“My father, who is the CEO, questioned my decision to do all of this. His comment was, ‘What are we going to get in return for the money you just spent?’ It was an expensive process. However, when the first tractor-trailer with curtain sides pulled in with the new and improved huge Erie logo with our also new dark navy blue corporate color, he couldn’t have been more proud. He immediately bought into it.”
Neumann believes the logo change “shows that we are a company that is always trying to improve. We want to be perceived as a professional business, not just a place that sells building materials. I think it gives people a nice first impression, but after that it up to our people to do the impressing.”
Erie Materials’ new logo hit all of Gernsheimer’s sweet spots for good design. It had relevance to the industry it represents, it didn’t fall into cliche, it was clean, cohesive, attractive and readable. It also worked in a variety of applications.
Erie’s old logo was used only on truck doors and letterhead, according to Neumann. The new logo is used “pretty much anywhere we can put it”: trucks, signs, building doors and walls, floor mats, coffee cups, all wearables and giveaways (including private-labeled bottled water, golf balls, tees, and sunglasses).
“I never realized how much a logo, and how it is used, can change an image,” Neumann marvels.
It takes time and thought to design a good logo, Gernsheimer says, and he believes a company’s wisest choice is to employ a good designer to do the job. However, if the budget precludes that he has some free advice.
Resist the urge to use a cartoon character. “You don’t want your logo to be cute,” he says. Stay away from clip-art images. They are naive at best, and often worse. Always think of what you want your logo to say about your company.
Legibility is important. If a customer can’t read a logo, then why would he consider doing business with the company that logo represents? Look at your own logo. Is it cluttered? Hard to read from a distance? Use a typeface that is artfully illegible? Gernsheimer considers cursive fonts the bane of logo legibility.
Are letters stretched or pulled out of shape? That’s a design no-no, as is enhancing the first letter of the words in a company’s name, either by using a different font, darkening, shadowing or enlarging them. In the latter instance, says the designer, a company runs the risk of creating new words or connections that might be unfortunate.
Cheap Paper, Good Looks Color may not be your friend. Gernsheimer, who has taught design, says he tells his students to apply the want ad test to a logo. If the design would look good in black and white on cheap newsprint, then it would also look good in color. The reverse is not true.
Black and white is a classic combination. If you choose to use color, Gernsheimer recommends sticking to the primary colors of red, blue and yellow. Trendy colors, like chartreuse or magenta, have a limited shelf life, and your logo is an investment in the long term.
Bloedorn Lumber in Torrington, Wyo., learned a lesson in color theory about 10 years ago when it decided to add a punch of orange to its truck bodies and its 21 storefronts in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and Nebraska. In the process, the company also gave an orange paint job to its much-loved, years-old, black-and-white logo.
A few years later, Home Depot and its orange-aproned employees infiltrated Bloedorn’s market.
“Until then, we thought we had the color to ourselves,” Mark Yung, Bloedorn’s senior vice president and treasurer, says ruefully. “Who knows? We may change it in the future.”
In assessing your own company’s logo, consider it from several angles. Can it be used successfully on signage as well as business cards and letterhead? On truck bodies, cups and clothing? If not, the logo may need to be simplified.
At Mountain States Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association–or MSLBMDA, a mouthful by any measure–simplification was the challenge facing executive vice president Geri Adams. She was happy with the stylized tree that resulted from a 1996 retooling of the association’s logo–a design based on her own sketch. But that design, coupled with a curved line representing a mountain range plus the association’s name, made an unwieldy mark for using on clothing and non-print media.
So, about four years ago, Adams worked with Shari Larsen, a graphic designer from Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber to create a logo that could be used in MSLBMDA’s marketing pieces. The new logo placed Adams’ stylized tree inside a circle, thus allowing the use of text without compromising the image. The revised logo also scaled up and down appropriately and looked good in the old logo’s spruce green and copper colors as well as in black and white.
By retaining the tree, the pair linked with the older logo, which the association stills uses.
In redesigning a logo, Gernsheimer notes it is important to maintain some kind of continuity with an old logo that is well known. You can lose a lot of brand equity in totally changing a logo, the designer says. “You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
When all is said and done, will a good logo save your company’s bacon? No. But it will sure make it easier for your customers, and for potential customers, to think of you. And that can help your business bring home the bacon.
–Kate Tyndall is a contributing editor to ProSales.
