Why Your Business Needs More Than a Logo
When you think about branding your business, what comes to mind? Most entrepreneurs I talk to who are just starting out or thinking about starting a business think about their logo and brand as the same thing. But a brand is SO much more than just a logo.
Sure, the logo is an important part of your brand, but having a logo is far from having a complete brand. A professional brand includes your brand colors and fonts, visual guidelines, icons, patterns, and multiple variations of your logo to keep your brand looking professional on all fronts.
You may think that having a logo is enough branding to get started, but as your business grows, you’ll encounter many scenarios where a fully developed brand becomes essential. Here are 4 scenarios you’ll inevitably encounter as your business grows, where your one and only logo just isn’t going to cut it:
1. Restricted Logo Dimensions
Imagine this: Your business is being featured in the media and you’re asked to provide your logo to include in the piece. (Woohoo!) But the logo has to go in a designated space, and it needs to fit certain dimensions. Unfortunately, those dimensions, are square, and you have a long, horizontal logo…
The amateur solution would be to stretch your logo to fit the needed dimensions and hope for the best… No one will notice, right? (Hint: they will.)
This is when a professional brand really makes a difference.
Need a square version of the logo? No problem! You already have multiple versions of your logo, that are an easily-recognizable part of your brand, ready to go. You can quickly send over the logo variation that fits best so you can get the best possible exposure while looking like the professional business owner you are.
2. Printed Logo
When you create your initial logo, you’re probably thinking about all the ways you’ll use it online and in digital format. But what happens when you need to print your logo? For example, you want to create branded merchandise for your business. (Go you!) But your logo includes multiple colors and the printer charges for each one, making things get expensive, fast!
DIY FAIL: Desaturate your logo in Canva until everything turns black, or making a solid color clipping mask of your logo to create a “homemade” single color version of your logo. It’ll look great...right?
As you can see above, this option doesn’t exactly make your business scream “professional.”
DO IT RIGHT: No need to worry, because when you had those horizontal and vertical logo variations designed, you also created black and white, and one-color logo options for each one. You can send off the one-color logo to your printer knowing it will look great and no elements of the logo will get lost.
3. Using your logo “IRL”
You will very rarely use your logo as a stand-alone feature. It will almost always be incorporated into other elements like social media graphics, web banners, business cards, etc. If you don’t have a plan for how to use your logo in these elements you’ll undoubtedly need for your business, it’s hard to know what to do.
You could break out your favorite font and color to throw something together fast, or browse Creative Market to purchase some templates to use. But this will make your visuals look just like everyone else’s… and your business was meant to stand out!
This is where professional branding really makes a difference.
With a professional brand, you’ll already have established brand guidelines that make it easy to put together any branded assets you need. You can pick from carefully curated assets, to ensure your brand is remaining consistent and on point. And rest easy knowing exactly what fonts and colors to use, and what to do with that awkward white space.
4. Visually represent your complex business
Let’s be honest: we all know that most of your website visitors aren’t going to read every word on your site. Your branding can help you send the right message to your customers so they can visually see what your business represents and what you have to offer.
This becomes even more important if you have multiple services with unique descriptions and price points. People need visuals to help them understand the different offers and choose the right one for their unique needs.
One option would be to use bold and extra large fonts, or go a bit crazy with underlining and italicizing to highlight the differences between each of your offers.
With a professional brand, you can avoid all of that by having unique icons for each of your services that clearly convey the main purpose + takeaway of each one. This will help your viewers quickly scan and understand the gist of what you’re offering. Plus, that visual representation will also stick with them while they’re considering other options, and bring your brand consistently back to their mind.
Your brand is so much more than a logo.
Color/size restrictions, file type limitations, or even simply overusing one design element are all situations that you’ll come up against as your business grows. A full brand style guide provides variations to suite all of these different needs so you never again have to question where to start with your visuals. It takes the guesswork out of creating graphics, so you can feel confident and remain in control of your brand.
Ready to finally get the visuals figured out for your unique brand?
Let’s work together to create your full brand style guide. You’ll have all the assets you need to premiere your new brand to the world in as little as two weeks!!
