Characteristics of a great logo

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At their essence, logos are made to identify. Using images, icons, marks or symbols, logos identify companies or products in the most basic way, so that when someone views a logo, they can link it with the brand it represents.

Nowadays, with so many logos in existence, it’s not hard to find examples of great or inferior logos in use. What makes the difference? What makes a logo work well? And more importantly, what can your organization do to ensure its logo represents you effectively?

 

Here are the main seven characteristics of a great logo.

A great logo sets itself apart.

In today’s cluttered marketplace, finding a way to stand out amongst the competition can seem challenging, but the idea here is to be different than your competitors. Without a distinct logo design, you may find potential clients and customers having a hard time recognizing your brand, confuse you with another company and most importantly, end up going to a competitor rather than choosing your products or services.

 

A great logo is streamlined.

Because the logo should be easily recognizable, it should be simple – a lightning-fast way for users to notice and remember your brand. A complicated logo will not only be difficult to reproduce and maintain, but it will also fail to engage audience. The logo is the ultimate ‘elevator’ pitch to your potential clients and business partners. You don’t have time to recite your entire business plan in an elevator pitch, and the same concept applies to corporate logo design.

 

A great logo is designed for various applications.

A great logo can be printed in different sizes, across different mediums, and in different applications without losing its power. Graphics must be versatile enough that they can be used in many different mediums. A good logo must work well on the web, on a letterhead, in printed ads and even in videos. What looks great in a site banner might not work on a brochure or vice versa.

 

A great logo considers the industry but also doesn’t need to be obvious.

An effective logo should be appropriate, but that doesn’t mean it has to be as obvious as you might expect. McDonald’s could have gone with a juicy burger next to the name, but instead they took the first initial ‘M’ and created an icon that was both simple and visually pleasing to look at as an asymmetrical element. Whether you follow the example of McDonald’s or its competitor Burger King, who puts a hamburger in the middle of their logo design, your logo needs to be appropriate to your brand.

 

A great logo aims for longevity and is not trendy.

Trends come and go, and when you’re talking about changing a pair of jeans or buying a new dress, that’s fine, but where your brand identity is concerned, longevity is key.

 

A great logo is designed for its intended audience.

As with any business endeavor, understanding your audience is key. Whatever was the targeted industry, the logo needs to be able to connect with the people it is marketing to. The important thing a logo needs to do is to speak to the targeted audience. If you run a children’s toy store, it’s not crucial to have an image of a toy in your logo or to have the word ‘toys’ in there either. What is more important is to use a color scheme or font that is childlike and appeals to kids.

 

A great logo leaves an impression and is unforgettable.

A great logo will remain memorable enough that a person who has only seen the logo once should still be able to recall it enough to describe the logo to someone else. This is not the easiest of qualities to impart, but it is certainly a high ranking one.

 

H.A. Consultancies has been helping clients all over Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE in developing their brand identities and marketing strategies. For help on designing the best logo for your business, feel free to contact us on [email protected] or contact any of our offices.

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Feasibility Study – Why needed before programming

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The feasibility study is the important step in any software development process. This is because it makes analysis of different aspects like cost required for developing and executing the system, the time required for each phase of the system and so on. If these important factors are not analyzed, then definitely it would have impact on the organization and the development and the system would be a total failure. This step is a very important step in a software development life cycle process.

In the software development life cycle after making an analysis in the system requirement the next step is to make analysis of the software requirement. In other words, feasibility study is also called as software requirement analysis. In this phase development team must make communication with customers and make analysis of their requirement and analyze the system.

By making analysis this way it would be possible to make a report of an identified area of a problem. By making a detailed analysis in this area, a detailed document or report is prepared in this phase which has details like project plan or schedule of the project, the cost estimated for developing and executing the system, target dates for each phase of delivery of system developed and so on. This phase is the basis of software development process; since further steps taken in software development life cycle would be based on the analysis made in this phase therefore, careful analysis must be made in this phase.

Though the feasibility study cannot be focused on a single area, some of the areas or analysis made in feasibility study is given below. But all the steps given below would not be followed by all system developers. The feasibility study varies based on the system that would be developed.

  • Feasibility study is made upon the system being developed to analyze whether the system development process require training of personnel. This help in designing training sessions as required in later stage.
  • Does the system developed have scope for expanding or for switching to new technology later on if needed in ease? In other study is made to find the portability of the system in future.
  • Is the cost of developing the system high or does it meet the budgeted costs? That is a cost benefit analysis is made. In other words, an analysis is made on cost feasibility of the project. This helps in identifying whether the organization would meet the budgeted costs and also helps the organization in making earlier and effective plans for meeting extra costs because of the system development.
  • Analysis is made on what software to use for developing the system. This study and analysis would help to choose the best implementation for system and the organization. This feasibility study includes factors like scalability, how to install, how to develop and so on. This feasibility study in short includes the analysis of technical areas. This analysis helps the efficiency of the system developed to get improved. This is because by choosing the correct technology by making analysis on the needs of system helps in improving the efficiency of the system.
  • The above feasibilities are analysis which helps in development of the system. But the scope of feasibility study does not end with this. Analysis or feasibility study also includes the analysis of maintenance stage. In other words, feasibility study is made to analyze how one would maintain the system during maintenance stage. This helps sin planning for this stage and helps in risk analysis. Also, the analysis helps in making analysis about what training must be given and how and what all documents must be prepared to help users and developers to face maintenance phase.

Advantages of making Feasibility study:

There are many advantages of making feasibility study some of which are summarized below:

  • This study being made as the initial step of software development life cycle has all the analysis part in it which helps in analyzing the system requirements completely.
  • Helps in identifying the risk factors involved in developing and deploying the system
  • The feasibility study helps in planning for risk analysis
  • Feasibility study helps in making cost/benefit analysis which helps the organization and system to run efficiently.
  • Feasibility study helps in making plans for training developers for implementing the system.
  • So, a feasibility study is a report which could be used by the senior or top persons in the organization. This is because based on the report the organization decides about cost estimation, funding and other important decisions which is very essential for an organization to run profitably and for the system to run stable.

Thus, before developing a product or software it is an essential step that one does feasibility study in some or all the areas mentioned which would help in developing and maintaining the software efficiently and effectively within budgeted costs.

 

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