Target Audience

A logo to attract a 20-something to mid-30’s audience is going to be different than those trying to capture a more mature 50-65 year old audience. There are many factors that go into this other than just age though, such as gender; do they need a more feminine logo with curvy lines, or something more masculine with sharp, straight lines? What type of lifestyle do their clients lead? Are they the stay at home soccer mom or are they an oilfield guy working out in the field who has a ton of disposable cash? Are they married, widowed, divorced, single?Where do their clients come from? Are they local or typically coming from out of town? 

There are so many things to consider because each business and industry are so wildly different. We can also capture something that blankets a larger audience, but typically when you are more specific with who you are looking to attract to your business, more than just your logo falls into place. 

Font Choice

Most clients have no idea where to start when it comes to fonts. There are your more widely known and generic fonts like Arial, Gotham and Helvetica that are used very often in logos but also just in documents in general. By finding out your ideal client prior to talking about fonts, we can narrow down to a select few that we think would work really well for the audience they are trying to capture. 

As designers, we also have to choose fonts that don’t compete with one another for attention, but also are not so different that people don’t know where to focus. The key here is to find a nice balance somewhere in the middle while still maintaining a focus on the clients style. 

Script fonts and really curly, curvy fonts are typically categorized as being more feminine and wouldn’t be used for a construction company. Sharp, modern, clean line fonts would be more fitting because that is what people are looking for in a renovation, something modern and clean. 

Color Choice

Our favorite part! Color is the deepest dive in our discovery process. Every color has implications and needs to be picked carefully to install certain emotions and bring nuance to your message with the use of shade and tone. Bright and bold colours are typically more brash but are becoming more commonplace in logo designs, while a muted tone conveys a more sophisticated image but runs the risk of being overly low-key. 

When creating a new logo design, we typically have business owners tell us what their favorite color is as a baseline. In a standard brand guidelines, we provide 5 colours: A bold one, a complimentary one to the bold color, a neutral, a dark and a light color. 

The bold color is usually the business owners favorite color. Their eyes light up when they see things that are this color and they want to wear this color all the time. Now, this color isn’t necessarily the primary color in their logo, but it’s usually the color that stands out the most. When creating their logo, it may not be included in the logo itself but can be used as a background color in general or typically the background in a crest style logo. We don’t usually need much from a client besides their primary color choice. Some clients who already have a color palette, sometimes makes our jobs easier, but in some cases does make things trickier. For instance, they may not have chosen complimentary colours, so with minor tweaks to the provided palette, we are able to come to an agreeable color palette. In the cases that clients come to us with a very “industry standard” color palette, we quickly learn that they don’t want a design that is too out of the box. So there are benefits on both sides. 

At Retro Graphics, the last thing that we want to provide a client with is a painfully generic, industry standard brand. Think of your friendly neighborhood yoga studio. Do you immediately see seafoam green or light blue? Maybe a lotus flower? In the health and wellness sector the lotus flower is extremely overused. We’re not saying that your logo must not include elements that are industry standard, but we like to think outside of the box and push the boundaries for industry standards with our designs. There are still limitations though. Aggressive colours like red and black wouldn’t be very fitting for the aforementioned yoga studio, but rather a coral and emerald green with gold accents to bring in notes of luxurious-ness and calm. 

Avoid the Obvious

Aren’t you tired of seeing the muscly arm for a gym logo or a steaming cup of coffee for a coffee shop? There are so many more options than that! Let’s dive into gym’s as an example:

Gyms are usually more bold on the color side, so why be boring with their icon? Don’t get me wrong the muscly arm does make sense, you don’t go to the gym to gain fat, you go to gain muscle. Why not do something different to make your gym stand out just a little but more! 

When you look at brands in any specific industry, you will always see overlaps. There’s no avoiding it, but why not do something a little bit different and out of the box to make your brand stand out. 

Keep it Simple

You don’t always need elements in your logo illustrating every single thing that your company does beside an icon and ALL the words that make up your business name. It’s just too much! 

It’s too much for people to look at and comprehend. There is so much more fun in capturing someone’s interest with your logo and being able to have this almost mysterious ness that entices people to want to learn more about your company. You can dive into what your company can offer them in your marketing literature or meetings with your potential clients.