Don’t Put Your Logo Everywhere

Logo fatigue—we’re coining it. It’s when a business has the logo featured on the building, the door, the wall behind the desk, the stickers on the desk, the employee’s shirt, and the screensaver of the monitor. For some reason these companies seem to also have plain white walls and default everything else: carpet, lighting, and so on.

A brand presenting itself like this is a missed opportunity.

Only showing off a logo is like only giving your name in an interview. There is no hint as to what industry the brand is a part of, what the personality of the team is like, the values it holds, and the kind of tone they present while engaging with people.

Logos are symbols to remember a company by; a reference point to recall the name and service. They are an invitation to discover the whole story of your brand.

Understanding the brand and its offerings, its people, comes from the rest of what we like to call your brand essentials toolkit. It’s the colors, fonts, illustrations and graphics, patterns and textures, photos and videos–all used in different ways on different assets. Assets like your website, physical space, printed materials, and even swag are storytelling and informational moments to communicate to your customers. These are when you’re saying something like, “this is who we are, this is who we are for, and this is the value we add.”

It’s the difference between Starbucks and Dunkin donuts: one is playful and vibrant while the other is serious and almost luxurious. Or Droid vs Apple: one is designed to be customizable and complex while the other is simplified and intentionally sleek. We all know how to notice the differences between brands within an industry in order to help us choose which one we want to go to, and it takes more than the logos.

Being intentional about the customer experience and the assets you’re using to communicate results in providing cues to help the people who align with your mission and your values find you.

Some of the favorite brands we’ve worked with have executed this in unique ways.

It’s places like The Basement, taking a historic building and offering a new life to both the small business owners selling from the location and the visitors who come in to shop and dine. It’s connecting the old and the new, connecting people to place, and people to more people.

The Basement achieved this with a history wall, providing context to downtown Reno, the historic building, and the continued growth of the city. Photos, text, architectural plans, and post cards are presented among copper pipes from the building to create linear direction as folks move down the hallway.

The brand has a graphic library featuring graphic elements from the mailing service, celebrating the building’s history as a post office. Featured at a grand scale and vibrant colors, they tell a story, while offering a place to take photos and showcase the space.

Last, architecturally, the brand shows off how the building was built, featuring catwalk security hallways to ensure employees weren’t stealing the money being sent during the depression, allowing customers to learn and be connected to the history their city holds.

Places like Kin in Boise showcasing their logo as a part of the shelving behind the bar. And connecting the linear style through interior elements like the tile work. They applied abstract window graphics allowing light to peek through, displaying additional linear patterns in the space, almost flirting with customers as the light dances across the room.

Photo from Kin’s Website: ART HAUS Cocktail Bar by KIN - Cocktails, Wine, Beer, Ramen …​

As an upscale restaurant, their space and their brand features dark, luxurious colors, bringing sophistication and focus to their plates, which allow the vibrant pops of colorful food and drinks to contrast the room.

Before they opened this restaurant, they were forced to create a temporary pop-up bar, to hold their liquor licenses while they had construction and other permitting delays. Being forced to leverage a space they would not be renovating, the Michelin-star chefs found themselves at a crossroads, as the interior was dressed with generic, residential chandeliers over cheetah-print booths and faux-snake-skin leather armchairs, with brown laminate countertops. Leaning into satire and a minimal budget, they found mix-matched crystal glasses and landscape paintings in gaudy gold frames to decorate the space with. They replaced the furniture they could with vintage velvet armchairs and sofas, curating an experience that said focus on a few of these things while we lose you in a unique cocktail, and please laugh about the rest as we work through the details of our next project.

These brands are all telling stories and helping customers, creating memories at different points in the customer journey. With each one they understand what the brand offers, values, and who it’s for. Every moment new information and experiences are logged in their minds leads to the brand being remembered, with the logo being the beacon of a greater narrative.

Who is your audience? What kind of experience can you curate to share what you care about for their sake? How can you share your mission without literally displaying it in the wall?

Send me a message with the ideas you have. I want to hear them and to help you inform, excite, and invite more customers to your business.