Your logo’s finished, what’s next?

Those of you that have been following the trials and tribulations of the development of the Flourish logo know how much hard work we put into getting it right. And those of you that can read between the lines probably know how much I wanted to just put the finished logo in a box and forget about it! Designing your own logo feels a little like childbirth – you’re pleased with the end result but you wouldn’t want to go through it again. (of course most of us do forget the pain and go back for more!)

So I chuckled to myself when a friend said to me “great, your logo’s done. What next?”. “Well where do I start?” I typed back. “erm… the stationery, business cards, website design, exhibition stands, brand manual, email signatures, folder, postcards, ‘leave behind brochure’… I could go on, but you get the picture.”.

Designing the logo is just the start of the Flourish identity. The impact comes from everything we do around the logo, the identity we build and the image we create. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be sharing with you some of the whys and wherefores behind the Flourish brand identity. And here are just a couple of sneak previews.

Most small business owners will invest in having a logo designed, but they often don’t see through the whole process. They take the logo and throw together their own stationery, “knock out some leaflets” or take up that offer from a friend to design their website. The brand identity doesn’t reach it’s full potential and you miss an opportunity to create your best impression. At worst, the homemade designs undermine all the hard work you’ve invested in and that hard-worked for impression goes by the wayside.

It’s only by designing several pieces of marketing literature, perhaps a website or some stationery as well, that you can build up a true picture of what fonts, colours, imagery and illustration styles really work for your identity. We’ve test-driven several fonts and illustration styles before we’ve settled on the ones we’re using. Simply because when you actually but them into practice you find that they don’t work as well as you’d hoped.

And I’ve found that my “extra stuff” – the fonts, quirky illustrations and the photos we’ve used are what I love more than the logo itself. It’s the “heart” stuff, the magic, which blends so well with the sensible “head” decision of my logo. But you can’t have one without the other.

So I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have your logo professionally designed. But from experience I’d strongly recommend that you set some budget aside for developing the whole identity. It will make such a difference in the long run.

in About us, Branding, Graphic Design, In The Studio This Week, Logo Design, The Flourish Identity