05 Sep Updating Your Logo
Brand Refresh: How do you know when it’s time to update your logo?
Besides your company name and perhaps your website, your logo is one of the most important assets your crafty company can have. It’s critical, then, that your logos are always putting your best foot forward in terms of your brand. Sometimes, your logos need an update and it’s difficult to know exactly when that is or how to update it in a way that improves your brand image.
Just like other fashion trends, logo styles evolve. That gradient font with the drop shadow was great in the early aughts but now, it just says “tired and worn out”. Another reason for a change in the logo is that business has shifted– possibly becoming more complex or more simplified. Perhaps the design elements that once represented your knitting only store now needs to expand to become knitting, needlepoint, and weaving. Lastly, another reason we hear from clients needing a logo change is that they feel their logo looks just like everyone else. In this example, I merely googled “yarn store logo” and found these three examples in the search result. As you can see below, there is not much difference between them and if your customer was recalling your brand as “That company with the yarn ball and knitting needles logo”….. These brands are not going to stand out from that crowd and neither would you.
How do you change your logo?
At our agency, we are well-versed in helping crafting companies update their brand identity and walk them through the process of freshening up a logo design. Review these client case studies to see if you recognize yourself in any of these scenarios?
Bagsmith: When Becca Smith started her company, she had a family relative sketch out and design this first logo (left) . For years, she said, “it was easy and it worked to convey our business”. Once she expanded her reach and her business was more mature, she needed a new look. In the course of just one week, our team crowdsourced a design on 99designs.com to get a new design that Becca was thrilled with (right) because it better represented the new stitching and weaving aspects of her business.
In another example, our client Brooklyn Haberdashery needed a brand new design. She had only worked up some sketches of her ideas and sent them to us:
For this project, we also went to 99designs.com and secured a special kind of contest that only offers the project to an elite group of designers. We got some incredible designs seen here. The rendering of the Brooklyn Bridge blew us away and became the winning design:
Should you use 99designs.com?
Crowdsourcing a design has many advantages. You tend to get more designs from a wide perspective of interpretations. Turnaround time is very fast with all contests finishing within a 7-day window. When a client needs a logo design we do not always utilize 99designs. Some people don’t want to hire designers who work on speculation–which I totally understand. For those willing to work in this way, the platform is best for clients who do not always know what they want in the final design and they want to see a variety of concepts.
By working with our agency, I act as the liaison to the contestants, which makes the process very smooth and easy for clients. We meet daily as the contest can move quickly and I act in a consulting role to keep us moving forward and steer the client to the best designs.
Because Stitchcraft Marketing has successfully completed many contests and our reputation is strong, our open offers tend to get MANY more submissions from top designers. We also manage all the payments and file transfer work.
Sometimes a client has a really good idea of what they want OR they just need a little polish on an existing design. In that case, we work hourly with our in-house graphic designer. Here are examples of some of our designer’s logos:
No Comments