Building a solid brand is essential for any business, but a “brand” and a “logo” are very different things. A few years ago I shared that a brand is simply your reputation, and your logo is just a way for people to remember your brand.
In his book “This is Marketing“, Seth Godin takes it a small step further, saying:
If a brand is our mental shorthand for the promise that you make, then a logo is the Post-it reminder of that promise. Without a brand, a logo is meaningless.
There are objectively bad logos in the world, for sure, but they’re less important than most people realize. Ultimately, your brand is just your reputation, and your logo is a reminder of your brand, so your logo only serves to remind people of your reputation.
Do you produce great work? Do you return emails? Do you behave professionally? Do you give back to your community? People notice these things, associate them with your brand, and are reminded of them when they see your logo.
There’s not an easy fix for this, other than to do great work. In the words of Anne Lamott in her book “Bird by Bird“, “if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.“
Behave properly, and then proudly show your logo to remind people of how they feel about you.
