Changing a logo – pros and cons

It’s a stretch, but in keeping with the Change theme of the week (Obama’s Presidential inauguration and all that), let’s crowbar the idea into logo design (I told you it was a stretch). Specifically, the pros and cons of changing a logo that you’ve been using for a while. It will almost certainly be something you at least think about over the lifetime of your company logo. Usually starts off something like this – you take a peek at your business card that you were so proud of a few years ago, and it doesn’t seem to have the same oomph that it used to. The logo looks a little worn out. Perhaps you’ve changed your market focus and need a logo that’s more in line with your current day demographics. Bottom line – you start feeling the need the to bring your logo up to speed. Or perhaps change it altogether. Can it be done? Of course. Are there inherent risks involved? Yes there are. Do I recommend changing your logo design in mid-stride? Yes. And no. Changing an already established logo should be approached with a great deal of caution and not before weighing the pros and the cons, and assessing the best solution for your particular situation.

Here’s something to keep in mind. You may want to change your logo because you’re tired of seeing it, not necessarily because the logo itself has grown long in the tooth. And that’s not a good rationale to change any logo. Here’s the thing – you ARE going to get tired of your logo (as a matter of fact, you’re SUPPOSED to get tired of it). We all like fresh, new and spiffy. But what if the design is still solid, despite your growing visual fatigue with it? Chances are, just as you’ve grown weary of seeing your logo plastered everywhere, your market is just starting to connect it with your company or services. It takes a long time for this ‘connection’ to occur, and changing your logo willy-nilly as this point may undo whatever good will you’ve managed to build up.

On the other hand, a logo makeover – if executed properly – can infuse your company brand with new excitement – even major corporations shake up their identity once in a while – Wal-Mart, Intel, Kodak, Pepsi and Dairy Queen among recent examples. So yes, any logo can (and sometimes should) be changed. Are there any absolute rules? Not so far as we know. So, and with typical TLF aplomb, we’re going to make some up. And help you decide if you should change your company logo. Or work with what you’ve got.

Logo overhaul or update?

If you have a hankering to change your logo, you should decide if you want a total overhaul, a completely new design, or a simple logo repair. Perhaps your logo only needs a little sprucing up – a little simplification, a font tweak or perhaps a more technically proficient rendering sans the original gradients, blends and drop shadows. This is the least traumatic solution and allows for slow integration into your already branded material. You can use up your stock of already printed business goods as you methodically integrate the new look into your advertising and marketing materials. A logo repair usually involves a re-rendering of your artwork so that your new, and slightly improved, logo can be utilized in various media and will cause very little upset to the overall ‘look and feel’ of your company’s brand. Deciding factors about settling for a logo clean up, as opposed to a complete overhaul, should not be based on your emotional ‘feeling’ about the design. It should be based on your market’s understanding and acceptance of your logo and the amount of recognition that you’ve managed to build with it.

A logo ‘tweak’ is often enough change

While I’m not usually a betting man, it’s a pretty safe bet that Nike is not going to change their ubiquitous ‘swoosh’ logo anytime soon. After spending billions of dollars to get that mark into the public eye, and after developing the instant recognition factor that they’ve earned, such a change would be downright foolish. That’s not to say they won’t ever change certain aspects of their logo – they already have, As a matter of fact, many times. In an attempt to stay in vogue with current tastes and design sensibilities, the accompanying ‘Nike’ font style has been altered on numerous occasions. The swoosh, for all intents and purposes, has remained the same. At the end of the day, the instant Nike recognition factor makes the logo impressive, NOT the design. A sudden, and drastic, change to their ’swoosh’ would impede that recognition factor too dramatically.

The same can be said for the Microsoft Windows logo, which evolved into the Vista version, and back to the newly released Windows 7 version. When first introduced in 1995, the logo was a somewhat ham-fisted graphic representation of a flying window. When the Windows XP operating system was introduced a few years ago, it also came with a logo makeover – the Windows icon, while retaining the basic concept, had become 3D, more refined, and included a tighter, more appropriate font. It retained enough of the old Windows logo ‘flavour’ to remain rooted in the same design family, but was sleeker (hopefully) to reflect the vastly improved (hopefully) operating system. Mircosoft’s major competitor, Apple, also converted their famous Apple icon from a rainbow-striped version to a solid, and much ‘classier’ modern icon in the late nineties. Over the years, the company dropped the Apple text, as the company evolved into manufacturing ‘lifestyle’ devices as well as desktop computers. With the advent of the OS X operating system, the Apple icon became a ‘gel’ version and then a ‘chrome’ version – a flavor so successful that the Apple website ‘look and feel’ remains among the most copied website design on the Internet today. Other than the original ‘Newton’ design, the essence of the brand – the Apple logo itself – has remained pretty stable over the years (see the evolution of the Apple logo here). in order to maintain the brand’s strength. While adapting it to the corporation’s current more diversified marketing efforts and focus (a focus that seems to have been lost with the MobileMe logo).

