Logo Does Not Equal Brand

                     

Lot’s of people contact agencies and professional designers for new branding but, in reality most of them mean to ask for new logo. The words – ‘logo’ and ‘brand’ are commonly interchanged, but both concepts are very different.

Changing a logo is easier than recreating a brand identity. Time, knowledge and strong financials are essential requirements for changing brand. Anyone planning to alter their brand identity should know it doesn’t limit only to changing logo. Just to clarify client may have to change earlier wooden wall panels with aluminum wall panels just to give right impression of business. Things complementing to the nature of business are included in branding.

Let us analyze “brand identity’ and ‘logo’ to know what distinctions the two have.

Brand Identity

Brand is not only a name; but everything which defines an organization. You may call it personality of business which attracts customers and helps increase its demand in market. It is fusion of company’s philosophy and culture towards customers in one single identity.

 
To remove misunderstanding of ‘Branding’ concept, let us summarize it n few points:

• Brand is not sheer combination of basic colors, fonts and symbols.
• It is a perception about your company.
• It includes any work that organization does, like the strategies, product launches and what a;; that collectively says to the world.
• Brand represents everything starting from customer service even the employee behavior.
• An combination of communication tools, visuals, and your logo.
• Branding is not just a corporate phenomenon but can be seen everywhere. For example, anyone watching a George Clooney movie would know what they are going to get.

Ultimately it’s about creating image at every level and in every detail. It includes big things like vision and mission, your people, customers and public dealings you are going to have, no matter how small defines your brand

Logo

• Is the visual identity of the issuer of a product
• Logo can be symbolic in nature, There is no necessity to represent actual company lettering.
• An ideal logo represents a company’s character in an evocative manner.
• For redesigning a logo it is important for designer to know the consumer psychographics. They should have clear knowledge of true public image of brand, how they perceive it, how they want it not just what you want your brand to be.
• The logo starts functioning in intended way only after it has become familiar in people’s minds. More of sorts like remembering a person’s name.

So in other words, logo identifies in simplest form; a mark or icon.

Do you see the concepts of brand identity and logo design in same way? Do you think that only changing logo can suffice for re-branding? We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the subject.

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