If you need to design a clothing company logo, where do you begin?
A lot of different things go into creating a new logo or redesigning an old one. The clothing business is competitive, and a logo matters. Eight years ago, Gap attempted to redesign its classic logo with disastrous results.
It cost the company millions in design costs, focus groups, and bad press. The company underestimated the attachment people had to its logo, and the reaction was so strong, the company reverted to its old logo just a few days later.
That’s the potential impact your clothing logo has on your customers. How do you design a logo that stands out from the crowd? Read on to find out.
The Most Important Step Isn’t The Design
You’ll be surprised to learn that the most important step in designing a logo isn’t designing the logo itself, but rather the planning and research that happens beforehand.
What you learn in the research and planning phase will inform your designs, and actually, make it easier to apply design principles because you know exactly the look and feel you want to create.
Before you start designing, you have to have in-depth knowledge of two things: your company and your customers.
Knowing Your Company
We’re not looking at sales figures or anything like that. Rather, we’re going to look at your company’s vision and mission. You want to make sure that the reason why your company exists aligns with your company’s brand and your customers.
If your company’s mission is to create upscale business clothing for older women, you want to be sure that your logo and brand reflect that.
One easy way to go about this is to describe your clothing company as a person. Is it a man or a woman? What do they wear? What do they drive? What is a typical day like? Treating your company as a person will help you describe what your company is about.
Once you know why your company exists, you want to be able to describe the brand’s promise in a few words. For example, Nike’s mission and brand promise are to “bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete.”
Volvo’s is to make driving safer. What does your company promise its customers?
Who Are Your Customers?
When you have your company’s mission and brand promise down, you want to make sure that you understand your customers as well.
When they’re looking at different clothing companies, what do they want? Are they shopping for value or status?
You need to be sure that your customers’ expectations line up with your brand promise. That’s how you’ll create loyal customers who are attached to your brand.
Know What Makes Good (and Bad) Design
When you’re designing your clothing company logo, you have to know what goes into a good and bad design. When people look at a logo, they subconsciously process the colors, fonts, shapes, and symbols to create meaning.
Those meanings may vary across cultures, which is why it’s so important to know your audience. If your customers are largely based in the U.S. and Canada, they’ll perceive colors and symbols the same way.
Color
Color is one of the bigger impacts on design. Different colors are processed in the brain and they have psychological associations with different emotions.
Blue is used throughout many classic brands. Blue is associated with safety, reliability, and security. That’s why so many companies from IBM to Gap use it.
Black is a color of power, mystery, and strength. It’s used a lot in retail for this reason. Black can also be associated with sadness and death, so you have to be careful about how you use it and the color combinations you use.
Font
The fonts that you use also have an impact. Block fonts tend to convey something that’s bold or strong. Retro fonts can take people back to another time, as their childhood.
Some fonts are playful, and others are more conservative. You want to choose a font that matches your clothing brand’s promise.
A good example is a logo for this company. They sell modern clothing, and the fonts chosen reflect that.
Symbols
Even the symbols and lines that you use in your logo have an effect on people. A round logo can be seen as warm or soft. A logo with direct lines has the perception of durability and reliability.
The question for you is how approachable is your brand? Do you want to be seen as reliable or flexible?
You can do additional research to scope out what your competition has for a logo. Note what fonts they use and what they’re trying to communicate with their logos. You can use this as an opportunity to position your clothing company in a way that the competition doesn’t.
Doing competitive research gives you additional inspiration before you design your logo.
Designing Your Logo
You’re finally ready to start designing your logo. You want to start by brainstorming ideas and designing different versions of your clothing company logo. This is actually the easy part when you take the time to do research into your company, your competition, and your target audience.
You can describe exactly what you want your logo to accomplish, and you can test your logo to make sure it does that.
Print out several versions of your logo and ask potential customers and current customers what they think. You can also check with your employees.
Once you test out your logo, you should have one that stands out more than the others. That’s the final version you should go with.
A Clothing Company Logo That Stands Out
When you’re designing a clothing company logo, you have to take the time to research and plan before you start to design. Those are the most important steps you can take because those steps will inform the rest of your design.
You can then apply the principles of design to connect with your customers and create an unforgettable logo and brand that people can relate to.
Once you do those things, the rest is easy, just brainstorm your ideas, test them, choose the one that works best.
Are you ready to get started? You can start designing your logo using our online tool today.