If Apple, Microsoft and Nike aren’t opposed to changing their logo, then your fears about changing yours, while understandable, can be put aside. It’s also worthy to note that they ‘modified’ their logos, rather than scrapping the look and recognition they had already achieved. And spent millions in achieving. In terms of your logo, it becomes more of a ‘how much change’ question.

How we’ve changed our logo

On a much smaller scale, we’ve changed The Logo Factory trademark several times over our studio’s history. Our first logo (circa 1993) was a Tim Burtonesque linear design that became, over the years, far too rigid, mechanical and ‘cold’ for my liking. This led to a completely new treatment – our TLF ‘house’ – in order to make our logo less, well, ‘factory’ like. After moving our operations onto the internet in 1996, the design was boxed, and we added the term Media Works. After a few years it was decided that the Media Works was redundant, and a little overkill on the overall ‘Factory’ concept. The aspect ratio of the bounding box was too restrictive, neither the purple nor the teal reproduced well on web safe colors, and the logo was far too complicated for small sizes. Our stationery was incredibly expensive to reproduce (a tiny yellow window – important for the logo back story – and the black bounding box guaranteed 4 color printing). Too, the logo didn’t fax well and looked absolutely horrible printing black and white on checks. Turns out that we had broken pretty well every golden rule of logo design there was.

With a giant gasp, we overhauled our own logo a few years ago – keeping the house, the original typewriter font (both part of our trademarks) and tossed out pretty well everything else. The logo is still recognizable as our old TLF brand, but is vastly more versatile. Keeping the change minimal and subtle, we were still able to utilize the shirts, mouse pads, hats and other soft goods that we had in inventory. When it came to new production runs, we simply replaced the embroidery and silk-screens with the TLF 2.0 ‘look’. In terms of economics, our stationery design is back to two spot colors and as such, inexpensive to print via offset reproduction. We didn’t have to replace everything at once, replacing business cards, letterheads and brochures as we ran out. For a while, there was a slightly schizophrenic vibe to our marketing material, but it didn’t hurt us in the long run (for what it’s worth, we’re thinking about changing our logo again).

A massive, traumatic & potentially expensive logo overhaul

After having read all this you might still be absolutely convinced you need a soup to nuts re-design of your corporate identity. That’s okay too (it’s one of the reasons The Logo Factory exists). But here’s as close to a ‘rule of thumb’ we’re going to get. Unless your company is going to be around for generations, you can perform a major overhaul of your logo once. That one overhaul can be interpreted as an improvement. A new, forward thinking re-birth of your company. Any more changes and you’ll start to look a little schizophrenic, flaky and unfocused. It will appear to your market that you’re unsure of who you really are, or more importantly, who your clients are. While a logo makeover is relatively painless, a total overhaul can (though not always) represent a sizable expense and trauma to your marketing endeavors, so it shouldn’t be approached lightly. It involves starting again on everything – business cards, letterheads, website, the works. You won’t be able to slowly integrate your radically new look – it has to released in one mammoth ‘hit the beaches running’ roll out (having two different logos floating around in an exercise in marketing mayhem). This rollout can get expensive – unless timed exactly right, you’ll end up tossing all sorts of marketing material out as you replace it with newly branded stuff. Right across the board (this is also the reason why you should start out right when it comes to developing ANY logo, rather than taking a ‘that will do for now’ approach).

Changing your logo completely requires careful planning and execution so while a successful logo overhaul can bring enormous benefits to your company, the risks (and potential expense) can be high. If a makeover can be viewed as a few coats of makeup and a new hairdo on your logo, an overhaul can be likened to an entire face lift.

With the associated risks.

Related posts:

1. Apple MobileMe logo – craptastic or fluffy goodness?
2. Battle of the logos – should we change?
3. Logo design – what not to do
4. Logos that became legends
5. The demise of the logo design industry?

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