3 Things to Consider When Re-designing Your Logo

It goes without saying that logo design is the first real impression of a business to its customers.

‍With changing times, some logo designs that were cutting edge of its time may not be very relevant today.

One perfect example is Apple logo that has changed several times since Jobs and Wozniak started from their humble beginning;
I mean, imagine the following logo on your iPhone or Macbook today.

Other big companies that followed a similar pursuit of changing their logo designs to appear modern are Google, Pepsi, eBay,
Shell, Twitter, Uber and many more. Re-designing logo is a part of company’s evolution. Well, this doesn’t really apply
to every company; if yours have done it right the first time, you may just be the lucky few to represent a timeless logo,
but for the most part, companies do have to think about re-designing at some point.

These are usually the 3 main reasons to re-designing a logo;

• To incorporate new line of businesses because the new product/services may not align with the old logo.
• Company maybe undergoing an overall re-branding and the new logo has to reflect it.
• Or simply, the old logo (like the one above) may look outdated and you simply have to hit refresh.

Now let’s look at the 3 things you have to consider before re-designing your logo

1) Why do you must re-design?

If you have read this far, I’ll presume you are in the market for changing your logo design. But before you do that, you have to classify your reasons for re-designing. As mentioned above, there are 3 main reasons and each one of those require a unique design strategy. For example, you would look at different variables in your new design if you were bringing in new product(s)/service(s) that do not align with your old logo, versus, if you simply wanted a new design because your old logo is outdated. LogoArena works best for executing your vision and we highly recommend that you develop that vision first by considering why you want a new design and what you want the new design to represent, because we have to admit, no designer sitting half way around the world will fully understand your company, its culture, and its values more than you do. So to conclude, it’s important you answer the WHY and WHAT. Let’s move on to the HOW.

2) How will you get the it re-designed?

There are several ways of going about it, but doesn’t matter which path you choose, it is important that your vision (point #1) is effectively communicated with the designer or design agency. You can hire a design firm that will have professional consultants pick your brains, help refine your vision, and then have the team of designers in their agency execute the design strategy. The only problem is that many small businesses can not really afford professional services of a big design agency (Did you know that Pepsi spent $1 million dollar to design their new logo in 2008? Well they could afford the design agency…I think). For those who can not afford a big agency, the other more affordable option is to hire a local freelance designer, but the problem is that the designer himself (or herself) maybe an expert in the graphic execution of your logo but if he/she can not fully understand the objectives and your vision, then it can become a frustrating experience in finding exactly what you are looking for. The third option (which is not very expensive but not so cheap either) is of course logo contests, and with this method, you can write a design brief that will be exposed to all the participating designers. There will be a good chance that one of the dozens of the participating designers will get both your vision and design execution right! (LogoArena is one of those services if you didn’t already know).

3) What’s the Link between the Old and the New?

It takes significant time, resources and efforts to build brand equity. Your logo is the most important piece of that equity regardless of how outdated it may look. Your current clientele will associate your business services with the logo they are familiar with. Therefore, its important to have element of the older design into your new design. When establishing your re-design strategy, you should be very persistent in getting this part right. There may be some examples that got away without linking the old logo with the new (think Airbnb or Uber) but you will notice some commonality in those companies; i.e. they are multi-billion dollar companies and their market buzz is just to great to be disrupted by only a design change; in their case the design change itself will become the market news. This may have worked for some bigger companies but it will most likely not work for a small to mid-size local company. On the other hand, Pepsi totally got this consideration right, if you look at their older logo and compare it with the new, you will find the same color scheme.

In conclusion, to have a successful progression to the new logo design, 1) you should first question why you want a new design and your reasons should be justified from a marketability stand-point (i.e. don’t just re-design your logo for the sake of new logo) 2) you should know which design operation best for your needs and 3) Make sure you retain some elements of your older logo into the new one to represent the brand equity you worked so hard to build in the first place.

Need a new logo? Launch a logo contest at Logo Arena!