Does your company logo look like the latest clipart design from microsoft word? If so, it is time for a logo makeover! With the presents of the internet you are now able to level the playing field. With crafty design and a great website we have now made it difficult to distinguish a large corporation from freelance businesses.
If your logo has been used for a number of years, the brand awareness that has amassed can prove a valuable tool in the marketing arsenal of large corporations. With that in mind, the best thing to do is a logo re-design that implements a subtle change to simply refresh the look.
Take a look at some of the logo redesign examples below:
LaQuinta removed their logo from the green enclosure which really helped to lighten up the look and feel. They also used their golden accent color to represent a sun which helped give the logo a fresher appeal. Finally they updated their font by changing the case to all caps; the uppercase serif font brings maturity to the logo and the “Q” lends just a hint of Spanish style while the sans serif uppercase “inns & suites” brings an also clean and mature look to the new logo.
The Holiday Inn changed the shape of their enclosure. While this change utilizes less space it also and lends itself toward more of an iconic figure. They lightened the color of the green, giving it a cleaner, fresher look and feel, and lastly they changed the font from a handwritten script to more of a rounded off, informal sans serif font. Syfy reduced its logo to s single concept, simplicity. They changed the spelling because they could not copyright the word SciFi, second they removed the old icon, created a 3D effect and made the spelling of SyFy more of an iconic figure itself, and finally they added a slogan and created a cleaner looking logo changing the Syfy to white. One thing that they did to maintain their brand identity was keep their two tone color scheme.
Hotels.com maintained their initial color scheme but made black the primary color for the new and improved logo. They removed their old fashion male icon and slogan and replaced them with a black enclosure and a lower case font giving the new logo a clean and less formal appearance. Expedia: Ok, so dont pay attention to the verbiage in the mock Expedia logo above. Pay more attention to the yellow plane orbiting the globe, the title font and slogan attached. Their new logo has been significantly reduced to a simple monotone icon and company name. I like the simplicity of their new icon, with such simplicity, this type of logo will transfer to other types of materials very well, i.e. t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. Another really good thing about this logo is that it has been changed from a more vertical logo which can take up valuable space in a website header to a horizontal logo which fits much easier into website headers.
Bottom line, if you are planning on a redesign of your existing company logo or working on creating a new company logo, be sure to keep a couple things in mind:
Choose a simple color scheme that helps portray your company’s concept
Create a slogan or tag line that can be used along with your logo
Consider whether you want to use all uppercase, lower case, title case or a combination of two in your logo
Pay attention to the spacing in your letters, large spacing between letters can lend a formality to your logo
Consider creating an icon with your logo (for example nike swish or under armor icon)
One of the most important things to remember, is when you are designing your logo, think about the different types of materials you would like your logo to appear on. For example creating an intricate logo with many colors will not translate very well to a t shirt, instead be sure to keep your logo very simple with minimal colors. A great example of this would be the simple apple icon created by MAC. It is clean, classic, sophisticated and most of all simple.
Self proclaimed New Century Hustler Ali Muhammad (@MrMuhammad) has been getting some good run on twitter lately talking about the importance of creating a catalog of property. In a move that may receive ridicule in the locker room (yeah… it IS funny), LT could well net several new millions of dollars. Don’t believe me? Reference Mr. C of Cha-Cha slide fame, the electric slide AND Heyyyyyyy Macarana.
Even if you’re not planning on selling online, a well-crafted site is essential for any business.
Q: My business is very small, just me and two employees, and our product really can’t be sold online. Do I really need a website?
A: That’s a good question. In fact, it’s one of the most important and most frequently asked questions of the digital business age. Before I answer, however, let’s flash back to the very first time I was asked this question. It was circa 1998, during the toddler years of the internet.
I was giving a speech on the impact of the internet on small business at an association luncheon in Montgomery, Alabama. Back in 1998, which was decades ago in internet years, the future of e-commerce was anybody’s guess, but even the most negative futurists agreed that all the signs indicated that a large portion of future business revenues would be derived from online transactions or from offline transactions that were the result of online marketing efforts.
So should your business have a website, even if your business is small and sells products or services you don’t think can be sold online? My answer in 1998 is the same as my answer today: Yes, if you have a business, you should have a website. Period. No question. Without a doubt.
