What is hip? What is cool? Do you want to know what the essence of being awesome is, especially when it comes to designing and branding your photography business? Yes of course you do!
Lucky for you, that’s what I’m here to talk about.
If you look at any major business out there and think of their logos, what comes to mind? Apple, Nike, Pepsi, Mercedes, Google, ebay, CNN, the list goes on. What makes any of these cool? To me, it’s the simple fact that they are all simple and easy to remember. When I was in school I was taught the lesson KISS. It stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. It’s really true! Simple is cool.
Another thing is that they are usually easy to remember. Some of the logos are just a simple object like Apple, and some are just a word like ebay. Other use a combination. The ones that are the easiest to remember are just one or the other and you don’t need a word to remember that the Apple logo stands for Apple Computers.
The best way to get a logo that you’re happy with is to start brainstorming as much as possible. Just get to work sketching down a bunch of ideas on a piece of paper and do it as fast as you can. You’ll come up with a bunch of garbage but you’ll also get a few gems in there.
There are many things that can be seen as cool, and many things that can be seen as totally uncool. There are however several rules that you can apply when creating a logo for your company.
Rules For Designing A Logo For Your Photography Business
First off, “Form follows Function”. This law of design means that for whatever you are designing, you should make sure that the form that you give your creation lends itself to the function of said creation.
By following this school of thought you wouldn’t design a logo for a business targeted to old people that is hard to read. You wouldn’t design a simple and boring logo for a business about something that is super exciting. It is imperative that you make sure that your logo design supports the function of your business.
Secondly your logo should versatile. What does this mean you ask? Well, simply put, it should be able to be used in any form of media. This could be on the web, in print, on the face of a building, on a T-shirt, etc etc etc. The more simple you make your design the easier it will be to use it anywhere.
Thirdly, as just mentioned, your logo should be simple. It’s easy for beginning designers to go all out and design something that is really intricate and fancy. You might think it’s cool because you’ve spent a lot of time brainstorming for ideas and drawing tons of sketches, but in the end something that is really complicated is just going to confuse people.
Finally your logo should stand the test of time. This means that you shouldn’t outdate it right from the start with a date or mention of something that is going to clearly give its age away. You want to be recognized as a company or business that is active and relative any time, not a company that was cool and worthwhile 20 years ago.
There are plenty of other guidelines that you can use to guide yourself in designing a logo, but these are the main ones that I like to use.
Branding Your Photography Business
Many people get logos and branding confused. They are similar but they are not the same thing. A brand is the larger idea or image of you business. You can even say it is your reputation. When you think of buying products from a store, the brand name products are always more expensive than the generic brands. Why? Because people trust the brand names in any particular niche more than they trust generic brands. Not only do the have more trust but also they often have the “cool factor” going for them.
So creating a logo for your photography business is only the first step in creating a brand name. You need to take the next steps and start to create a reputation for yourself. You want to be known as the photo company that goes above and beyond the call of duty in whatever photo niche you are a part of whether that be wedding photography, sports photography or travel photography or anything else.
The best way to begin this is to make sure that you offer a quality service or product. There’s nothing worse than getting a bad rap right off at the start. It’s easy to ruin your reputation and can take years to repair it. In some cases the damage can be irreparable.
Don’t undersell yourself. If you set your prices too low, people will believe that you are the budget photography business and that your quality matches with your prices. It’s much better to be known as a little more expensive because your quality is so much better, than it is to be known as the cheap guys who do anything for a buck. Even if you have good quality and low prices people won’t necessarily understand this. It’s the old adage at work “You get what you pay for”.
