Why a Logo Should Cost More than a Cheeseburger & 7 Reasons Why!

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Technology has changed the world, though not always for the better. Logo design, a once time honored craft that used to belong exclusively to designers who had first earned the necessary skills and then honed them over time, is now ostensibly within the domain of anyone with photoshop.

But is this a good thing?

The value of the logo, that single image that broadcasts corporate impression has been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Today, people no longer seem to understand that the consideration they place into their logo design is potentially more important than any other design factor, and is certainly worth more than the trifling cost of a cheeseburger.

A proper logo design imbues a business with immediate brand recognition. This instant image can help inspire trust, admiration, loyalty, or even an implied superiority within the minds of targeted consumers. The logo is a single limb of an overall corporate body. Usage of proper colors, fonts, and vision are what brand a business with distinction, both separating and elevating them from their competitors.

A logo has a one time charge for its design, but it’s impact stays with in the public mind forever. A cheeseburger is gone forever in five minutes. If a logo is responsible for so much, then why is it sometimes afforded so little respect? Before we continue, let’s discuss the basics of what makes a good logo.

A logo must be memorable, easy to describe, effective with or without color, and completely scalable (still effective even when only one inch in size). If you think of classic logos that are recognized the world over, you will find they adhere to these principles almost without exception. Take for example the classic Nike Swoosh. This logo is now nearly forty years old and yet is recognized around the world and has lost none of its impact.

One thing people often fail to consider is that a professionally designed logo involves a process that starts well before your software is ever double clicked. Professional designers have a detailed process that includes extensive research, various sketches, conceptualizing, and honest reflection.

Any one of these stages takes a lot longer than it takes to cook a value meal, fries included. A cheeseburger is fried and swallowed, often in less than ten minutes. Five dollars or so is perfectly fair for something trivial, but let’s take a look at the involved process that takes a logo from vision to finished product.

Design Brief: The designer must draft a series of questions to gain a full understanding of the client’s needs. What is their business about and what message are they trying to convey in that single instant image?

Research: After the design brief is complete, the designer must conduct research on the client’s industry, including history, past successes and failures across a wide array of allies and competitors.

Reference: Once the research into the industry is finished, a second phase of fact finding must be implemented. The designer must investigate other logo designs within the industry to see which have been successful and which have not. This will include the latest and greatest in successful styles.

Sketching and Conceptualizing: After a plan is mapped and research conducted, the designers are then able to use the full breadth of their creativity. It is at this stage where they can begin to map the basic rough designs that they will then narrow down to the final choices.

Reflection: You never see a fry cook take a break from making the cheeseburger, but designers must step away from their creations all the time. Only by turning their back on the design can they have the perspective needed to foster their ideas to their fullest potential.

Presentation: Once the options are narrowed to a select few, the designer can take these highlights and reveal the strongest to the client.

Celebration: Time to party. The client is happy and another classic image is added to the corporate cannon.

Sounds a lot more complicated than fry, pay, eat, right?

We’ve discussed what a logo is, what it’s supposed to do, and the time involved to design something that isn’t disposable.

Here are 7 reasons why a logo should cost more than a cheeseburger: -

1. A logo is the launch pad for a corporate image. The colors, fonts, style, and mood of a corporate logo most often evolve into the template for all corporate branding. Brochures, web presence, advertising – all will eventually orbit around the central body of the logo. Fries and a drink may share the lunchbox, but they’re all in the belly or forgotten by the ending of the meal.
2. A corporate logo should look as professional as the company. You wouldn’t roll down the car window to order lunch for a client you were trying to impress, why would anyone ever consider spending a cheeseburger’s worth of pennies on a cheeseburger’s worth of logo. A logo’s purpose is to provide a company with a professionally branded image, designed to fit its needs.
3. The best logos are entirely original. Cheeseburgers may taste relatively the same no matter where you get them, but a logo should be 100% unique to the company it represents. A generic logo does absolutely nothing to reflect the goods, services, or value a company provides. Further, a cheap logo makes a corporate brand look weak, especially if they are employing the same clipart found in many other second rate companies.
4. Logos should reflect the incredible amount of thought, consideration, and hours that are put into their individual design. Because logos are most often a small, single image it is easy to discount their worth. Many people fail to realize the inordinate amount of care that goes into their craftsmanship. Much like a cheeseburger, a logo’s value should be directly linked to the time it takes to prepare.
5. A logo is the first (and often most lasting) impression of corporate image. Before a potential client or customer, picks up the phone, makes their purchase, or considers their exchange, they see the logo – the visual representation of the company. The logo tells the consumer whether the company is large, small, serious, fun, professional, unprofessional, etc. A cheeseburger’s job is to curb temporary hunger and most people start to forget them as soon as they are heading toward their car. Isn’t a logo worth a lot more than that?
6. A logo lasts a long, long time. There is no wide range of time needed to make a cheeseburger. Even the best cheeseburgers are prepared and consumed in under an hour, but a professional logo is prepared over days if not weeks, and consumed over a lifetime, and thus, should be priced accordingly.
7. A serious business needs a serious logo. There is a lot to consider and a long lasting image to evaluate. A cheap cheeseburger can give you indigestion, don’t let a low-priced logo do the same to your business.