“Can you make the logo bigger?” is a question that has been asked many many times in conversations with our clients. We understand the notions of brands being identified by their logo but in reality, brands weigh more due to a combination of characteristics like purpose, language, tonality and the like. Are you wondering why then invest so much time and effort into the logo? Your logo opens up the ground for your brand identity but the size of your logo will not yield brand equity.
“A logo doesn’t sell (directly), it identifies.” — Paul Rand
The Reason Behind Wanting a Bigger Logo
A request to make your logo bigger is natural as you want your brand to be noticeable. An instinctive reaction to become noticeable is by becoming bigger. Although surveys say – customers don’t react to logos but to the sense of trust. People see tons of visuals around them everyday and your logo is just going to pile on as another one of them. It is more likely that a big logo will bury itself in one’s mind. Your brand will be remembered if you highlight your brand’s purpose and your customer’s benefits through a balance of your brand’s goals and characteristics.
“A prominent logo is better than a dominant logo”
Why bigger isn’t always better when it comes to a logo:
1) Your Purpose Is Magnetic, Not Your Logo
When you look at any information brochure, you look at what the brand offers you and not how big the brand logo is. It is the service/product that makes you approach the brand. This implies that as a customer, the intent of their problem being solved is most significant. Therefore, the crucial element of your brand that turns heads must be positioned in the spotlight. As a brand, you sell your service/product and not your logo.
“A logo is the period at the end of a sentence, not the sentence itself.” — Sagi Haviv
2) A Big Logo Destructs the Design
“Above the fold” is the area of a website that is visible without any scrolling. Needless to say, the content in this area is of greatest value. Attention span of humans is as low as 3-8 seconds and so your visitor will probably lose interest if they don’t find what they are looking for above the fold. If the logo on the top corner is too big, the rest of the content is further pushed underneath, there is a good chance it might go unnoticed. A big logo also pulverizes the design’s layout in most cases. It is the same case in brochures, flyers or any marketing material of that sort.
Design should never say, “Look at me.” It should always say, “Look at this.” — David Craib
We always read from left to right and top to bottom, therefore logos are mostly placed on the top left corners of webpages. This doesn’t mean that positioning it in the right end or center is a bad idea. The logo is most effective usually when positioned in the top left corner, but when it is necessary, placing them on the top-right or center, isn’t a bad idea too. For example, in websites containing arabian language, the language which people read from right to left, it makes sense to place the logo on top right. There is no reason you should break a sweat about your brand’s logo going unnoticed as long as it is simple and clear enough to be memorable.
3) No Whitespace, No Flow
White space in a website (or any creative for that matter) refers to the blank spaces between individual design elements. It is THE MOST important aspect of a design. Like the canvas of a painting, the whitespace holds the design together. When the elements are too big or too many, they have an adverse effect: Your website will not be communicating with the viewer, instead it will feel as if a confused person is trying to convey something. Even if what your website wants to convey is brilliant and captivating, but it sounds like a confused person, nobody will try listening to it. A logo that is bigger than it must be makes the entire design look clumsy which repels attention. A logo too big will also disrupt the flow of the content for the viewer leaving their eyes with no rest. Only the right sized logo will enhance the webpage’s layout as well as focus on the aesthetics.
