Your logo is the face of your company. It’s what people see on your storefront, marketing materials and, most importantly, your website. For this reason, your logo needs to make a good impression that lasts with your audience, but at the same time, it needs to be versatile across multiple media. You may have heard about the push to make websites responsive and mobile friendly. To refresh your memory, this means your website can be easily viewed across all screen types and mobile devices in a user-friendly and interactive way. But can you say the same for your logo?
Mobile friendly websites need mobile friendly logos.
Recently, many businesses have realized that making their website mobile friendly doesn’t just include their website; it may also include their logo. Facebook made this observation with the font size and cases of the letters in its logo. If you look closely, you’ll see that the ‘F’ and the ‘a’ are just a little different.
Can you see the difference?
Why the change? A logo isn’t seen the same way on your desktop or laptop as it is on your tablet or cell phone. What is easily seen on a bigger screen may become difficult to view on smaller mobile devices; details are lost, multiple colors can be obscured and dimensions can become difficult to work with.
Is my logo optimized for mobile devices?
Here are some tips and tricks from our designers to help you evaluate the overall usability of your logo online:
Keep your logo simple. Have you ever heard the saying, “Less is more”? This is an important expression to keep in mind when creating a logo. Some of the boldest logos are the simplest! Take for instance Target, Nike or McDonald’s. They are logos people recognize everywhere; they’re impressionable yet simple. Simplicity is vital when your audience is exposed to between 3,000 and 20,000 marketing messages a day. When you have less than a split second to subliminally expose your logo and make an impression, it’s better to keep it simple.
Avoid overusing colors. One, two or even a few colors can be great in simple designs, but the more colors that are present, the more blurred a logo can be as it gets smaller on a mobile device. Are your colors applicable? Make sure that the colors you use speak to your company. Most people wouldn’t associate the color green with a sexy lingerie company like Victoria’s Secret. Likewise, a pink Starbucks logo would look a little strange outside the month of October.
Stay away from too many lines, bevels and shadowing. Everyone remembers the “cool” Text Art they could apply to Word Documents and Powerpoints in Windows 98. When it comes to logo design, that’s probably a trend that should stay in 1998. Just as too many colors get obscured when logos shrink on mobile screens, details like bevels and shadows can become difficult to see and may alter your logo.
Make sure your logo is versatile. This goes hand-in-hand with simplicity. Ask yourself if your logo would look just as great printed on a 20-foot billboard as it would viewed in the upper, left-hand corner of a tiny iPhone screen. What if you had to change your logo to black and white for printing purposes? How would your logo look embroidered on a shirt or hat? These versatility questions should be considered when creating a logo. Having a vectorized version of your logo design speaks highly to its versatility. It ensures that your logo can be made as big or small as it needs to be to fit for any medium, be it print, web or clothing.
Future-proof your logo. The more timeless your logo is, the more memorable and recognizable it is. Simplicity is key in the timelessness of your logo. A great comparison is Coca-Cola’s logo compared to Pepsi’s. Pepsi has changed their logo roughly 11 times in over a century. Other than a few tweaks to font structure, Coca-Cola’s logo has remained the same since its conception. The more complicated and trendy a logo design is, the harder it is to avoid multiple redesigns as the decades change.
Iowa Logo Design and Web Integration
Webspec Design prides itself on using industry-leading design to work with logos and the interfaces on which they appear for businesses in Des Moines and beyond. We keep your website and marketing materials up-to-date with the latest style changes and best practices. Most importantly, we want your business to make a good impression on the web. The success and versatility of your logo plays a huge role in the success of your website and business as a whole. Do you need help designing a new logo or rebranding your business? Give us a call and see how we can help you visually capture your company’s identity.
