A great logo shows the world what you stand for, makes people remember your brand, and helps potential customers understand if your product is right for them. Logos communicate all of that through color, shape, and other design elements. Taking your branding further starts with understanding these key aspects.
Understanding the Elements of Logo Design
There are several elements that makes up a good logo, and it is important to understand these elements.
Types of Logos
There are 7 different types of logos. They’re all a combination of image and typography, but each gives your brand a distinct feel.
Color Choice
Choosing the right logo colors can highlight your business’ strengths and help you attract the right customers. The colors are neither super-saturated nor dull.
The brand color palette is comprehensive. It includes a primary palette to be used widely, as well as a versatile range of supporting colors to be used as accents and where a wider range of tones is called for.
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Shape and Form
The shape of your logo can tell customers if your company is friendly or serious, scientific or artistic, traditional or cutting edge.
Typography
The text in the logo is set in Freight, the family of typefaces used throughout the museum exhibitions. The new logo brings unity to the museum's branding by using Freight, the same typeface used throughout the museum exhibitions.
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Maintaining Logo Consistency
Maintaining consistency is key to a strong brand identity. Here are some guidelines to ensure your logo is used correctly across different platforms:
- Do not change the appearance of the logo.
- Do not rearrange or resize any of the parts of the logo.
- Make sure that the logo appears over a background that provides ample contrast.
Logo Variations and Usage
Different versions of the logo are appropriate in different contexts. The full logo is preferred wherever possible, but the icon may be used by itself in some special cases.
Also note that the sun icon in the Smithsonian lockups should always be white. The three-tiered icon may be used alone on the museum's official social media accounts and in some special cases (for example, promotional materials like buttons and lanyards).
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If you need to include both the Smithsonian brand and the tagline, use the tagline lockup and include the Smithsonian logo elsewhere in the design. Note that the text in the vertical logo is solid, not cut out to reveal the background.
The logo may appear in black, the brand purple, or white (reversed). The entire design should always be one color.
File Formats
Using the correct file format is crucial for maintaining the quality of your logo.
- Use vector files (EPS or SVG) when you use the logo in print. Vector files use mathematical data instead of pixels to create an image, which means that the logo can be resized without appearing blurry or pixelated.
- While vector files are the least prone to error, raster images are sometimes necessary to use, especially on the web. PNG is preferred to JPG because PNG files allow transparency. This means that a PNG logo file can appear over different backgrounds without a white rectangle behind it, which can be distracting.
Identifying Outdated Logos
Materials may need to be updated with the new branding. A quick way to tell whether a logo needs to be replaced with the new version is to look at the letter "M" in "MUSEUM." If the top of the "M" is pointy, it needs to be replaced.
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