What’s bugging you?
Having a versatile logo is one of the most important things about having a logo in general. You want a logo that can be printed in a magazine ad and embroidered on a shirt; a logo that can be read just as easily printed on a business card as it would a billboard. You want a logo that can go with your brand, wherever you want it to go.
Imagine, for a moment, a hypothetical logo. This logo has a rather large graphic at the top with a small wordtype underneath. This logo will look fine, as long as it’s scaled up. Once you start to scale it down, it becomes unreadable. If your logo only works on billboards, it is a bad logo.
A good example of this in the television industry, as that is what this who thing is supposed to be based on, is the use of “bugs” on tv stations. A “bug” is the small logo that identifies the station you are watching that is ever present in the corner of your tv screen. Some, more famous, examples of stations that use recognizable bugs are NBC, CBS, The Disney Channel, and USA.
Pay attention to these bugs some time. It’s not often that people actually, consciously attempt to do so. One thing that all of these stations have in common when it comes to their bugs is that all of their bugs are fairly simplistic. They don’t try to cram text in or use overly flowery graphics that wouldn’t read at the small size. This makes the bug identifiable to anyone just clicking through the stations, at many different resolutions and, as a result, in many different applications. This logic can carry over in to your logo design.
The difficulty in trying to create a logo that is versatile is in creating a logo that is both simple and different. The old saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. You want to create a graphic that is wholly new and original, but, at the same time, you do not want to create something so overly complex that it loses its versatility.
Then there’s the concept of demographic versatility. There was a recent study that was done that looked at how our minds responded to the recognizability of a face. The more complex the portrait that was presented to the participant, the less likely they were able to relate what it was. The more complex and highly rendered the face was, the more personal attributes were given to it, making it less identifiable to the study participant. The completely simplistic and iconic “smiley face” was recognized and related by every participant in the study. Essentially, the highly rendered face only represented a couple people that look similar to that drawing, while the “smiley face” could be anyone. This is sort of a long way of saying that simplicity gives versatility by making a logo more identifiable in more situations to more people. Certain cultures may have a different opinion or cultural significance that they give to certain symbols. Your logo is hardly versatile if the concept of your logo excludes a viable demographic for your business.
Consider versatility in design when you are working. When you’re designing, take a moment to scale some copies of your logo to varying degrees and see how they read. Try to break your logo down into universally recognizable shapes to make it more informative for all people. Watch television.