Many people I talk with seem mystified by the logo design process. Business owners who want to hire a design firm are scared that they will not end up with a logo they are happy with. People look at new logos and wonder why some seem to have turned out great and others do not. Many of these issues can be prevented by taking the time to follow a process that guides the logo design from the beginning.

This video blog post shows the process of developing the logo for the Retail Association of Maine.

Recently, I attended two events hosted by the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce where I was able to hear my local politicians in person. About two weeks ago I went to a luncheon where the keynote speaker was Michael Brennan, Mayor or Portland, Maine. Then yesterday, I went to their breakfast-time “Eggs & Issues” event where Paul LePage, Governor of Maine was the featured speaker.

As a follow up to my last post setting out to define some of the terms that are used within conversations about branding, I want to give some examples of brands that have a logo that is central to their entire brand, and others who have their brand much more defined by other elements.

As I started out saying in my last post, there seems to be an ongoing argument about how important a logo is to a brand. Is your logo the same as your brand? Is a logo a part of your brand? Is your logo completely inconsequential to your brand? I would answer that it depends on what you’ve done with your logo along with other elements that make up your brand.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase: Your logo is not your brand. This is repeated often enough that I have to guess there are people out there, who think a logo is a brand.

On the other end of the spectrum there are people arguing that a brand is so much more than a logo, that a logo is inconsequential. So I wanted to show how I define, understand and use the terms logo and brand, as well as some other related key words.

Some people have a hard time understanding the connection between design and branding.

No, design is not all that goes into branding. But design is a major part of what we call brand identity and an integral part of a what we call a brand.

Good or effective design can make you like a brand a lot more. It can also make you frustrated.

PayPal: Effective design, poor branding

I’ve written about PayPal before in this post about how PayPal’s brand can effect your own brand. Unfortunately, it’s not a brand that has a lot of love behind it. It is easy to implement on a web site and it allows you to take payments without ongoing credit card processing fees. People seem to grudgingly use it, but you rarely hear your friends singing the praises of PayPal.