vector-based software such as Adobe Illustrator, which have a very steep learning curve. Sometimes these professional programs cost more to buy them than you’d pay a professional to do the work for you!
A professional designer will supply a complete package of files in every format you need: JPG, EPS, PNG, etc. They’ll provide you with various color options such as full color, 1-color black and 1-color white. Oftentimes they will set up different orientations of your logo, too. At CupOCode, we also include a logo key detailing all colors and typefaces associated with your new logo. This allows you to maintain a consistent identity regardless of who works on your marketing materials.
Think About It…
As a business owner, it’s your decision how you spend your money. Saving is wise, but investing is how you become profitable. Hiring a professional to design your logo could be one of the single highest yielding investments you’ll ever make. You pay once for a gift that has the potential to keep on giving exponentially. If you’re ready to position your business as a serious market contender, give CupOCode a call. Let our professionals put their experience, skills and ingenuity to work for you.
Click here to check out some of our most recent logo designs!
