Becoming millionaires via requests to make your logo bigger.
At Redfox we wish we had started a dollar jar for every time we had a client ask us to “make my logo bigger” we would be most of the way towards millionaire status!
We understand that your company’s branding is very important to you so we want to help you get noticed and most importantly remembered. Now, your first instinct might be to make it bigger but when it comes to brand recognition and user experience on your website, bigger is not necessarily better.
Here’s our advice to help you understand the power of your brand.
Your logo doesn’t make up 100% of your brand
Your logo is not the only way customers encounter and experience your brand. There are many other touch-points to your brand, whether it’s an encounter with your services (physical store, staff and online shop), your product (how effective your product is, how it meets their needs and solves a problem) or your various channels of communication (advertising, socials, marketing etc.). All these touch-points should be consistently reflective of your brand. They all work together and they’re certainly not limited to a simple visual experience. So actually, your logo doesn’t do all the work when it comes to making an impact on customers.
For example, one of our clients, STS Plumbing asked us to redesign their logotype and website. If you look at their logo, it’s a very clean and simple blue and yellow logo. What makes this branding so unique? How do people remember them? Well, if we remember that the logo doesn’t do all the work, you will see that STS Plumbing have a very cheeky and quirky spin to their branding, with a play on the 50’s/desperate housewife look and feel. This is carried on through the tone of voice in the copy: “The North Shore’s Best Kept Secret” playing on suburban gossip with the use of period catchphrases. In an industry like plumbing, it’s bound to be saturated by a million and one blue-looking logos. Therefore, every aspect of your website plays a role in making your brand memorable, from the copy to the use of imagery, not simply your logo or its size for that matter.
Why bigger doesn’t always mean “memorable”
One important question to ask about your website is this: What is the main action I want my customers to take? You may have one main aim and a list of secondary aims too but whatever they are, it’s important to consider that site visitors need to see where you want them to go.
Where? Where do you want us to look?
Firstly, don’t take away from the main call to action. If the main purpose of your website is to get customers to sign up to a service, and the sign up button is in your website’s header but has to compete for attention with your gigantor-of-a-logo then you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
There should be hierarchy on your website, so placing more visual importance to your logo can affect the overall experience and effectiveness. What you actually want site visitors to remember is the ease of your navigation, quick access to the information they want and the seamless process for purchasing products or signing up to a service they need. If you can give them a pleasant experience, without overwhelming the design with a humungous logo, then you will be able to achieve the aims that you outlined above as well as have them remember you as a company.
Remember, your website and your branding work together.
White space is not a waste of space
Good design allows all the elements to breathe. It’s tempting to think that large spaces are a waste of “prime real-estate” on your website but increasing the size of your logo isn’t necessarily the best use of your space either.
With the steady increase of mobile and tablet browsing, it’s important to factor in the impact of the relative size of your logo to your website and on the screen sizes of devices that your visitors are using. Yes, your logo might look spectacular in a browser for desktop but when you get down to smart phone and tablet sizes (which vary) you will quickly see how your priorities in the use of space need to change. This is because user behaviours change, once you change devices. On mobile for instance, navigation will most likely take centre-stage, and any large visual elements like hi-res images or complicated animated elements — which is great for generating interest and engagement on desktop — will probably need to be stripped back or made hidden.
You cannot afford to compromise making your logo front-and-centre when your best use of space is always those user interface (UI) elements like buttons or navigation, which will get your visitors to take a desired action.
But no one will remember my logo!
Like we said before, your logo doesn’t make up 100% of your brand.
Not everyone is going to sit there and remember every detail of your logo, and it would be ridiculous to expect your site visitors to do so just because you’ve made it especially large for their sake. Does everyone know that the two “m’s” in the Commonwealth Bank logo are actually conjoined? Can anyone draw the lady on the Starbucks logo from memory? Unless they have freaky photographic memory, then it’s unlikely. Even if they do remember it, colour for colour, typeface for typeface, those things don’t substantially influence a customer’s decision to buy your product or sign up to your service. Have you ever had a customer say to you, “I thought I’d sign up because I really love your logo, it’s pink and I totally love pink”.
At the end of the day, you don’t win customers on the visual interest of your logo alone. If we’ve made your logo a certain size, it’s because we know that user experience and all those things that customers cannot necessarily see with their eyes, but feel on an emotional and psychological level are the things that will help people remember you. That is the power of your brand.
So trust us, please don’t ask us to make your logo bigger!
