Choosing Logo Colours

Photo by Thedalog

There are so many things that can make a company look professional, but one of the most common and often overlooked at times is a company logo. It can portray so much about a company, either through images or colours used. What colours can say about you and your company through something as simple as a logo is quite amazing!

The colours you use in your logo can end up being one of the biggest decisions a company can make. These colours are likely going to be the colours you end up using throughout your company – from letterhead to uniforms, business cards to the paint colour scheme in your office. So not only do your colours have to represent you well with their meaning – but you had better like them!

There are many different resources to help you learn more about different colour meanings, a few that I’ve come across are:

• http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html
• http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/color2.htm

Those are just two of many great resources. If you look you will see that you really need to be careful what colours you choose – especially if you have a specific target client. For example, you have probably noticed that many companies that have primarily Chinese clients tend to use a lot of red because in their culture red is an important colour. At the same time you have to be careful that you also do not offend by using a “bad luck” colour.

Another example, if you’re working with money, using green will get people thinking about money. It can also reflect that a company is using “green” practices and have that positive swing to it as well. What about if you’re going for a high-end clientele? Purple, the colour often associated with royalty can be a good choice. Or if you’re thinking high-end corporate a colour like “IBM” blue mixed with greys can work really well too.

A couple examples of negative colours would be red and yellow – while sometimes they can be good representing luck with red or energy with yellow, the colours can also mean different negative things too. Red is also a sign of caution and yellow can make people be on edge or it can also represent being scared or afraid. If you’re wanting to come across with confidence and professionalism you will want to be careful how you use those colours!

Overall just make sure that you don’t just pick a colour because you like it, but research it and make sure that it doesn’t have bad connotations attached to it, particularly if you target a specific clientele. You need to make sure that the people and companies that you are targeting as clients would like the look and feel of your marketing material!

Anna Kouwenberg is the Owner and Creative Director at ARK Squared Productions where she offers web and graphic design services. You can connect with Anna about your logo and design needs via email at anna@arksquared.com, Twitter:@arksquared, or her website at www.arksquared.com.

The Importance Of A High Quality Logo

When people think about starting up a company they tend to focus on getting their product or service ready and selling it to their clients. One thing that can get left behind is ensuring they have a consistent image to put forward in those efforts. How much more professional does, say a courier company appear when they show up in uniform, with a nicely logoed car? A professional image definitely makes a statement, and it can be one of confidence, intentions to be around for the long-haul, and the list goes on.

The key piece to any visual consistency in a company is the logo. Everything can come from the logo – colours used throughout marketing elements, a general feel for anything from business cards to websites. If you don’t have a logo, or don’t have a good one, you can find yourself having a tough time being consistent throughout various marketing mediums because you do not have a strong base.

There are a few key things to consider and remember when putting a logo together and one of the most important is ensuring you have a high quality logo. Some companies use photos in their logo, but most companies are tending to move away from that because a computer generated image is the easiest to keep looking the best. The reason is that photographs are made up of pixels, the higher quality/larger size the image is the more pixels (and thus smoother image) you get. So if you have a poor quality image and you try and use it for a billboard it will look rough and grainy. A computer based image can be done with vector instead of pixels and then holds its smoothness regardless of size. Let’s look at an example with a basic circle:

Original image:

Now let’s zoom in on the image, left is what it would look like if we zoomed in and it was a traditional picture file, right is what it would look like if it was a vector file:

 

Now think of some of the ways that you might use your logo. Sure business cards, brochures, etc, those you do not have to worry about too much. But let’s say you wanted to put a great wrap on your car, make a nice tradeshow booth, or maybe you wanted to do a billboard ad. When you enlarge your logo, is it going to be an ugly circle like the left or like the nice high-quality circle on the right? We all know which one we’d want anyway! So remember that when you get your logo designed – ALWAYS have a vector image available. You can save the file as the traditional “pixel” image for various uses, but being able to go back to the vector image for different projects is very important.

Anna Kouwenberg is the Owner and Creative Director at ARK Squared Productions where she offers web and graphic design services. You can connect with Anna about your logo and design needs via email at anna@arksquared.com, Twitter: @arksquared, or her website at www.arksquared.com.