In Part One of this series, I discussed the first marketing steps a new company should undertake: naming and positioning. In Part Two, we move on to every creative person’s favorite – logo development, which is the visual foundation of your branding strategy.

Here’s the assignment: Create a logo and visual identity that reflects the essence of your company’s market position, customer value, current environment, and future vision. Translating these complex attributes into graphics does not come easily. It requires a combination of conceptual, usability, graphic design, and marketing skills. Key message: seek professional help. Or not.

Some companies take the easy way out and settle on a variation of the ubiquitous swirl or swoosh, or the up-and-coming “waves” theme, and say that the logo represents energy and motion and momentum.

Other companies take another low-cost, low-value route using one of the many online services, such as VistaPrint, that offers step-by-step logo creation. Nothing against VistaPrint, which I’ve used to print business and greeting cards, but settling for clip art logos is like choosing a paint-by-numbers piece over a Picasso to hang on your wall. However, using this approach is viable if you happen to associate the words cheap, amateurish, and short-lived with your brand.

What’s a better approach to logo development? Work with an experienced marketing professional and logo designer who follows a carefully scripted process. This dramatically increases the likelihood you will end up with a logo that:

• Reflects the key attributes of your company and evokes the appropriate emotional responses in your customers and others who view your logo
• Is unique, memorable and describable 
• Works in black and white as well as color because it will appear both ways
• Can scale to large and small sizes and still be legible
• Can be used in all applications, from your Web site to print materials to promotional items and more
• Is delivered to you in all required file formats with colors properly specified for all print and online uses, along with usage guidelines to help protect your brand
• Serves as an effective foundation for business cards, letterhead and all other branded materials

 Here’s a link to document showing a new logo and usage manual created for a client.