Brand logos: common flaws in the creative process

If you’re sitting in an office right now, turn and ask the person next to you, “what is a brand logo?” We’re pretty confident you’ll get an answer. Their response will likely include words like: a symbol, an identity, or a representation, either of a person, a company, or an organization.  

Generally, people are describing what the end product is supposed to be. They’re much less likely to recognize the primary purpose of a brand logo, let alone the importance of the creative process required to get to that result. 

We’ll deal with the primary purpose of a brand logo in a future article. For now, let’s take a look at just a few of the most commons flaw in the creative process to develop a great brand logo.

Inputs before outputs

For starters, the creative process is only ever as good as the quality of inputs that fuel it. By that, we mean that it is crucial to first ask the right questions, to get the right answers, resulting in the right results as you craft your logo. Time and again, we see two common failings of start-ups and small business owners. Either it’s not spending any time thinking about outcomes, before briefing a designer, or it’s the mistaken belief that their role in the process is merely to prescribe colors, symbols, and layouts. This is why at Brandeeq, the first stage of the creative process is asking you the right questions, to get the right answers.    

It’s not just great ideas

Then there’s another common issue, which is a belief that the creative process is 100% inspiration, 0% perspiration. That is, it’s all ideas and no rigor. To many, the creative process is a loose, 20-minute brainstorming session in which they look to generate ‘ideas’ that appeal. Whilst there is no denying that natural creative inflow can be valuable, it’s only as good as the structured process to test, and filter those creative options. That’s precisely why, in our practice, we make sure to diligently vet the many ideas that our team generates before choosing to execute the few ideas that have the greatest potential. 

And what about a lack of creativity altogether? Take the example of color palettes. As per our research, the predominant, primary brand color the in the food and beverages industry in Pakistan is red. That’s compounded by the practice revolving around only four main shades of red. The challenge for brand-building in such a case is that while there’s probably a strong association of red with an F&B offering in the minds of Pakistanis, simply using red and expecting that to be the basis for a new distinct, differentiated F&B brand logo is going to leave you disappointed.   

We could go on, but you’re hopefully getting the point.

So, what’s our answer to this problem? That’s not difficult. It’s to either learn these necessary ideas or to work with professionals that do know how to apply creative processes to build distinct brands. As a customer, commit to being part of a carefully considered process – that addresses not just the flaws we highlight here, but several others – and allow that process to come to the right conclusion.

This is our basis at Brandeeq for getting the right result, the first time.