As designers, let’s not overstate our points. When we exaggerate our importance, we look like we don’t know what we’re talking about.
A logo represents your brand, your company, your products and services, and your overall message. It’s important. A great logo can be a great start to your business.
But…we have to stop telling people that you cannot be successful without a great logo. Many of the most successful companies in history started with slapped together, crappy logos.
Take a look at BP. Does this look like the most profitable company in history? Could this company take over Amoco? Do they owe their success to this logo? OK, that was back in 1921, so maybe it’s not fair, but they certainly did well with a bad logo.
Take a look at Walmart. They owe their success to this logo? They paid a graphic designer to develop their brand, or did they slap some letters on a building? Sure, this was back in the 60’s, but their logo didn’t get much better over the years. Perhaps they are successful because they had better prices?
Let’s take a look at a modern crappy logo…Google! Please don’t tell me this is good. It’s just bad. The Google brand is based on the quality of service they offer, not this horrible logo! As a start-up they could have paid a designer to come up this something better than this, but clearly they did fine without it.
These are not the exceptions that prove the rule…you will find many ORIGINAL company logos were pretty bad.
…So when we tell clients that they NEED a great logo to be successful we are wrong.
A great logo will help a company, don’t get me wrong, but we can’t claim that you can’t be successful without a great logo. My job is to create great logos, websites, brochures, advertising, and every other form of marketing. I’ve helped my client become successful with graphic design. I didn’t tell them they would fail without me.
