Design Principles
Good logos should be unique and comprehensible to potential customers. Although there are myriad choices for colour, visual elements and typography, in general a logo should help convey some information about the company, or be designed in a way that gives some sense of meaning about the company or its industry. For example, cutting-edge firms and tech companies tend to have angular logos to convey speed, while service-oriented firms have rounded logos to provide a sense of service and trust.
Brand Identity
Logos are the chief visual component of a company’s overall brand identity. The logo appears on stationery, websites, business cards and advertising. For that reason, a well-designed logo can contribute to business success, while a substandard logo can imply amateurishness and turn off potential customers. However, a logo should cohere well with other aspects of a company’s visual presentation: No logo, however well designed, can look good when surrounded by contradictory graphical elements or inconsistent fonts. This is why a logo is the basic unit of a larger brand identity that includes company fonts, and colours etc.
Common Mistakes
Small businesses often play it fast-and-loose with logos, paying insufficient attention to their proper size and positioning and surrounding them with materials, including clipart that compete with them visually. Avoid re-creating different types of logos for specific purposes (e.g., letterhead and business cards) or having similar but not identical versions for print and online purposes.