Brand Development for Small Businesses

Developing a brand is a complex task and it takes time and resources to work on an effective brand development strategy. It is a common misconception among the small business owners that things such as a brand development strategy, a marketing plan, an online web presence, are fancy tools for large corporations and small businesses can do without them.

Well surely small businesses can survive without a brand development strategy, an effective marketing plan and a business website, but just barely. As a small business owner you need to think about your business and where you see it in the future. For smart business owners with great plans and an optimistic approach, expansion is the only way to go. For the growth and success of your small business you must compete with large competitors and to do that you will need all the above mentioned tools.

Another common misconception among small business owners is that these effective promotional tools cost a lot of money. Well of course these tools will cost you money but not that much. Thanks to the new technology and the competition in the marketing industry. There is plenty of business for everyone and it is easy for you to hire design agencies to help you with your plans.

Brand development is building an identity for your business and products, and creating awareness about your business and products in the target markets. The first step that you would take in this direction is getting a logo design for your business. A logo design is a pictorial representation of your business. It has proved itself as one of the most effective brand development tools. Fortunately, gone are the days when you had to hire expansive illustrators to draw you a logo design. Today there are affordable logo design services provider that can help you come up with a unique and custom logo design for your business.

There are many benefits of a logo design. First of all it helps you with your brand building strategy by giving your business an image and an emblem that can become your business’s identity among potential buyers. Secondly, it helps promote your business in an indirect but effective manner. As they say, that a picture is worth a thousand words. A quality logo design can communicate with its audiences and can deliver your message more effectively. An image is much easy to remember and recall when needed.

Making your Logo Design Famous

Ok so you have hired one of the coolest logo design companies and has acquired a really cool logo that you want to show off. Since a logo design plays a very important role in brand development you might want people to notice your logo design, talk about it, remember it and love it.


To make people do all that the first thing you need to do is to increase the visibility of your logo design to your existing customers and also increase the visibility of your logo in all your marketing and advertising campaigns. Many small and large businesses and even some of the most popular brands of our times use this technique even though their brands are already recognized through out the world. Once such example is Pepsi and Coca Cola who use their logo designs almost every where they can get their hands on.

As a small business this practice would be beneficial for you as well. What you need to do is to make sure that your logo design is printed on your stationary, on your work premises, if your business is related to a niche where you have to deal with customers face to face like a restaurant or a store then you should place your logo on your shopping bags, on your walls, on the uniforms of your staff and every where.

Other places where you should use your logo design include your website, your social media profiles (if you do social media marketing, if you don't do that perhaps its time to think about it.), your online and offline advertisements. Remember your logo design is worth nothing if it is not properly implemented.

Delta Airlines Logo

This is the logo of Delta Airlines. The key features of this logo design are that it is a dimensional logo. Uses the colors Blue, White and Red to represent the flag of the United States. Typography is an elegant authoritative Sans style font in all Capitalized letters.

on the right hand there are two triangles making a third one. But if you look closely there are more than three triangles in this shape. The shape of these triangles represents the aerodynamic shape of modern aircraft.

The Transformation of Canon Logo

This is the world famous, globally recognized logo of Canon. Founded in Tokyo, Japan; Canon was first named The Kwanon which referred to the buddhist goddess of mercy. The logo had the image of the Goddess and the brand name at the bottom. You might think that this is a bad logo design, but actually it was not so bad at that time. The word Camera had to to go in logo to tell the people about the product. At that time cameras were not a common household item.  The circles represnt the lens, the goddess of mercy in focus and brand name at the bottom.

Later, the company decided to change its name to Canon for marketing purposes in global markets. At first the logo was lighter, the font were more stylized. Until the late sixties Canon remain focused on researching the imaging technology and improving the cameras. But as the company started manufacturing other products the transformation of the logo also began. However, this transformation was precisely the neccessity. Because the company now had to print logo on different objects, on different type of media and had to reach out to different kind of cultures and people. The subtle changes in the design were actually to fullfill those needs.

Later in 1951, the typeface became bolder. After that, it kept getting bolder each decade. The logo also reflects Canon's transformation from just a camera manufacturer to a global brand name in multimedia, electrical, retail, medical and office equipment. Canon uses the logo in two forms the full black and white form and the red typeface form.

Nike Logo Design

This logo is one of the most recognized logos in the world. The swoosh of Nike. Many of you wouldn't know that Nike was the name of a Greek Goddess with the same name. She was known as the goddess of victory. The swoosh sign represents the feather of the victory that she bestowed upon the greek warriors and atheletes.

So Nike has it's roots in the greek mythology so you can understand that it must have been a very interesting project for any logo designer to come up with something amazingly creative for that.

The Nike "swoosh'" is a design created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University. She met Phil Knight while he was teaching accounting classes and she started doing some freelance work for his company, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS). The Nike Swoosh logo represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike, who was the source of inspiration for many great and courageous warriors

This legendary icon symbolizes not only just the brand identity of Nike but it teaches us a few lessons in the brand identity. First of all Nike the brand name and the logo describe eachother. The logo has a feeling of the sportsmanship even though the common viewers do not know the mythology behind the logo. The heavy marketing budget allowed Nike to make the symbol synonymous with sports and victory. 

The World Famous - Google Logo

We all recognize this logo. This is the logo of the internet giant, worlds most popular web destination, the greatest search engine ever made, The one and the only Google.

There are four colors used in Google's official logo design. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. Google's logo uses Catull typeface. It is an old style serif typeface and it was created by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold foundry. It is a propreitory font and it currently costs USD $99.

The Google Logo Design was created by Ruth Kedar. It is a woodmark which means that it is a logo that uses text to present a visual identity of a logo. Other examples of such works are the Wikipedia logo, or the Fed Ex logo. Google also includes various modifications to their original logo on different ocassions, such as cartoon modifications, of their logo for use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events, such as the Olympics. These special logos, some designed by Dennis Hwang, have become known as Google Doodles. As of 14 January 2010, Google's own gallery featured 712 logos.