Colonel Sanders’ red and white bucket of chicken, the Golden Arches, the dairy cow on Borden’s cheese, and the gold medallion on Campbell’s soup cans all have one thing in common: doodles. When the small business owner or the home based business owner want to get their brand or their logo into the public view, they design a business card, flier or container to hold their product. The small business and home based business owner spend time designing their logo, knowing the public associates brand with logo. How the owner designs his logo will ensure his customer base remembers him.
In order to design a logo, the small business owner or the home based business owner will search the web for ideas, locate cartoon characters, scan greeting cards, compare major brands in the supermarket and doodle to get ideas. Ideas can come from the oddest of places such as bumper stickers on cars, pizza boxes or Tshirt designs. Logos on X-Box games, competitors’ fliers or silly TV commercials can give a business owner ideas. They know that people react to visual stimuli, figuring that a catchy logo will associate them with their product or service in their client’s eyes.
A logo is so much more than just a drawing. A logo is about color, shape and size. It’s about appealing and comfort. People reach for the red can of Coke because they know the quality of the product is outstanding and the comfort of its taste suits them. People snatch up a box of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix because they know without a doubt the pancakes are going to be good and the face on the box is familiar and they trust it. Every color known to man has been used, singly and in combination, to attract the attention of buyers, but the color used by most is red. Red is the color of danger, of fast cars and alluring lingerie, of traffic signs and buckets of chicken. Instantly recognizable even to the color-blind, people react to red.
How the small business owner or home based business owner designs their logo should be what catches their own eye, makes them smile or makes them tilt their heads to the side in thought. Its color should be what attracts them, secure in the knowledge that it will attract their clientele as well. Its shape and size should represent realization to their clientele, such as a lightening bolt or a swirl would suggest weather or nature and instant recognition. Their doodles should appeal to their sense of humor or their sense of the absurd or sometimes their doodles should simply satisfy something inside them.
