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5 Important Things Every Business Owner Should Know before Creating a Logo

Updated on by in Business

A company logo is a unique identity marker that separates your company from other businesses. When it comes to developing a logo for your company, it is important to put genuine thought into the creative process. In many ways, your company logo is the symbol that others rely on to know they are dealing with products or services your company stands behind. Before jumping feet first into the process of creating your company’s logo, there are a few things you should know that will impact the design on which you will ultimately settle.

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Why You Should Stick with the Same Logo

Aside from perhaps changing the color of your company logo for special promotions, it is rarely a smart idea to alter your company’s logo. Your company logo is the symbol that is central to the process of branding your company and its products or services. Imagine if a company like McDonald’s switched out the golden arches for some other company logo. Immediately, this would have a confusing effect on their customers. Your customers will tend to look for consistency in your company, which implies that radical changes in your company logo are contrary to proper marketing methods. If you choose to rebrand the company, try to keep similar themes or colors in your new logo. That way, your customers will still recognize your brand, but you can display an updated look that shows you are changing with the times.

Does Your Company Logo Properly Represent Your Company?

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When choosing a design, is extremely important to make sure that your company logo properly displays to others what your company is truly all about. If potential customers experience a disconnect between your company logo and the type of business your company actually does, this will inevitably do harm to your business. A company logo not only needs to reflect what a company does, but it needs to create a strong connection to your products, services, or mission statement. Ask yourself if a customer seeing your company logo for the first time will have any real idea what your company does. If not, then this is a sign that you need to send your logo designer back to the drawing board. You can still be creative, just don’t create a logo that is so abstract that first-time customers are confused about what your company does.

Copyright and Trademark Your Company Logo

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According to the business lawyers, because logos generally involve original artwork, it is prudent to consider having your logo both copyright and trademark protected. Failure to protect this part of your business’s intellectual property opens your company up to the risk of having its logo misused or stolen by third party entities. Without a copyright or a trademark, it would be difficult to defend claims you make to ownership of this portion of your company’s intellectual property in court. Imagine how horrific it would be to find someone is going around using your logo and ruining your company’s reputation. Now, imagine that because you failed to take the time to copyright and trademark your logo, you are now left with no significant legal recourse, due to your own negligence in the matter. Once you’ve finalized the logo, be sure to take all the legal action necessary to gain the rights over the logo, and protect it from those with dishonest intent.

Further Trademark Concerns

It is important to realize that having a registered trademark that has been properly associated with a commercial product and meticulously searched does not always guarantee that your company logo is in the clear. Even though you have established the security of your trademark through proper steps, if your mark is very similar to another company’s mark, this could give rise to questions of trademark infringement. It could also imply that you or your company will be held liable for the use of your own trademark. This is why it is so critically important to be as unique as possible with the design of your trademarked company logo.

How Your Logo Looks in Different Marketing Modes

Once you have an idea of what you think will serve as a proper, permanent logo for your business, it is time to put your logo on items and see how it looks in action. A logo on a tee shirt, a building sign or even in news print will give you some idea of how your customers will feel when confronted with your branded image. It is also important to see how the logo will look on the Internet or mobile devices, since images and designs can get distorted when placed in an online format. You should be able to tell from how you and others react to seeing your company logo in different marketing settings if your logo has worked or flopped. It is at this point that genuine honesty will count more than any other factor. If something is wrong with your logo in marketing settings, this is not the time to defend your logo to the hilt against objections to the contrary. Such a mistake could easily lead your business to major monetary losses.

When creating a company logo, it can be difficult to settle on a design that truly embodies what your company is all about. From the type of business you do on a daily basis to the type of customer you are attempting to reach, your company logo needs to speak to this symbolic end. Failure to achieve this goal is not good for business. To pretend that any symbol will do is a serious misconception that can have a detrimental influence on your business. If you can, it is better to get the logo right the first time—rebranding often loses and confuses customers. For this reason, it is best to hire a logo designer with a vast amount of experience in creating the design that produces the right effect for your company’s branding needs.

Author: Dixie Somers

This article was written by Dixie Somers, a freelance writer who loves to write for business, finance, and technology. She lives in Arizona with her husband and three beautiful daughters. Dixie got advice for this article about copyright and trademarks from the business lawyers at the Dore Law Group.

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