Your brand’s presence online is one of the most important marketing touchpoints for your company’s existing and new customers. A strong digital personality and excellent communications are critical to brand success on the Web. At Go East, we believe a strong, differentiated brand identity makes it easier for customers to understand who a company is and what the company stands for. This makes a brand more memorable in the face of an ever-more-competitive marketplace.

Websites, mobile apps and social media all place specific design and user-experience demands on brand identity. Because users scan rather than read, surf rather than study and search in multiple ways online, a logo needs to work extra hard in the digital space. Below are some online best practices for logo and identity.

Readability: Readability online is critical. Simplicity and proportion create a logo that can be read on a mobile device as well as on a computer display. In the case of BWBR, we created a logo designed for maximum legibility with letterforms, spacing and simple design elements that help the audience remember the name. Acronyms often demand and sophisticated melding of simplicity and styling to create something memorable. We recommend that logos be evaluated for legibility at multiple sizes and in multiple contexts to understand and evaluate the impact of all elements.

Contemporary aesthetics: Brands participate in a visually sophisticated marketplace. The Internet has been called “the great leveler” because it has enabled small, local brands to effectively compete with larger, more established brands. Your logo is seen in relationship to every brand’s logo out there, even those in adjacent markets, so your brand identity must be designed with the modern eye in mind. When creating the identity for Nic Renee, a new photography studio, we wanted something that would appeal to an audience that appreciated contemporary aesthetics. Understanding what is trending forward, where style is going and what is considered good design help ensure the successful launch of a new identity because the design style of your logo needs to hold its own when compared to that of other identities in today’s marketplace.

Memorability: Your logo must have enough personality to be ownable. The elements, typography, proportions and color need to be distinctive enough that your new and existing customers remember your logo, and that the logo gains equity on your website. It is critical that users remember your identity as they search, research and buy online. Product identities require specific considerations, because of the demands of e-commerce and social media. When designing the brand for Lifemix Digital Greetings we wanted something that quickly conveyed what the product was with a visual mark. We paired it with an approachable, lighthearted typographic treatment that would work well within the giftables marketplace.

If you need an identity for an online business or are trying to launch a brand online, keep these new rules for brand identity in mind. Your users will thank you.

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Did you know that the best way to evaluate a new logo design is in black and white? At Go East, when we create new logos (or refine existing logos), we always, always, always start in black and white. And we ask our clients to evaluate the logo concepts in black and white.

We don’t start thinking about color until a logo design is selected. Can you guess why? There’s actually a very simple and logical explanation: Color is so subjective it’s nearly impossible to appreciate and accept the logo for the shape and aesthetic when color is incorporated.

That’s also why, when we create a logo concept, we present it in a large size and small size so our clients can evaluate the complexities of the shape in realistic size applications.

We also consider social spaces. What will your new logo look like in a social space?  Ready or not, it may end up there. Be prepared!

Of course, strategy and competitive research are key, but fundamental logo development best practices are just as important.

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Guidelines are the guidebook or owners manual for your new identity. They are critical to communicating what key players need to know in order to handle your new brand identity properly. The task of developing guidelines can seem overwhelming, though. So make it a little easier and consider these 10 questions; they should prepare you to go into the adventures of guideline development with confidence and ease.

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Traditional design processes dictate that logo design be undertaken in a pure, pared-down visual form — creating a logo in black and white. I was taught to design identities in black on white to ensure the mark communicated successfully at its core.  Traditional thinking has it that the mark has to work in black and white first. Also, clients may be unduly swayed to or from a logo if we showed them initial designs in color. If a client hates orange, then that logo, which might be the best at communicating the personality of their brand, has died an early, perhaps unnecessary, death. So, at Go East we continue to start all identity projects working with black on white.

However, I am beginning to question the wisdom of this approach.

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Changing a brand mark is not only a costly endeavor, but also one that can change your relationship with customers, key stakeholders and the general public dramatically, for the better or for the worse. So, it goes without saying that changing your brand has to be a strategic decision, rather than a reactionary one — but, how do you know when it’s time?

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Let’s face it, change can be scary.

Especially when it comes to a company’s brand mark. It is the single most visible aspect of a brand. It appears on everything — stationery, signage, marketing collateral, packaging, websites and more.

One of the single biggest concerns about changing a brand mark is the impact the change will have on existing brand equity. Make no mistake about it, changing a company’s brand mark will most definitely have an impact on brand equity. But that’s the point really, because the motivation behind a well thought-out and expertly executed brand mark update or change is to build brand equity. 

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Blake Whitman from online video host Vimeo recently had a seemingly unsolicited “fix” to their logo submitted to him:

Ha. How many times have you wanted to fix other people’s logos?

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