Even designers and agencies seem to be confused about this critical distinction, so I’m not surprised when clients are confused.

Often when clients refer to “our brand” they are talking about their logo, not their brand. And a number of designers, agencies, web developers, marketing firms, and public relations firms claim they “do branding,” but more often than not they’re actually referring to logo design.

What is a logo?

A logo (also known as a mark, brand mark, trademark, wordmark, logotype, symbol, or brand icon) is a graphic and/or typographic mark that identifies your organization. It is only one element, albeit a very important element, of your organization’s brand identity and helps with recognition, differentiation, and recall. 

 

Logos are a tangible way to express some of the essence and characteristics of your brand, but there’s no way a logo can represent or illustrate everything about your brand. Instead a logo serves as a visual shorthand or the organization’s signature. You can think of the logo as the “brand box” where people can mentally store all that perceptual information (both positive and negative) for later recall.

 

A good logo is an important brand asset and a way to help differentiate you from your competition and communicate the essence of your brand to the market.

 

So what is a brand?

One of the best definitions of a brand is from Marty Neumeier’s book, The Brand Gap: “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.” Simple, right? And so much more than the logo on your business card.

 

See my next post on branding…..