Logo design is often one of the first tasks an entrepreneur needs to outsource when starting a new business. Used to doing most of the work themselves, it can be hard for a small business owner to justify the expense of a professionally designed logo. Though cheaper options such as ready-made design stores and designing your own logo exist, they rarely produce the type of quality design that is expected in today’s business landscape. In some situations, these options can even harm your business.
When it comes to design, investing in quality as soon as possible is the best way to get the most growth out of your business. Otherwise, you may find yourself working harder than necessary to earn customer trust and stand out from the competition. Here are five ways that investing in design early can influence business growth:
First Impressions Matter
During a study at Carleton University in Ottawa, participants were shown websites for only 50 milliseconds and asked to rate them for visual appeal. The participants were then shown the websites for a longer time, and asked to rate the websites again. The study found that the participants rated the websites’ visual appeal consistently, regardless of how long they were shown them.
What does this mean for small business owners? You have 50 milliseconds to make a good impression on your potential customer, and quality design will play a major role.
Communicate visually with your customer
When properly designed, your logo can say a lot about your company. It may be the only opportunity to identify what your company does or to separate you from the competition in locations like app download stores and social media. As branding expert and author of Designing Brand Identity Alina Wheeler puts it:
“To rise above the clutter, a symbol or a logo is the fastest communication known to man. It unlocks associations with your brand on sight, so it’s important to get it right the first time around.”
Make your business memorable
A memorable logo doesn’t just help customers create a relationship between your company and its services, it can actually make them more engaged.
An online study conducted by branding firm Siegel+Gale found that memorable logos are 13 percent more likely to get consumers’ attention, 7 percent more likely to make them want to learn more about the brand, and 6 percent more likely to suggest a company is more unique than others in its category.
What makes a logo memorable? Simplicity.
“Simple was the word that came up above and beyond, more than anything else,” said Brian Rafferty, global director of research insights for Siegel+Gale. “When people were asked what makes a logo memorable, it was simplicity.”
Simple design is harder than it sounds, and many low-quality logos have complicated elements to mask their shortcomings. Don’t make the mistake of confusing complication with quality.
Stand out from the competition
As mentioned earlier, ready-made and generic logos can harm your business. Ready-made logos can be purchased by other businesses and could lead to brand confusion when shown next to competitors that went the same ready-made route. The generic elements often used in homemade designs have been seen so many times by customers they can begin to ignore them completely.
As the visual representation of everything your brand stands for, it’s important for your logo to be unique. Professional designers take the time to learn about your business and create a logo that represents your company in a way that a generic option never could.
Invest now or spend more later
Spending little to no money on logo design might make financial sense in the early phases of starting a business, but it is a short-sighted decision. If the competitive advantages of investing in quality design from the outset aren’t enough, the financial advantage is also clear. Low-quality or generic design has a short shelf-life and will likely require a redesign in the future.
Whether it is because you are unhappy with what the design says about your growing business, or you found that your logo design is not as flexible as your marketing strategies, a logo redesign is an additional expense that can be avoided by making the decision to invest in quality design from the start.
Ready to invest in good design? It’s not as expensive as you think! Thousands of businesses have turned to crowdSPRING to create professional, unique designs for their company for as little as $199. crowdSPRING’s Logo Design Service offers a step-by-step creative brief that helps you outline your company’s needs and allows you to select from over 100 entries on average.
