Many of the most famous logos have no inherent meaning. Think of the Nike “swoosh.” The meaning is created by a consistent branding and marketing message tied to the abstract image. So don’t stress to much about the design - consider the long-term support for your brand and the logo itself as just one piece of the initiative.

Scenario #1 - A Company Embodied in a Picture

Some companies, like Apple Computer, have a natural jumping off point for logo development. If this is the case in your organization, go with it. Using a picture that literally captures the brand name creates a strong bond between the logo and consumer recognition.

Scenario #2 - A Logo as an Abstraction

Unfortunately, many companies do not have the luxury of simply picturing their brand. Nike, for example, could have used a winged goddess, but how many people would have associated that with the brand? After all, a minor deity is not as recognizable as everyday table fruit.

This is the situation for most companies. Think Chevrolet, Sprint and Citibank. What’s a marketer to do when managing the design for an abstraction?

I. BRAINSTORMING

1. Start with a color palette - color carries a lot of emotional weight. Is your brand friendly or edgy? Male or female? Who is your target audience and how can you connect with them by using color? Work up your “color story” as a starting point for logo design.

2. Abstraction or Portrayal? - This is a key inflection point. An abstraction suggests the nature of your business. A portrayal creates an image that literally communicates the brand. A portrayal might use the name of your company, it’s initials or a picture of the product. But beware of too obvious a choice - Chevrolet could have chosen a picture of a car, but how would that be different from any other car company? Abstraction gives a brand a better shot at uniqueness and offers the possibility of brand growth. Wrestle with this issue, make a decision and stick with it.

3. Brainstorm Key Attributes - This could be as simple as a list of adjectives that describe your company, it’s features and benefits. For a radiology practice, we designed a logo that had an element of transparency - you could see through the layers of the design suggesting the basic feature of radiology. But since radiology is more than just x-rays, we also included a donut hole in the center of the design to suggest MRI & CAT scans.

4. Should You Use a Name or Initials? - It’s easy to like a logo that includes your company name or initials. Maybe too easy. Initials run the risk of creating a separate brand entity. In most cases, it’s better to create a memorable image than rely on words to communicate the message.

II. THE PROCESS

Once you’ve answered these four questions, you can get a designer (or designers) involved and give them clear direction. Because this is so subjective, here’s a checklist to help you manage the process:

1. Designer or Designers? - Either choice can work as long as the process is fair. No one wants to compete for spec, so plan on paying for this initial phase. Set a budget, divy it up among the participants and let the games begin. The winner gets additional funding to finish the design and pool it out in various deliverables like letterhead, business cards and the like.

2. Who’s Judging? - The more people involved, the more messy the process. Figure out who really needs a say in the process based upon expertise and responsibility. Those are two separate fiefdoms. Expertise means people with professional experience in marketing (and maybe production). Responsibility means the key stakeholders must be involved so you don’t go down your merry path only to be vetoed at the end of the yellow brick road. Keep the group small. If the CEO gets final say, have that person on the committee. Don’t allow a bunch of surrogates to imagine what the boss will think.

3. Up or Down Votes - The worst possible process is a free-for-all where a committee tries to make everyone happy by combining elements from different designs - the “one from column A and two from column B” approach. This almost never yields a happy result (or a strong design). Get everyone to vote thumbs up or down, winnow the choices and keep voting until you have one favorite.

Polish up the favorite, maybe create a few variations, vote up or down once again and be done with it. Now you can focus on associating the meaning of your new logo with the attributes of your company through the deep channels of advertising, marketing and promotion.

————————————————————————————-

A final note about typographic treaments. Whether you use your name within the logo or alongside it, you’ll need to do all the things necessary in the creation of the logo itself - color, feeling, readability and so forth. Start with the brainstorming in Part 1 and then move to the process in Part 2.

————————————————————————————-

Remember, this whole process is difficult because it’s not rational and objective - it’s emotional and subjective. Recognize that “business types” are often very uncomfortable with this kind of task, so break it up into smaller, more easily digested nuggets. Make decisions and stick with them.

Lastly, keep it simple. Remember your audience - they are not studying your logo, they’re scanning it. Recall the words of architect Mies van der Rohe:

“Less is more. “

It’s called Sxipper. Sxipper is a free plug-in for use with the Firefox browser (please tell me you’re not still using Internet Explorer).

Sxipper is easy to install (takes less than five minutes, no special skills or hacking required). It’s secure, it’s smart and it’s a massive time-saver. Here’s what they have to say about themselves:

• Always available - appears when needed, so you can log in or fill forms with a single click
• Trustworthy - encrypts your personal data and stores it on your computer
• Accurate form fill - learns from its own users how to complete forms with 100% accuracy with our unique training tool
• OpenID provider - provider of private and public identifiers. Sxipper.com is a secure, phishing-resistant OP, with support for PAPE. Identity 2.0 begins here.
• Easy to install - gathers data from your address book and web browser so that you have a running start

Basically, when you navigate to a site where you need a password (gmail, flickr, your blog), a little dialogue box pops up asking you to choose an identity. For most sites, there’s only one choice (the only time I see more than one is for blogging, but that’s because I write 6 or 7 blogs).

Select an ID and Sxipper logs you in. Simple!

Sxipper also features automatic form fills, a very handy feature. Never type your name and address again.

————————–

A brief word about Firefox. Here at OCDC, we’ve tried (and continue to test our web work) on all the major browsers - IE, Safari, Camino, even Navigator (yuck). Most people continue to use IE because they’re stuck with bad old Web 1.0 habits.

Give Firefox a shot - it’s endlessly customizable to your needs, has a small footprint, is constantly (and automatically) updated and is from the not-for-profit Mozilla org. What’s not to like? Say goodbye to IE and it’s endless pop-ups, hangs and crashes.

Download Firefox and give it a try. You’ll thank me.