Ok, you decided to launch that venture you have been thinking about for a long time. You know it is important to have a brand that stands out so you are looking for someone to make a logo for you. Are you sure that is all you need? Maybe yes, maybe no. It all really depends on how committed you are to your brand. Perhaps it might be the time to think of working on a brand design.
LOGO DESIGN OR BRAND DESIGN?
In most cases a logo is not enough and this is something that companies learn sooner or later. But we also understand that the costs, both in money and time, of creating a “complete” brand at the beginning can be very high. I say complete in quotation marks because the brand is something that evolves and mutates over time…but that’s a topic for another post.
To help you make the decision of whether you need someone to design a logo or a brand, here are the three main differences between one and the other:
1. Strategy
A logo is only a part of a brand design. The face, let’s say… a part of the face, actually. While the brand is something more difficult to define: it is an intangible, a promise that your company makes to its public. It’s in fact, the image your company has in people’s minds.
I’m going to let you digest that for a second.
Okay? Well, now it makes more sense when I tell you that to “design” a brand, a logo is not enough. Overall a brand design needs to develop a communication and visual strategy. That is to say, not only how your brand looks but how it speaks, to whom it speaks, what matters to them and what doesn’t matter. It sounds very subjective but there are ways to align these parameters and have them at hand. It’s called a brand manual.
The importance of creating a brand manual
2. Price
According to what was mentioned in the previous point, it should not be a surprise that designing a brand is going to be more expensive than designing a logo. The price is something absolutely variable for both cases. Hence, you will have to be the one to decide how much you are willing to invest.
3. Process/Time
Designing a logo is much faster than designing a brand. The brand design process works simultaneously on some of the elements that will go with your logo. Such elements include colors, patterns, elements, and applications, etc.
Let’s take for example a case where you are the owner of a traditional German food restaurant in the south of Chile. If what you want is a quick logo to put on the sign outside, any image that satisfies you will be fine. But things are different if you really want to generate a brand and in 10 years to be the “must stop” for family vacations. To do so, you will need to start thinking of additional aspects. Besides your ad hoc logo, you will need warm colors that integrate with the interior atmosphere of the place, a menu visually in line with 19th century Germany, related uniforms for your staff, etc.
Just a quick example but you get the idea, don’t you?
With all these things in mind you will now be able to see what is best for your business at the moment and do not hesitate to write to us at hola@heydiseno.cl for more information.