“Can we not make the logo a bit bigger?”

I have again just recently heard these words and I thought maybe I need to explain in more depth and give real case samples of smaller logos which work. So the purpose of this article is to look a little further into why we shouldn’t just go ahead with this request.

Your logo isn’t your brand
As your brand grows so your logo shrinks. This happens because as your brand grows it becomes more recognisable and therefore doesn’t need to shout aloud in order to be heard. Your brand doesn’t come from this icon but instead from your core values as a company, your graphic style and colour scheme, the products you make and sell and the real people in your team. These are the cornerstones of your brand not the logo itself.

Emphasise with white space
Whitespace is the best way to place more emphasis on a logo…this is your compromise. White space is a favoured technique amongst us designers as it adds emphasis to your logo without proving detrimental to the rest of the page design.

Contextualise
Design techniques are dangerous in the wrong hands. So when clients ask to make the logo bigger or bolden some text up…without realising the impact that decision will have upon the rest of the page. Designing a website is a delicate process and it is a constant refinement in order to find a balanced design…tantamount to having a set of scales which is perfectly balanced. So on it’s own yes a larger logo would have more emphasis but in the context of a complex web layout it could simply become lost.

Sports brand comparison
Now to test my theory of smaller logos being used by bigger brands I’ve gathered a selection of sports logos taken directly from the homepage of their sites.

All of the larger brands are small in logo size. As the brand becomes more established and recognisable it’s logo can simply use it’s icon without words…no words are necessary for these instantly recognisable icons. A good logo should also work in smaller sizes and still be recognisable. The only exception in the above samples is Under Armour who are a relatively new brand in comparison to the others; but I predict in time this logo will also shrink once the brand is established on a similar footing to that of Nike, Adidas and Puma.

The smaller brands (in comparison) are larger and have to work a lot harder, but I would suggest these sizes are the limit for a web logo.

Explain your reasons before you make the logo bigger!
So the next time you are given the request to make the logo bigger…try to explain the reasons why this is a bad move; in fact why not direct them straight to this article?

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