Bigger? Not Better
Picture this scenario: you commission a designer, you outline the budget and give them a project brief. A few days later, your designer presents you with his masterpiece.
It’s beautiful.
The balanced layout communicates your message simply and brilliantly. The attention to detail is magnificent.
But there’s something terribly wrong with it your logo.
It’s just not big enough for you.
We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Sometimes it’s a warranted critique (nobody’s perfect, right?). Yet, sometimes it’s a knee-jerk reaction that comes with little analysis.
Here are a few points I’ve come up with to illustrate why I think bigger isn’t always better.
1) Treat your potential customers with respect.
You don’t walk down the street shouting your name into people’s faces. Neither should your brand. Big logos have a negative effect on people. A disproportionately large logo on a page can make a design seem cheap and poorly executed.
2) The human mind is a funny thing.
We’ve trained ourselves in an information-rich and time-poor age to figure out what we’re looking at and what’s important about it. Fast.
Why should your logo be the first thing anyone sees? It’s a backwards way of doing things. Your message is what’s most important not your logo. This is especially important when you’re not an international conglomerate and don’t have the luxury of everyone inherently knowing what product or service you sell. Companies don’t sell their logos, they sell products. Tell people about what it is you do in a creative way and then tell them why it’s so great. They won’t care about who you are until they think they need what you’re selling.
When you’ve interested someone enough to have them say to themselves “hmmm… I wonder what this is all about.”, you’re way ahead of the game. You’re one step closer to having a new customer.
Think about it: when you look at advertising on billboards, magazines or newspapers, the logo is often in the bottom right corner. It’s there for a reason people’s minds need structure and reinforcement to connect your brand to their needs. A good designer will use the space around items to get the viewer to see what they want them to see. That includes your branding. So, the logo doesn’t need to be enormous to do the job.
3) A little bit of Sherlock Holmes never killed anybody.
Part of what makes an effective piece of design is the “hook”. You’re caught up in a story. A catchy headline has got you scratching your head so you look further to understand the concept, and without fail, you look to see an identifying mark. It’s inevitable. You need to see the logo to finalize your experience. The beauty of this is that the logo doesn’t need to be big. You’ve got your viewer so interested, they’ll pull out a magnifying glass if they have to just to know who you are.
Next time you have the urge to say “make the logo bigger” - just remember: bigger isn’t always better.