May 16, 2007 | Category: Our Opinions |

The concept of branding was born in the course of evolution of the “business process”. During the next phase of evolution however, emerged the concept of corporate identity. Although often, the two terms—brand and corporate identity—are used interchangeably, they are two different concepts.

While branding relates to the emotional relationship between customer and a business, the corporate identity is all about the look and feel of the business. The latter helps a customer to distinguish his favorite brand from the crowd of other businesses.

The brand name evokes an emotion of trust and reliability, whereas the identity speaks of the product’s individual quality, its ethics and its focus. Two concepts are however interrelated; when the product is able to establish its unique identity, it is recognized as a brand.

When we think of the identity of a company the first thing that crosses our mind is the custom logo design. The logo is the unique icon that represents the company in the market, helps convey its business message to the customers and ultimately helps sell the product and services to them.

A custom logo can take your business far and accordingly you should be prepared to invest time and money into it.

So what are the main criteria of effective logo design?

Reflecting the essence of business through the logo: An experienced logo designer knows the main areas of focus such as the target customers, the business goal of the company, the positive attributes of the company and so on. The designer creates the visual identity of the company by combining all these factors into a single graphic (if possible).

To bring out this essence, the designer uses a number of tools like font, color and/or symbols. For example, in order to make a logo for a bank, you should not add images of bank checks, the factor you should emphasize is the stability and trustworthiness of the bank. Just go through some of the leading banks of the world like Citibank, Standard Chartered etc and you will find how subtle use of color and simple typeface have beautifully incorporated this feel of reliability and consistency.

Lastly, creating an identity is not all; the logo is a part of a volatile business environment where things change constantly. The identity creation becomes a constant process. If a particular logo fails to bond with the customers in a satisfactory way, then consider a complete makeover of the logo.