Branding Vs Logo Design: Which Is More Important For Your Business?

There is plenty of confusion surrounding branding and logo designing. Often, people jumble them together as the same. But, the truth is, they are different from one another.

To develop a cohesive brand, you must know about the differences, and how each acts as a pillar for the bigger brand picture. Branding vs logo design, which is more important? Find out below.

What is Branding?

 

Branding is defined as an active process of shaping your customers’ perceptions of your brand. This is the basic definition. Every step that a brand takes to generate awareness and build a reputation around its company and offerings are all part of the realm of branding. A company’s branding efforts may not always wholly translate into their customers’ minds, but the more cohesive and deliberate they are, the better the chance of success.

Unlike a brand, branding is quite active and encompasses both decisions and activities that strongly shape a company’s identity. Branding includes a company identity’s most basic elements, starting with the values they stand for. The process incorporates logo design, selecting color palettes, and the way the brand mark is deployed.

It additionally covers a company’s voice – the way it communicates with customers, the words used, and the tone used while ‘speaking’. On a bigger scale, branding also includes how advertising and marketing elements are designed, how they are implemented, and where they are showcased. While we are at the topic of branding vs logo design, you must know about the advantages of branding at first.

Why Is Branding So Critical Towards Your Business Success?

 

• Helps You Stand Out From Competitors

Irrespective of what type of company you are running, the industry you are part of, or what kind of customers you are targeting, you must know how to tackle competition. Branding helps you establish how you are unique, special, and different. It shows your customers why they should prefer you over your competitors.

• Builds Brand Recognition

If you wish to build a successful brand, you have to be recognizable. Appropriate branding through website creation, logo designing, and other assets helps you create a distinct style, and it also enhances your brand recognition in the market.

• Sparks a Connection With Your Prospects and Turns Them into Loyal Clients

Successful businesses are known to foster an emotional connection with their audience. That emotional connection transforms a prospect into a client and eventually into a brand enthusiast. Branding helps you do this. Various brand strategies help you connect with the audiences deeply.

• Creates a Constant Brand Experience For Your Clients

For succeeding, you must provide a constant experience for your customers however they interact with you. Branding lets you control how prospects perceive and experience your brand.

These are some ways branding is important to your business. Now, take a look at the concept of the logo. It will help you take a stand on branding vs logo design and understand which should be your priority.

An Insight into Logo Design

A logo is a graphic and/or typographic symbol that identifies an organization. It is one of the most important elements of an organization’s ‘brand identity’, and facilitates its recognition, differentiation, as well as recall. A logo is a tangible way to express the crucial characteristics and essence of a brand.

In simpler words, a logo is a company’s face. So, it needs to be unique, compelling, meaningful and also convey the company’s vital information. On top of this, a logo acts as an organization’s signature or a visual shorthand. You may consider a good logo as your vital asset and a fine way to help differentiate your brand from competitors and communicate its essence to the market.

Too many people think of them as art since they are visual objects. However, contrary to popular opinion, logo design is not art but a strategic tool. Professional logo designers treat it the same, which allows a company to be identified in the vast world they operate in. Of course, you can have a good looking logo, but that ought to be a secondary factor while doing logo designing. Identification comes first.

Truth be told, a logo design should be free of hidden meanings. This is the mark of an ideal business logo developed by the finest logo design services in India. The main focus should lie on identification. Any association or meaning will come with time via interaction with the logo.

Why Business Logo Design is Crucial to Your Organization?

 

Everyone wants a unique logo design. Do you know why? It makes a great first impression! Every brand knows how important it is to make a first good impression on their customers. As per a study, if a brand wants to develop loyalty, the initial impression is very important. On this note, let us look at the importance of wonderful logo design.

• Facilitate an Emotional Connection With Prospects

People should immediately connect with your brand upon seeing your logo. Wonderful logo design helps enhance consumers’ memory of your business and how it makes them feel.

In case of a positive feeling, and whether the person is an employee or a potential client, the logo will emotionally connect him/her with your brand. This is why logo designing is considered to be a vital element of your branding strategy.

• Professionalism

This is another splendid advantage of logos. They convey your brand’s professional approach towards conducting business. Normally, people associate a logo with a particular company’s service quality.

A good amount of buyers strictly deal with a reliable business. They love to associate with a brand that has a brilliant logo, excellent website design, and other marketing elements. These elements convey a powerful message of quality and assurance. Thus, an attractive and professional logo wonderfully signifies your business.

• Maximum Return on Investment

Hiring a logo designing team may seem unnecessary, especially if it is a startup. However, it is a worthy and long-term investment. In case your logo looks dull, your company’s reputation goes down. An engaging logo will entice your customers and they will start having faith in you. Also, a fine logo helps to satisfy your customers’ expectations.

• Online Appeal

Today, it is very important to establish a solid online presence. With a distinctive logo, this is much easier to do. Irrespective of how creative or innovative website design you have, it is your logo that will differentiate you from the competitors.

With just a few seconds to catch your prospect’s interest, an appealing logo is needed to draw them in. Also, including your logo into your email signature will provide you extra exposure.

So, these are the few benefits of good logo designing! Now, let us look at what is most important: branding or logo designing.

Branding Vs Logo Design: What Matters The Most?

 

So by now, we have learned a brand serves to be the foundation of a company, and the logo is a visual shortcut to the brand trademark. A strong brand and a compelling logo together help you position your business and drive its growth. But, what people eventually think and feel about your brand, impacts your business success more.

Let’s understand this with a few examples. You are surely aware of a few firms that have the utmost creative and recognizable logos. But you hold no respect for them either because of your own experience or some other negative causes. Likewise, there are many companies you love doing business with because of their product or service, despite their logos not being that catchy.

As a logo is more tangible it is the place most entrepreneurs focus when they want to make necessary changes in their company. But, this is like prioritizing the cart before the horse. Maybe they need a new logo, but not like this.

Ideally, logo designing ought to be the outcome of a broader branding process that aims at exploring the company vision and how customer perceptions match or diverge from what they think of themselves internally. The insights must be used to fine-tune their offerings, imagery, words, actions, etc, and become what they want their customers to perceive them as.

Most businesses create a logo just as a random esthetic activity and later, try to shore it up with a strategy. Usually, this is described as a veneer instead of a new company voice or a compelling strategic change. Most people who feel their logo is outdated, and are thinking about a “rebrand”, are actually motivated by bigger issues and opportunities for their business.

The Final Verdict

 

Instead of branding vs logo design, think of it as brand and logo hand-in-hand. The actual power to be leveraged behind an awesome logo is not in the logo’s design and creativity but the uniqueness, definition, clarity, and articulation of the bigger brand behind it. Often, a logo is described as the tip of the brand iceberg. It is the visible portion above the waterline, but what it represents lies beneath, and it is way much bigger.

To sum it up, it is not about branding vs logo design. You need both strong branding and excellent logo designing to take your business to greater heights of success.