Your interior design logo is a direct reflection of you and your brand. If you wanted to hire a photographer but the photos on their website were blurry or out of focus, you wouldn’t hire them, right? As an interior designer or architect, you are being judged on your branding more than many other professions. 

Jason Byer—the Marketing and Partnerships Manager at Crowdspring—shares that strong brands attract more customers, justify premium price points, and build more resilient businesses. Your logo is an important part of your brand identity—is it up to snuff? Find out in this episode of Wingnut Social. 

• [0:58] Wingnut Webinar and Wingnut Academy announcements

• Crowdspring

• Check out the Google Ads webinar on April 26th at 11am

Branding is a loosely used term that people often associate with logos. But branding is every interaction that a customer has with your company, your product, and your service. We know what certain brands deliver, right? Amazon customer service is top-notch. With companies like Starbucks or McDonalds, anywhere you go, you know the product will be consistent. 

It’s not the same for architects and interior designers. There are many unknowns about your brand, your service, your price point, and your success. But a potential client does know you’re trying to sell them something. So you have to think about every touchpoint someone has with you. Your brand is being shaped whether you take an active role or not. 

Your brand identity is everything that people see—logos, backgrounds, and filters on social media, image choices on your website, etc. Your brand identity should be informed by your brand. Because it conveys who you are, an interior designer's logo needs to be spot-on.

The human brain can process images 1,000x faster than text. Many people poorly communicate what they do and who they serve. But a logo communicates that immediately. But what makes your interior design logo shine?

Start with choosing the right color. You can easily Google the meanings of colors. The colors you choose are dictated by your brand and audience. If you want to create trust, you use the color blue. That’s why banks and financial advisors use blue. If you are serving the environment or want to create more profit you might use the color green. Red is used to make people pay attention. You want to think about how colors interact with your brand.

Shape, style, and negative space are other aspects to consider. How do you play with different elements in your design? Will you use hard or soft angles? Are you trying to communicate strength and stability—or a closer connection with clients? 

The actual logo icon can be a wordmark: the name of your business stylized in a unique and custom way. You can pair an icon with your wordmark that allows you to scale it. Why? Because a wordmark doesn’t usually fit well within a square. Logos have to be able to scale if you want them to look professional. A symbol paired with your wordmark works well in this.

All of these things communicate your brand, So where do you start? With a creative brief. A good designer will ask:

• Who are your competitors?

After answering these questions, you’d look at color, shapes, and icons that communicate your message. When you package that together, someone should intuitively understand who your audience is within fractions of a second. That’s what a visual brand identity should do. 

If red is your color, you could make it your schtick—but it may not resonate with how everyone else views the color red. Red signifies danger, it makes you stop. It’s important to leave your preferences at the door and think about your market. What will trigger the right emotion in your customers? 

Jason emphasizes that “Your logo is there to create an emotion. And it’s there to create intrigue. And it’s there to create consistency across all of your marketing.”

How do you properly complete a brand refresh? Why should you hire a graphic designer instead of trying to create your logo yourself? Why should you avoid a logo generator at all costs? Jason answers all of your need-to-know questions about creating an interior design logo in this episode of Wingnut Social.  

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