Are you aware of GAP’s logo disaster? Or Yahoo’s horrendous branding fiasco? Even renowned brands can magnificently fail at the task of designing an impeccable logo. GAP ultimately had to scrap the new logo off the brand’s face, following an unequivocal backlash from the social media. While GAP’s new logo was prettier than the previous one, it somehow managed to miss the mark and lift a ruthless uproar from the followers. Therefore, it is important that the logo must be practical and pretty at the same time.
Human beings are visual creatures. Vision is one of the primary senses that shapes our behaviors and worldview. We absorb gestures more than words and are capable of paying attention to the infinitesimal details that symbols hold. Since our embryonic stages, we learn to interact with shapes, colors and symbols long before we can speak a language. This highlights the importance that a business logo design holds in creating your brand’s identity. It’s the key visual manifestation of your company and has to do two things: Magnetize and Impact.
It can magnetize people only if it’s aesthetically pleasant, whereas, making an impact has a lot to do with how the message has been creatively placed inside the logo; without taking away from its beauty. Take away one element and your logo loses its entire purpose.
It’s a vicious cycle. Unless your business logo design is not visually appealing (pretty), it will fail in inviting the eyeballs. And once they succeed in magnetizing the audience, it has to immediately deliver the message without making the entire impact draggy. If it fails to deliver the message in a short course of time, the initial appealing impact is lost and it might not be able to trigger the similar influence in subsequent encounters. This reduces the memorability rate of the logo and thus the brand recall dynamics decreases significantly. In a nutshell, the practicality of a logo is lost.
For an amateur enthusiast, the idea of making a logo pretty is tantalizing; however a professional designer will always choose to have a strong message, beautifully portrayed in the logo. The idea is to strike a perfect balance between art and science, relativity and accessibility. What remains constant is the clarity of an image for immediate perception.
Pretty versus practical is not a battle wherein one element has to win, instead, a designer has to create a win-win situation for both the elements.