Starting your own business really is an exciting experience. Whether your venture is something you’ve been dreaming of starting for years or you’ve decided to start your own thing out of necessity; the process of building a business from the ground up is exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time.
Often, the first place entrepreneurs start when setting up their own business is to select a name, a logo, and decide on brand colours. While these are definitely a few of the more fun activities involved in getting your business going, it comes with some very important considerations that I have seen many businesses make the mistake of ignoring; ultimately resulting in costly expenses later on.
This post covers three things that you need to keep in mind when choosing your name, logo, and brand colours. By taking these three things into consideration throughout the process, you will ultimately save time and money.
Want to know what you can do now to avoid some serious issues in the future? Let’s begin!
Consideration No. 1: Brand Fit
First of all, you want to consider your brand fit. When it comes to selecting your name and your logo, there is a fine line between being too vague and being too on the nose. Ideally, you want to consider what it is that your business offers and the kind of brand that you want to build. As explained in the post about setting up your brand book, certain fonts create a certain feel for your audience. Ideally, you need to select a name and font that depicts the kind of brand that you want to create.
Similarly, considering your brand fit is incredibly important when selecting your brand colours. We discussed the psychology of colours in a previous post as well as the emotions that they evoke. While keeping this in mind is great, simply considering what kind of brand you want to create while selecting your colours is good enough. Certain colours suit certain types of businesses and brands better than others.
Consideration No. 2: Visibility
Secondly, you need to consider visibility. What I mean by this is that you need to think about how easy it is to pronounce, read, and recognise your logo. Taking this into consideration is vitally important for branding and brand recognition. When your name is too difficult to pronounce your customer won’t recall your business when it’s time to make a purchase, nor will they be very inclined to recommend your business to friends and family.
Visibility is also important when choosing your brand colours as certain colours are simply more visible than others. Consider these two mockups for example. Both are yellow, but one is a more visible Pantone than the other.
Basically, you can select whichever colour you feel fits your brand best, but ideally, try and select a shade of that colour that you can easily see.
Consideration No. 3: Translation
The third and final consideration is translation. I left this one for last to emphasise its importance. Remember, your name, logo, and colours will be used across a variety of channels for a variety of purposes. So, when making your selections, think about how they will translate across the different channels that you want to make use of. For example, if you were to choose a very detailed and colourful logo, keep in mind that when you decide to print branded promotional items, in many instances, you pay an extra fee per colour that you decide to add to your branding - increasing your branding costs tremendously. You can always opt to only brand in one colour, but you are essentially taking away what makes your brand unique and recognisable.
Another example would be to consider what your logo would look like in a vertical and a horizontal layout. It does happen that different channels require different versions of your logo and selecting a logo that easily translates between the different layouts will save you a lot of hassle in the future.
To summarise
When selecting your name, logo, and brand colours, you need to consider the brand fit, visibility, and translation of your name, logo, and brand colours across the various channels that you are going to make use of and the different purposes that you are going to use it for.
As a final tip, if you do decide to have your logo designed by a professional designer, always ask for a JPEG, a PNG, an open PDF, and a vector file of each of the different versions, variations, and colours of your final logo. This makes it easier for you to use your logo on your content and it covers all the necessary file versions that you might need when you decide to print promotional items.