1. Take into account your clients, the competitors and your company:

Consumers or clients must feel identify with the logo. Do not create a very sophisticated logo if you think your clients are not ready for it and will not understand it. Do not create a very simple one if your clients will not appreciate it. Analyze the competition, the graphic element they use, their composition of colors, elements distribution, complexity or simplicity, and specify where you want to be positioned against your competitors. Your graphic image must even your company activity: it should not be too elegant if the world market does not need this kind of image and it should not be too simple if the world market is looking for sophistication; if so, the client will not trust the company.

2. Differentiate

There is not point in having an excellent image which reflects the company’s values if it is mistaken for some competitor’s image, especially if this competitor invested more money than your company in publicity and communications. If so, your competitor will be benefited and the value of your brand will be in danger.

3. Find the compatibility between Name and Logotype

The logo must be suitable for the company name. There are logos that are not related to the name: some logos are very elegant while the name is quite informal or the other way round. There are also very innovating logotypes which are graphically obsolete.

A good design studio should have the ability and experience to find a semantic and linguistic compatibility between the name and the logotype graphic structure. Sometimes, logos are so exploited graphically that the name becomes eligible. Beware of losing the legibility of your company name because sometimes that is the result of a nice or outstanding logotype.

4. Avoid saturation

People think that if they pay for some advertising spot in any means of communication, they must take advantage of every inch of it. That is the worst thing to do, especially when talking about logotypes; you must avoid the saturation of icons and graphs and follow the new tendency to simple logotypes that are easy to identify and remember. This tendency which started around 1997-1999 is the result of the minimalist current.

5. Make a rational decision

Typography, graphs and position. During the logotype evaluation process, even before you make the decision about colors, it is important to separate the elements of the logotype so that they can be analyzed separately and in detail.

Typography. What type of typography are you looking for? Do you want it to be innovating, classy, formal, informal, elegant? Remember that typography represents the company identity, experience, formality and the importance of the brand.

Graphs. Graphs and lines are frequently used as part of the brand. Some companies want the graphs to be their emblematic icon. The current tendency is to create graphs that seem to be moving upwards and forwards, avoiding negative connotations such as delay.

Position. What part of the logo do you want to be recognized fist? The icon or the name? Both? If you want the icon to be the first thing your clients recognize, then, it should be located on the right. If you want both name and icon to be evenly balanced, then the icon should be above the name.

6. Feel an emotional decision

Colors. When we see a specific color, what does it remind us of? What feelings do they convey? Will a company be more profitable if it has an appropriate color? Some well-known Universities in the US and UK have carried out researches determining that the effect that color produces on people depend on segmentations. Red has different meanings for women and for men. There are other segmentation elements such as age, nationality, education, etc. that modify the natural human perception of colors.

7. Analyze colors vs. budget

Make sure you get as many revisions of your logotype as possible when it is being designed and that it exploits all the possibilities your budget can cover.

Full Color (publicity, multimedia, Internet, etc.)

2-3 colors (booklets, simple and short-range applications)

2 colors (booklets, promotional magnets, massive applications)

Gray scales (for newspapers or ink print-outs)

Black and white (fax print-outs, woodcuts, etc.)

Frequently, small and medium size companies choose the second option for their institutional logotype which is completely reasonable; what is the point in acquiring a full-colored logotype if your budget is very limited and the market for your company does not require it?

8. Verify the logo possible applications

When a company acquires a logo, it generally forgets about its future usage on different applications as part of the communication strategy. These companies get really disappointed at the result: the logo may not work properly on certain backgrounds and contrasts. It is necessary to establish the rules about the usage of logos, to verify the possible contrasts on which it can be located, and to validate the colors of the logo in different formats such as CMYK (for printing), RGB (screen), Pantones (for both applications).

9. Use a descriptive name

Today, the brand world is extremely competitive and there is a large variety of obvious names that, apart from being poorly creative, they cannot be easily registered since they are very common. Using compound words that represent the company is a good solution to this problem; however they can be confusing sometimes. The slogan, an element that sometimes goes with the brand, may change according to the different seasons.

10. Communicate a graphic experience

Get the logo to be so identifiable that it gets to represent an overall experience. When the brand is powerful, it goes beyond a product or service, offering functional benefits and transmitting certain emotional elements. Or simply get a logo that evokes certain feelings of positivism, optimism, innovation, importance, improvement, etc. The designer is the one in charge of deciding which barrier must be broken in the consumer's mind.