When you think of any well-known company, their logo is likely to be one of the first things you visualise – like the face of a person. This shows how a logo is at the very core of a brand’s identity, and of vital importance.

A business logo should in effect be a microcosm of your overall branding, expressing your company’s personality. It helps to express how you want your company to be perceived by others in the marketplace, including current and prospective clients.

Bearing all this in mind, the big question is what your existing logo says about you. How does it fit within the industry and does it make you stand out? If your logo and the surrounding branding do not truly express where your business is now and where it wants to go in the future, including your aspirations for growth, it is likely you could benefit from rebranding.

When considering a rebrand, the best way forward is to get professional design input from brand marketing experts, to ensure your reworked branding and logo meet the needs of the business – both now and looking to the future.  Hughes are highly experienced and expert brand designers. We have worked with wide range of companies in London as well as in Essex and across East Anglia, covering all aspects of branding, so we can advise you and come up with exciting concepts which will help to take your business forward.

Reasons to Rethink or Refresh Your Brand and Logo

In many ways, updating brand marketing for an established company is even more challenging than designing a new one for a new company. This is because you will need to keep the inherent value and elements which are successful within your existing branding, including the logo, and retain brand recognition. However, the aim is to rework these elements to achieve a greater visual impact.

You may want to update to make a company feel more contemporary, especially in relation to newer competitors. This matters to some industries more than others, for instance high-tech or fashion companies, as well as those where brand values include innovation, or where the target customer group is younger. However, even if your brand is traditional, you may still want to update the way in which you put that message across.

If there have been changes to the way your company operates, such as a buyout, merger, or the arrival of new partners, then this could be a reason for a rebrand. So could a change in your product offer, a name change or change of business focus, such as moving upmarket or downmarket or concentrating more on your online presence.

Another reason to rebrand is the need to respond to technological innovation. For instance, today’s businesses need to ensure that logos, fonts and graphical elements will all work well on mobile devices as well as on websites and in print.

Elements of Logos and Branding

Colours and Shapes

Are the colours and shapes you have chosen in the past still right for you? Something that looked striking years ago may well appear dated now.  You may also want to change these elements if they are too similar to competitors, have become predictable, or if your company’s core products and services have changed, meaning that the logo no longer represents what you do now.

Looking at the colours and shapes of the logo will also involve focusing on the brand as a whole, and at how these can be reflected in your website, mobile site and stationery, creating a consistent overall impression

Associations and Symbolism

What does your current logo say to someone seeing it for the first time? Does it make them think your company is contemporary and innovative or old-fashioned? Another question to consider is whether the logo may remind them of other companies which look similar, including firms operating in completely different fields.

Logos can send many subliminal messages which need to be considered by brand designers. For instance, a sharp-edged logo will give a quite different impression from a flowing design. Including elements of nature could also help to give an impression of your company as being environmentally responsible.

Fonts

Fonts are something which can go out of date fast. If you watch an old film, it is often possible to tell roughly when it was made by the fonts in the opening credits alone. This means that, if a logo includes an older font, this will make it look very dated – and that changing the font, colours and shapes can have a dramatic impact in terms of updating. This should ideally also be combined with updating the fonts on your website and stationery, so that the logo fits into the overall look.

Versatility

The development of digital design trends has meant that many older logos, particularly those dating from a pre-digital age, now look very fussy. For instance, they may contain long company names or intricate detailing. This kind of logo was often popular in the print era but doesn’t look so good on a website and on mobile phones.

Redesigning a logo often gives the opportunity to simplify it, making it more versatile and easier to use in different contexts, both in digital and in print. Some companies have even made a decision to shorten their name so that it will look better as part of a graphic logo design. A brand redesign involves thinking about all the different places where a logo might be used and range of sizes, which affects the level of detail. The medium can affect colour ranges and choice of fonts and colours, since, for instance, metallic effects are unlikely to look effective in an on-screen logo.

Hughes and Co Brand Design Service Essex

As professional brand designers, we go far beyond the surface when we’re thinking about brand and logo design. Our brand marketing service includes looking in detail at your existing brand identity and which bits are working and important to keep, such as distinctive colours, images or shapes.

We will also examine the demographics of the target customer base, and whether this is going to stay the same or change, as well as the brand values of the organisation, especially if these have changed or been updated. We also consider where the logo and other elements of branding might be used, such as stationery, web and digital, signage, printed literature, advertising, catalogues and product labelling, to make sure that your brand will work in the whole range of arenas.

Click here to contact Hughes & Co and find out more about how we can enhance your brand.