One of the most important customizable features you can put on your WordPress site is your logo. Every website needs a great logo to help it connect with customers and showcase your brand’s personality. But “great” is an overused word. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what it actually means for a logo design.

Creating the overarching concept

Company Folders, a printing and design firm, conducted a study of popular brands to determine why their logos worked. The findings showed that good logos share 12 traits that help customers connect with the brand on a mental and emotional level.

Some of those traits can best be described as abstract—they’re overarching concepts that help create the structure of the logo. These include adjectives like innovative, unique, simple, and timeless.

If you want to see a great example of this, you have only to look to athletic brand Nike. Their simple “swoosh” mark is the only logo of its kind in the running shoe industry, so it’s definitely unique and innovative. Yet it’s stayed relevant to multiple generations of runners since the 1970s, making it a timeless design.

Picking the right design components

Once you’ve settled on the overarching theme  you want to emphasize in your design, you can start choosing elements to build the logo you have in mind. These elements include everything from typography and shapes to colors and spacing.

Remember that you’re striving to send one clear brand message to your audience—so each design element should point to that message. If you want to say you’re a young and fun company, using a black logo won’t be the best idea. But black is perfect if you’re trying to seem serious and professional.

Getting extra help

You know your brand better than anyone. But sometimes it’s tough to transfer your brand’s qualities from your mind into an image on paper. If you need help, hire a designer from Company Folders to create the perfect logo for you.