Branding 102: Logos and Style

Tips to Represent Your Business the Best Way Possible

As a Travel Professional, your business isn’t just a name, it’s you. It’s your labor of love and your passion that drives its growth and success. While there are countless things that are required for the success of your business, one of the most used is your logo and brand representation. It’s what your clients see on your business cards, websites, social media accounts, letterhead and hopefully, their final documents as they embark on a fantastic adventure, crafted by you.

Does your visual representation of your business check the following?

◻ Your business name is included in your logo
◻ Your logo is easy to see
◻ Your logo gives some (even a brief) insight into your business

If your logo and brand representation hit the check on the above three things, you are on the right track and great work! If you missed one or more, let’s dive into 5 things that every business owner should consider when creating or rebranding their business.

Simplicity is Key

In a world where advertisements, pop-ups, photos and videos rule, represent the best part of your brand with a simple logo. Whether it’s a bird flying, flag waving or a silhouette of a cruise ship, keeping your logo simple will make it memorable to your clients.

Many of the most popular brands carry the most simple logos, many of which their logo is just the name of the company in an attractive way. Think about it and just look at Nike, BMW, Uber, Mercedes Benz, CocaCola, Apple, eBay, Amazon, and the list goes on. Use their success as motivation to design or to have a logo designed that shows what you do, who you are and the professionalism you provide.

Include the Name

Having an image is great but make sure that you can also display your business name. No matter how you need to wrap it, curve it or shrink it, having your business name makes it much easier for clients to connect with you. Whether you opt for the business name and website URL or one or another, make sure that your business name is included somewhere in your logo.

It doesn’t take reinventing the wheel but sometimes a pen and a pad of paper. If you have a longer business name like “Denice’s Dream Vacations and Cruises,” displaying the name as the logo could be easy enough by using an offset or “step” format.

Denice's
    Dream
       Vacations &
          Cruises

Find a text style you love and there it is! Being creative through this process can be equally the most enjoyable and most frustrating part as you may find yourself choosing between many options that are a good fit for your business.

A Rainbow of Color

Simply put, don’t use more than 2 (maybe 3) colors in your logo. Sticking to a simply black, gray, or white often leads to the most legible text and allows for viewers to easily see and remember the logo and brand.

Choosing a strong primary color like red or blue are always a solid choice but many brands as of late have opted for a mixture of grays and blacks to keep it simple and clean for their brand followers. Find what works for you and go with it.

Bid it Out

If you are like me and have absolutely zero artistic skill, never to fear, the internet is here! Utilize a site like fiverr.com which lists your job or task to thousands of creative minds from all over the globe. For a nominal and usually very affordable fee, you can have someone create, design and provide you finished files of your logo and new branding.

Another great site for the artistically challenged is 99designs.com. 99Designs bids out your logo, requests and ideas to hundreds of designers and they provide their ideas back to you for review. Many times you’ll get hundreds of submissions for review. Once you love one, you pay and they provide you all of the files they have created for you.

Tip: Whether you decide to create your own, work with a designer or bid out the design, make sure to ask for all variable formats of the logo. This will help you down the road in creating marketing materials or branding printed goods. A good list of reference to use when requesting the files is: .psd (Photoshop File), .ai (Illustrator File, High Resolution), .jpg (300 DPI File), Low Resolution .jpg, Transparent .png File, and a few different color swatches of each (never hurts to have options).

Brand Everything

In a previous article, “Branding 101 - Does YOUR Brand Represent YOUR Business,” we mentioned the idea of branding everything. It reappears here due to it’s importance, overwhelming success and strength in core marketing. From pens to post cards, from document holders to luggage tags, spend the time to make your logo better than your wildest dreams so that when you see it out and about. You will not only be proud, but pleased with the image your business conveys.

Personal branding isn’t expensive and thanks to the internet, you can do short run printing or customization of just about anything, even balloons! Have fun with it and create some fantastic marketing pieces to your marketing puzzle by branding items that normally wouldn’t be. You may be surprised where your next client calls you from.

Your business is you, be proud of it and how it is represented. Until next time, happy travels!