Your logo forms an integral part of your company’s branding. It encapsulates everything from your company culture to what you do, and it is the design that your company rallies behind.
A great company logo will be able to communicate an entire company’s vision within its design. However, what makes a great company logo?
In this article, we take a look at how you can design your logo regardless if you’re hiring a design team or using a free logo maker. We talk about how you can manipulate your colors and designs to elicit the desired emotion and perception from your target market.
Color Psychology
Your primary consideration in logo design are the colors you will be using for branding. Usually, before a logo is decided upon, colors are given much thought, as they automatically associate with certain kinds of emotions that can form the general perception of your brand.
Color psychology is so powerful that you can even use it in your call-to-action (CTA) buttons to supercharge conversion rates in your website.
If you want to stir up certain emotions in your viewers’ minds, you should harness the power of color. Here are the feelings that you can invoke among your audience when utilizing different types of color in your logo design:
- Red – >Red might represent anger, but beyond that, it represents passion, youth, and a bold image. It makes for a great accent in any logo, and it highlights the brand’s confidence.
- Blue – Just like the natural color of the sea and water, blue is the symbol for calm and tranquility, but it also denotes an air of sophistication and trust. Conveying professionalism is also easier when you use the color blue.
- Green – If you want to symbolize company growth and potential, as well as a sense of balance, then this is your best bet for your logo. What everyone loves about green is that it is close to the color of nature. It’s perfect for green energy brands and even financial brands.
- Orange – Orange is reminiscent of yellow, but it’s more intense in the way it conveys its youth. It is an active color that invigorates any logo, and it shows that the company is energetic.
- Gray – If you want to project professionalism and practicality, then you cannot go wrong with gray. It makes for a great secondary color because of these characteristics.
- Black – Just like gray, black can be used to convey an air of sophistication and professionalism. It can also be used to transmit power within the brand and a sense of luxury.
As you can see, there are a lot of ways that you can manipulate colors to convey meaning to your logo. Mixing these colors up will also allow you to combine two or more emotions.
Blending Colors Together
Another important consideration that you have when using colors in your logo design is the blending of all the colors. If you were to blend two or more colors together, you also end up with a combination of emotions you’re trying to elicit from your end-user.
Take for example fast food chains that commonly use the color red. Combining red with touches of yellow, for instance, allows them to create passion and hunger with a youthful vibe.
However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, colors will be used to highlight other parts of the logo or design. Darker colors will typically be used as an outline to bring out certain features in the logo design in general. They are not necessarily used to convey emotion, but rather to provide contrast.
Blacks, whites, and grays are a common example of these colors that provide a good backdrop for other colors that are being utilized for their psychology.
Color Intensity
Color intensity also cranks an emotion up or down. A lighter hue is indicative of lighter emotions whilst a brighter one may signify something more intense. The boldness or brashness of the emotion is further communicated by the intensity that the designer wishes to manipulate.
Being able to determine what colors to use in your design opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your branding and company or organizational image. Be sure to ask your designer to create different palates until you feel that a certain design communicates your vision well enough.