LOGO DESIGN BLOG   LOGO DESIGN REVIEW

How much should it cost to create a new logo for your small business? Many business owners face this question when they follow their entrepreneurial spirit and decide to start their own business. Each business owner wants to have a professional appearance, but at what cost?

Recently this question was asked in a forum on marketingprofs.com. A member asked How Much Does Branding Cost? Other forum members answered with a range of responses from as low as $300 to hundreds of thousands of dollars for well-known agencies.

You can find online logo companies that will create your brand identity for about $300 - $600. The city of Southlake, Texas recently paid nearly $25,000 for their new logo. They had budgeted $60,000 for their new logo; they must be feeling good about their inexpensive logo.

Geely, a Chinese automaker recently held a design contest for a new logo. The winner was a student at a Chinese University. Designers submitted over 27,000 designs. Yue Xian De, the winning designer, was awarded with nearly $270,000 for his efforts.

As you can see, there is a very broad cost for branding. How much should your business spend? It probably depends on what stage your business is in. Make the effort to research your design firm, whether it is online, a local design company or a famous branding agency. You can get great design that fits within your budget.

White space, an easy way to take good art, and screw it up. White space is something that all designers should think about more often, but seldom take the time to do so. In logo design podcast 14, Paul shows you how to take your artwork, and test for the correct amount of white space. This gentle relationship between the positive and negative elements in design, is key to overall balance, proportion, and design hygiene. White space plays a very important role in design symmetry, and symmetry is what keeps the eye’s attention from straying.

Thanks for all your feedback on the last podcast! We appreciate you listening, appreciate your feedback, and your contributions to the world of art and design. If you have any topics for the podcast that you would like to see covered, email us here, and we will consider them all!

 

 Logo Design Podcast 14: White Space [22:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (10658)

After 18 years, Mercedes-Benz is updating its image with a new brand identity. With fresh positioning, the car company intends to show the vitality and dynamism of the brand. The changes, which began in 2006, will be introduced in all markets November 1, 2007. The C-Class Estate is the first product to be launched under the new strategy.
The update that’s grabbing the most attention is the introduction of an acoustic trademark for broadcast use. Sound logos have been used effectively before by companies like Intel and NBC.

Criticism of the audio is widely available online, but here’s the executive defense: “Our new sound logo is going to make the Mercedes-Benz brand not only visually, but also acoustically distinctive, and thus more quickly recognizable,” says Dr. Olaf Göttgens, Vice President Brand Communications Mercedes-Benz “This acoustic trademark is a perfect fit for Mercedes-Benz — it is emotional, elegant, and unmistakably associated with our brand.”Mercedes is the world’s most valuable premium auto brand and its logo has become one of the most recognizable symbols on the planet. Therefore, the star logo itself will change very little. It will still be seen three dimensionally as usual on the cars and in dealerships, but a two dimensional version will be uniquely positioned in printed media. The symbol will always be placed above the picture or body, with the written trademark (Mercedes-Benz) below. This visually represents their new motto: The star always shines from above.

Adding a sound logo will definitely make the brand more widely memorable, even if it’s not particularly “liked.” The numbers will have to show whether the sound trademark is a stroke of genius or a wasted effort. But, when it comes to market research, I’d generally suspect that the multi-billion dollar car company knows what it’s doing.