When you're engaged in the process of branding or rebranding your company, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by decisions. You've met with your agency and discussed your objectives and outcomes—and then your agency sends you the first logo concept. How do you decide if it's the right choice for your company? Our clients ask us this question frequently, and here are some best practices we like to share:
When you're first presented with a logo concept, it can be easy to follow your gut instinct and ask: “Do I like it?” However, the goal of a logo is not to match your personal preferences.
Meet the brand criteria
The logo should reflect your organization's brand platform, brand values, and defined brand personality—not your own aesthetic.
Consider the criteria you and your marketing team agreed upon. What does this logo need to do?
You understand the reasons why your business is branding or rebranding, the final outcome you want to have, and the objectives from which your marketing agency is working.
Realize that your entire team doesn't have this same level of background—nor should they have to. So, rather than receiving a logo concept and first taking it to your team for opinions, establish areas in which you'd like input. Combining your expertise with the experience of the marketing agency you hired empowers you to take ownership of the branding process.
Select a small decision-making team of employees to ensure you're not involving extraneous voices in the brand process. Then, before you ask that team's opinion, establish the brand criteria and explain what you need from them.
Establish the expectation of feedback
Presenting a logo concept to your team with an open-ended question like, “What do you think of this?” is not setting your employees (and the logo concept) up for success. Though it may seem counterintuitive, clearly tell everyone that no decision will be made based on a majority vote. This is known as design by consensus. For making marketing decisions, we advocate design by strategy.
Set the tone for purposeful feedback
Your employees want to prove themselves as valuable members of the team, so they'll feel obligated to suggest changes to the design. When you guide the team with questions, you can lead with specifics of what you're looking for. For example, you could ask, “We agreed that our logo needs to feel exciting. Do you think that these colors convey that?”
How do you choose a new logo well? By avoiding common pitfalls and working well with your agency and your team, you'll be on your way to a new logo and a new chapter of your brand.
Read more about evaluating a logo in Five ways to gauge logo success and view the rebranding process from clients' perspectives in our original Rebranding Study.