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Time to "Get Over" the Rainbow (in your logo, that is)

Guest post by: Erin Ferree

Article Overview: Rainbows are wonderful, but if you try to bring that natural beauty into your logo with tons of color, you'll be setting yourself up for unnatural disasters.

Time to "Get Over" the Rainbow (in your logo, that is)

Ah, rainbows. They're beautiful things, stretching across the sky, like Mother Nature apologizing for wet, nasty weather. It's no wonder that so many people love them.

But, love can quickly turn to hate if you use a many-colored palette in your business brand.

Rainbows belong in the sky—far away from your small business Rainbows are wonderful, but if you try to bring that natural beauty into your logo with tons of color, you'll be setting yourself up for unnatural disasters.

Here are just a few of the problems that await you:

• Rainbows confuse the message that your color palette is trying to communicate
  
  The job of your logo's color palette is to communicate some of the elements of your brand's personality. Colors each have a psychological meaning—for example, green for health, blue for trust and comfort, orange for speed and energy. The colors in your logo should capitalize on these meanings and help tell your prospects the story of your business. If you use a whole rainbow of colors in your logo, then any potential meaning gets lost in the confusion. Your logo will communicate more clearly if you concentrate on just a few colors—2 or 3 at most—and if you make sure to choose those colors for their psychological factors.
  
  
• Rainbows lack sophistication
  
  Many small businesses are creating their brands to make themselves look "like a real business" and to demonstrate their expertise. Considering a rainbow color palette for your logo just sabotages those goals. Why? Well, rainbow colors are often associated with children's products or fun, frivolous companies—like party supply stores. Unless you're going for an unsophisticated look in your materials as a part of your brand definition, leave the rainbows out.
  
  
• Rainbows are pretty
  
  What seems to be an argument in favor of rainbows is actually one of the biggest arguments against them. Your business brand should be much more than pretty—it should be meaningful, memorable and credible. Using a rainbow takes the focus off of communicating these desirable attributes and instead emphasizes the color palette itself. Basically, you're distracting your customer with pretty colors.
  
  
• Printing becomes tricky
  
  Even though good quality, full-color digital printing is readily available for some marketing materials, that isn't the case for everything. You can print your business cards, brochures and flyers digitally and get great results with multiple colors for very little money. But, digitally printing letterhead and envelopes usually doesn't produce good quality materials. Digital printers often use flimsy paper. As being able to choose paper colors other than dull white, fuggadaboutit.
  
  Also, some marketing pieces just can't be printed digitally—such as promotional items, which are charged on a per-color basis. Choosing to print a wide range of colors on these materials can make them cost far too much to produce.
  
  

So, let the rainbows stay in the sky. Keep them off your company's logo, and it will be that much stronger.

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Home > Marketing > Erin Ferree > Time to Get Over the Rainbow in your logo that is > Google +

Article Tags: brand, branding, characteristics, design, effective, graphic design, how to, identity, logo, marketing, small business

About the Author: Erin Ferree RSS for Erin's articles - Visit Erin's website Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She's been told that her right-brain, left-brain combination of creativity and logic is hard to come by... and that it's what small business owners need to be successful. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up. She deeply enjoys working with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and look good doing it. Who want all of their branding and marketing to make sense and speak to their ideal clients. And who want an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity - instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery. She's branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. She's been published in so many books and periodicals that she stopped counting. She's shared stages with some awesome people - like Michele PW, Linda Hollander, Lisa Cherney, Sheri McConnell and Kelly O'neil. In the rare moments when she's not obsessing about branding or design, she can be found hugging her corgi-dog Stanley, going for long walks, cooking improvisationally, or throwing parties so her friends can enjoy them. Click here to visit Erin's website More from Erin Ferree How To Brand Your Livestream

Related Forum Posts
Re: Who did your logo design? - [quote="TheRainmaker":1fs1knxr]There are indeed a ton of those logo sights where you can get cheap work done. I have an inhouse design studio called Ripple, where we offer start up packages for business for $500. I think a lot of new entrepreneurs dont realize the impact that their logo does have on their branding and positioning. We take people through a complete creative process which I know they value. By using the $25 sites etc. you really have no claim on them if they do infringe on someone else idea.. But hey...to each his own.. I like to think that you get what you pay for - and while I dont think you need to spend thousands...you should research and really understand what you are getting into. Your logo needs to be something you can use for 5-10 years at least.....so it has to include your big vision..[/quote:1fs1knxr] I quite agree with Rainmaker, logo should be a thing that will last for sometimes. Look at Cocacola logo and Microsoft logo they are unique and have been there for long
where to get a free/inexpensive picture for logo? - Is there a way to find a picture that I can use for free as a logo for my business. Actually I am ready to pay $10-$50 for this: I am going to use it as a logo of my website and in printed advertising. This is going to be a logo for a training; there will be a picture of several people holding hands together, maybe something with humor. This must be not a photo but something CARTOON style. As far as I understand I can't use whatever I find in Google pictures for free:., right? Any ideas? Thank you.
Re: Who did your logo design? - There are indeed a ton of those logo sights where you can get cheap work done. I have an inhouse design studio called Ripple, where we offer start up packages for business for $500. I think a lot of new entrepreneurs dont realize the impact that their logo does have on their branding and positioning. We take people through a complete creative process which I know they value. By using the $25 sites etc. you really have no claim on them if they do infringe on someone else idea.. But hey...to each his own.. I like to think that you get what you pay for - and while I dont think you need to spend thousands...you should research and really understand what you are getting into. Your logo needs to be something you can use for 5-10 years at least.....so it has to include your big vision..
Re: where to get a free/inexpensive picture for logo? - I also use istockphoto for web designs etc. However to claim it as a logo for your compay requires exclusivity. You may want to advertise on Craigslist or Backpage.com for a student to design a logo for you that you can copyright or trademark down the line. Otherwise 99designs.com is good too.
Re: Some help for a good lawyer!!! - You do raise a good point. Before selecting the winner of the competition, I did a search for logos that looked like mine. Sort of hard because there is no good "picture" search engine, you can only search for keywords. I figured since I was only using the logo for the top banner of my site, I could change it if it turned out someone did own the rights to it. I could then just hold another logo contest and grab a new banner. However, if you are trying to brand a logo, it might be more detrimental to change horses midstream.

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