Also, don’t be so quick to dismiss your product as one that can’t be sold online. Nowadays, there’s very little that can’t be sold over the internet. More than 20 million shoppers are now online, purchasing everything from books to computers to cars to real estate to jet airplanes to natural gas to you name it. If you can imagine it, someone will figure out how to sell it online.
Let me clarify one point: I’m not saying you should put all your efforts into selling your wares over the internet, though if your product lends itself to easy online sales, you should certainly be considering it. The point to be made here is that you should at the very least have a presence on the web so that customers, potential employees, business partners and perhaps even investors can quickly and easily find out more about your business and the products or services you have to offer.
That said, it’s not enough that you just have a website. You must have a professional-looking site if you want to be taken seriously. Since many consumers now search for information online prior to making a purchase at a brick-and-mortar store, your site may be the first chance you have at making a good impression on a potential buyer. If your site looks like it was designed by a barrel of colorblind monkeys, your chance at making a good first impression will be lost.
One of the great things about the internet is that it has leveled the playing field when it comes to competing with the big boys. As mentioned, you have one shot at making a good first impression. With a well-designed site, your little operation can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company. The inverse is also true. I’ve seen many big company websites that were so badly designed and hard to navigate that they completely lacked professionalism and credibility. Good for you, too bad for them.
You also mention that yours is a small operation, but when it comes to benefiting from a website, size does not matter. I don’t care if you’re a one-man show or a 10,000-employee corporate giant; if you don’t have a website, you’re losing business to other companies that do.
Here’s the exception to my rule: It’s actually better to have no website at all than to have one that makes your business look bad. Your site speaks volumes about your business. It either says, “Hey, look, we take our business so seriously that we have created this wonderful site for our customers!” or it screams, “Hey, look, I let my 10-year-old nephew design my site. Good luck finding anything!”
Your website is an important part of your business. Make sure you treat it as such.
Read the original article here written by: Tim W. Knox
Of course you have heard of Twitter; the free social networking and micro-blogging service which allows users to communicate with other users, or “tweeters” in bite-sized 140 character snippets. You’re probably on Twitter as well. You know it’s good for business and broadening your network.
But are you using Twitter wisely?
Many entrepreneurs know they’re supposed to use Twitter, but aren’t necessarily sure how to get the most out of their minutes invested. Though there is little remaining doubt that the social network is a potent tool when placed in the right hands, many entrepreneurs have felt the frustration of not knowing how to effectively pull the most benefit from the service.
The key is in your expectations. Those entrepreneurs who try to mine money directly from the service are often setting themselves up for disappointment. Though this can be done, it is not always wise. Twitter is not necessarily the best place to get clients directly. Twitter is all about building relationships, showing the most authentic side of yourself and building your authority as a distributor of quality information.
Getting started with Twitter is easy, and getting going even easier. Simply follow those people you find most interesting, especially those users who are in your target market or primary field of interest. The more you tweet the easier it gets. Be personal, but don’t over share. Others will care far more about interesting things you may have found that day to read or improve their lives in some way than they will be with what you had for lunch or are planning to have for dinner.
One final note, use your own photo rather than a company photo or icon. Twitter is all about being yourself. People are far more apt to follow you if you look like a person rather than a product or service, and you can’t possibly build the relationship without getting the follow first.
Finally we kick the new year off with the new Business section on AlumniRoundup.com. So for those business minded individuals that are or have been dabbling with the idea of going out on their own and starting their own business, may I suggest to you the first book that you should read, and New York Times #1 seller for over 6 years, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki. Read the rest of this entry »
Syfy reduced its logo to s single concept, simplicity. They changed the spelling because they could not copyright the word SciFi, second they removed the old icon, created a 3D effect and made the spelling of SyFy more of an iconic figure itself, and finally they added a slogan and created a cleaner looking logo changing the Syfy to white. One thing that they did to maintain their brand identity was keep their two tone color scheme.
Expedia: Ok, so dont pay attention to the verbiage in the mock Expedia logo above. Pay more attention to the yellow plane orbiting the globe, the title font and slogan attached. Their new logo has been significantly reduced to a simple monotone icon and company name. I like the simplicity of their new icon, with such simplicity, this type of logo will transfer to other types of materials very well, i.e. t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. Another really good thing about this logo is that it has been changed from a more vertical logo which can take up valuable space in a website header to a horizontal logo which fits much easier into website headers.
