We know the search engine giant Google is the most valuable brand in the whole world. Yet, its logo design is made of simple font and basic colors. Although it has enough money to do a logo makeover, Google has maintained its logo to represent the simplicity and user-friendliness of its search engine.

Instead, it opted to do what big and small businesses dare not to do – play with its logo. For many years Google is constantly tweaking its logo for special events and holidays like:

New Year

Halloween

Thanksgiving

Christmas

Lesson #1. Certain level of flexibility is important in this period where blogging, social networking, mash-ups, user-generated content rule the web. You may try to play and integrate content into your business logo to break the monotony. Google is no longer alone in this category. Brands like Gap, Apple, and American Eagle are making some modifications with their brands in the (Product) Red campaign.

However, not everybody is happy with this logo-tweaking activity of Google. Recently, it became a subject of harsh criticisms by many conservatives for its lack of patriotism. According to a news report:

The Mountain View, Calif., company bathes its logo in stars and stripes every Independence Day, but last week’s decision to honor the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch — the second “g” in Google was replaced with a drawing of the Soviet satellite — is being blasted by some conservatives.

Not only did Google honor an achievement by a totalitarian regime that was our Cold War enemy, they griped, but it did so without having ever altered its logo to commemorate U.S. military personnel on Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

Lesson #2. Put your customers first. Changes in your logo should be relevant to your products or services. Take time to consult with an expert logo designer so it won’t look like a vandalized version of your original logo.

Many entrepreneurs often overlook the importance of trademarks in their business. Others even think this does not apply for small businesses. In this competitive market where brands are worth billions of dollars, you cannot afford to be careless.

Aside from your logo, you should also protect your tag lines, brand names, and packaging or designs. In case you don’t know, there are several advantages of having trademarks:

1. Protect your most valuable intangible assets - your brands and logos.
2. Act as a competitive tool to discourage your competitors from copying your logo or tag line.
3. Give entrepreneurs the right to file a lawsuit and collect damages in case of any infringement or violations.
4. Avoid manipulation and confusion with any seemingly similar brands in the market.

You can visit the “Trademarks” section of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for more details. It is sometimes more convenient and practical to consult with a trademark lawyer to help you with the entire process.

For a real example, you may want to read the trademark lawsuit between a small online perfume retailer Perfume Bay against online auction giant eBay.

Do you have trademarks now? Maybe it’s time you think about this.

Last week, the Republican National Convention (RNC) officials unveiled its 2008 official logo. The circular design features the silhouette of a triumphant elephant, a Party symbol dating back to 1874, along with the names of the host cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

If we rely on the opinions/comments coming from different blogs and websites to gauge the overall appeal of this new logo, then we can fairly conclude this new logo is a complete disaster. One doesn’t have to be an expert designer to pinpoint the wrong points. Here are some of the worst comments around the Web:

The Daily Kos says it’s not an extremely clever photoshop job and the elephant seemingly humping “2008” suggests that they (the Republican) will go for a “Still screwing the country in 2008″ theme. Among the 554 comments received by this post alone, I found this very amusing:

Total roadkill. It really does look like an elephant that just got ran over by a truck and is now splattered and dazed on the ground, covered in skid marks.

Colin McEnroe of The Hartford Courant, the country’s oldest newspaper in continuous publication, said this is your elephant on drugs.

Wonkette.com, a blog that details the goings-on of the political establishment in Washington, DC, thinks it’s a sort of zonked-out rampaging blue elephant — about to crush 2008 itself beneath its gigantic front legs and staring in starry-eyed horror at its bland sans-serif cage.

Eunomia can’t help but ask these questions: Is the message of this logo that the Republican Party is drunk (the stars)? Depressed (hence the blue)? Insane? Perhaps the message is that the party’s being chopped to pieces, or gradually erased from existence and disappearing into the background?

The message is very clear and simple – your logo reflects the personality of your business or organization. Though this may not heavily influence the 2008 elections, a logo design must help build your credibility as an organization.