Ecommerce Branding: The Power of Your Logo
Of course the name of your ecommerce store is important. No one wants to buy from a company whose name sounds as if it was created during a drunken game of Scrabble.
But your logo? Your logo is the true visual representation of your brand. It’s what differentiates you from your competition. Your logo has the power to invoke an emotional response from shoppers. And it influences how consumers feel about your company as a whole.
You can’t dedicate countless hours to coming up with your brand name and then half-heartedly throw some logo together. Because a stellar logo can compensate for a less-than-creative brand name. But the opposite is rarely true.
Read on to learn the critical role a logo plays in ecommerce branding.
Why Your Logo Matters
It shows your commitment (or lack thereof)
to the customer experience.
A well-designed logo proves your brand cares about its reputation and the products it sells. It demonstrates that you’re concerned with how shoppers perceive your company. An outstanding logo shows consumers your ecommerce business is genuinely committed to every aspect of the brand.
But if your logo appears to have been cobbled together without any regard to aesthetics or relevancy? Well then in a customer’s mind, your brand is clearly disinterested in the image it portrays. And, in turn, shoppers assume you likely care just as little about your merchandise. A poorly-designed logo shows you have little or no confidence in the company. Why should a shopper invest in you if you clearly haven’t invested in yourself?
Humans can recognize images more quickly than text.
Author’s Note: When I was doing research for this blog, I once again came across this oft-cited claim: “[Humans] can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.” I’m willing to bet you’ve also heard this assertion (or some variation). Did you know it’s unfounded? Straight-up made up. So, I’d like to present some actual research on visual perception.
In 2014, MIT neuroscientists studied the minimum time a person needs to recognize and comprehend an image. They discovered humans can process images in as little as 13 microseconds. That’s 0.000013 seconds. The researchers found participants required no advance information about the visual and only needed to see the image once in order to identify it.
Now let’s think about this on a more fundamental level. The average age at which a child can identify shapes and colors is 2-3 years. But most children don’t have basic reading comprehension until they’re around 4 or 5 years old. All of the evidence — both scientific and anecdotal — indicates pictures are powerful.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t include your brand name or any other copy in your logo. Rather, you must consider your logo as a work of art, a visually pleasing masterpiece.
Your name can’t change. But your logo can.
Over time, your company will (hopefully) grow and evolve and mature. You’ll adapt your business model to meet the changing needs of your audience. You’ll add new items to your product lines and retire others. But the one thing you’re married to for the life of your company is your name.
However, when your ecommerce branding is in need of a refresh, what you can do is redesign your logo. When executed correctly, a logo redesign can not only retain current customers but also attract new ones.
Take YouTube, for example.
Last fall, YouTube rolled out its first-ever logo update. The art department at the granddaddy of all video-sharing sites decided it didn’t make sense to continuing focusing on the “Tube” part of their name. This choice was motivated by two important facts:
- YouTube offers a whole lot more than just TV shows.
- No one even calls TVs “the tube” anymore — especially not YouTube’s target audience.
Instead, the new logo features the site’s well-known red play button, emphasizing the on-demand aspect of the brand. As an added bonus, the iconic nature of the red play button enables YouTube to create an app icon which features only that little graphic and is still recognizable:
Bonus Advice!
Depending on your budget, you have a few different choices for the actual creation of your logo. There are hundreds of different options out there, but we’ve narrowed it down to three of the best free and paid ecommerce logo makers:
| Free | Paid |
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Some sites have more features than others. And the user-friendliness of the interfaces varies a bit. So just play around until you find the tool that best suits your logo design needs.
How to Design a Logo You Can Be Proud Of
Bad news: There are over 1 million Google results for “how to design a logo” (4 billion if you don’t search for that phrase exactly).
Good news: I waded through a bunch of those results and put together 10 of the most valuable ecommerce branding tips into this nice little list below:
1. Design from scratch. Don’t just use some random images you found on Google. And definitely don’t steal someone else’s work.
2. Don’t use graphics just because you think you should; an image isn’t required for a good logo. If you can stylize your brand name in an artistic way that eliminates the need for graphical elements, go for it.
Examples from ShipStation Users
(ONNIT, lollaland, and The Bearded Bastard)
3. If you absolutely, positively just have to include an image, make sure it’s relevant to your products.
4. Ask your friends, family, and even strangers for their opinions on your logo. Don’t be upset if they hate it. But definitely take everything they say with a grain of salt.
5. Your logo will not always be shown in full color. Ensure it looks good even when it’s displayed in black and white or grayscale.
Examples from ShipStation Users
(EmazingLights and InstaFire)
6. Create a logo that’s unique but not bizarre. You want to stand out from your competition, not appear as if you don’t belong at all.
7. Every part of your logo (both images as well as text) should be easily readable and recognizable even when the logo is super small — e.g. when viewed on a mobile device.
Examples from ShipStation Users
(Rural King, LobsterAnywhere, and Tower Paddle Boards)
8. Be objective and brutally honest about your logo design. Accept that you may have to just scrap it all and start over. It’ll be painful, but it’s way better than branding everything with a logo you end up hating.
9. When possible, incorporate value statements and unique selling propositions into your logo.
Examples from ShipStation Users
(Simple Sugars, Jaime’s Spanish Village, and R.Riveter)
10. See what your competitors are doing with their ecommerce branding. Do it better.
Where Your Logo and Branding Should Appear
Literally everywhere. And by “literally everywhere,” I mean on your …
Website
Every page — seriously. There shouldn’t be a page anywhere on your site where your logo isn’t visible. The easiest way to do this is to embed your logo into the header and footer of your site.
Packaging
This includes the exterior and interior of boxes and envelopes, shipping labels, packing materials, tape, and packing slips. If you can print or write on it, your logo and/or brand name need to be on it.
Social Media Pages
Your profile photos, cover photos, posts, videos, icons — anywhere Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest allow.
Marketing
No matter which mediums you use to advertise your brand, your logo needs to be included in every single visual component of your marketing campaigns.
Swag
Hellooo free advertising! (By the way, make sure your swag is something people actually want. No sense in giving away ugly shirts no one will wear or crap someone will take just to be polite and then throw away the second they’re out of sight.)
Internal Communications
Your ecommerce branding elements aren’t just something consumers should see. Whether it’s in an email signature or an internal company memo, your logo should be on anything related to your business.
To quote award-winning graphic designer Saul Bass, “Logos are a graphic extension of the internal realities of a company.” Your logo is the face of your brand. Make sure it’s the one you want customers to see.
