Before you do anything with your online campaign, you need to build a strong logo that will be able to provide a face that can be identified on every possible medium out there, online and offline. Remember, don't go cheap on hiring a professional team of graphic designers and logo experts, if you don't have to. It will cost more to redesign your brand's image than it will to establish it. Just think of all the money that would be wasted trying to re-familiarize your brand with your target audience.
The Science of Cool
Your intro logo should be researched by experts who know the psychology of colors, shapes, directions, and visibility. It has to feel like you and what your business represents. If you're in the business of self-help products or services, you don't want your brand's logo to look like a toy company's or a flashy night club.
Keep it Simple
You need to be able to identify your logo in crude visuals. Not to ignore the fact that mobile screens are improving in resolution, it's just a good idea to design your logo in a space where you expect it to be seen as a blur in the corner of a screen, yet still know what it is. Logos like Windows' flag, Pepsi's swirl, or Gatorade's letter "G" are iconic, simplistic, and slick. These logos also can be re-updated without losing their identity and placed on anything and everything, but still look sharp. An example of what not to do? Well, don't look at high fashion logos for something to use for your business. There are a lot of logos that are large motifs, which will need an alternative design for small mobile spaces, something a start-up business cannot afford to do in their early stages.
Keep it Consistent
Your logo will be the voice to your customers, it will tell them how relaxed you are, how cool you are, or how serious you are. Whatever you need to convey about your brand and what you offer, you must incorporate it into your logo scheme. You don't necessarily need an object in your logo that represents your products, you can accomplish a lot with just plain text.
Most of all, you need for your logo to stand the test of time, where it becomes memorable enough where customers can spread it through the grape vine, just on description alone. You ever try to find a local shop that doesn't have a logo? It can be a pain to remember what the name of it was, let alone find it in a part of town you are not familiar with.
Don't Copy Safe Trends
If you don't take risks, then you'll never go beyond meteoric success. You want your logo to be simple, effective, and also worth talking about. Cool logos aren't just "cool" to a few people, they're the new buzz, even if the brand isn't spread over a large demographic. A hospital logo can be cool, or a bank, and even a brand-loyalist's rival, if the logo and marketing is done effectively and creatively. The only exception to this rule might be for brands that have rich history and don't want to alienate their base, but for a small business startup? Go out there and grab life by the horns!
