Canadian companies have a challenge. They want to stand out in the marketplace, and they want to let people know that they are a proudly Canadian company.
Of course, when you think of Canada, your mind automatically goes to the red maple leaf that’s adorned the Canadian flag since the founding of this country.
There are plenty of examples of successful Canadian logos that don’t have the maple leaf plastered all over it. They just follow classic logo design principles.
Want proof? You can’t get any more Canadian than Tim Horton’s, but try to find the maple leaf in the logo.
Are you ready to learn the top design principles you can apply to your logos? Then read on to learn how you can apply design lessons from the top Canadian brands into your logo.
1. Discover Your Brand
Do you have any idea what your brand is about? You have a Canadian organization, but is that your brand?
In some cases, it may be because you represent Canada. Think of Canada Soccer or Team Canada. Those are brands that represent the values of Canada and what it means to be Canadian.
Your brand is the one word that people tend to use when they talk about your organization. Its roots come from cattle herders.
Ranchers would put a mark on cattle to identify cattle that belonged to that ranch. That’s called a brand.
This is where people get confused between a logo and a brand. They are not the same thing. A brand is intangible. It’s how people perceive your organization.
You have some control over that perception. You initially decide what the brand is and what it stands for.
A logo is the visual representation of your brand. You have to come up with the brand concept first, be that concept as an organization, and people will make the connection between the brand concept and the logo.
How do you decide what your brand is about? Think about that one word that people will use to talk about your organization. That word becomes your brand.
2. Apply Basic Design Principles
Design is so much more than making something look good. Design is the art of visually telling a story and communicating messages.
Everything that you interact with throughout the day has been designed. Some things have been designed to be functional and aesthetically pleasing.
Look around you. Your computer, monitor, coffee cup, television screen, have all been designed. Web pages have been designed to provide a great user experience.
Logos are designed to represent your brand. Logo design is about using symbols, fonts, and colours to create an image that sticks in the mind of your audience.
Each part of your logo has meaning. Colours can be used to communicate different emotions. Purple is usually reserved for royalty. Yellow is a cheerful and playful colour.
You want to choose colours that are consistent with your brand. If your brand is a fun and vibrant one, then yellow or orange would be excellent options.
Fonts work the same way. We perceive typefaces in a specific way, too. Some typefaces are associated with strength, while others are thought of as elegant. Again, you have to do the research to ensure that you choose a font that’s consistent with the brand.
3. Go Abstract
An abstract logo is just a symbol. A great example is the CBC’s logo. This is designed as a gem in a kaleidoscope. This represented the advent of colour on television screens.
The first designs featured a blue background with orange/red hues. You may notice that the shapes of the logo are the letter C for Canada.
The logo has gone through a couple of changes over the years, to today’s red gem on a white background.
You can make your own abstract logo. Think of the parts of your brand that you need to communicate. What would be the one shape that would communicate those things?
The key to an abstract logo is to keep it simple and have a story behind the design.
4. Text Only Works, Too
A text-only logo works just as well, too. Bell is a prime example of text-only Canadian logos.
The colours that you choose for your text-only logo are going to be very important. People interpret colours before reading text. The colours are going to tell people what your brand is about.
You can always combine an abstract symbol with text to create your logo, too.
5. Make the Logo Mean Something
What do you think of when you see the Edmonton Oilers logo? Probably Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier tearing up the ice en route to several Stanley Cups in the 1980s.
The Oilers logo wasn’t always associated with championships. It wasn’t really considered much prior to The Great One.
There’s a lesson here for you as you develop your logo. A logo’s associations are the result of hard work and consistency.
Let’s say that you have a company that provides landscaping services. If you provide landscaping services over a long period of time, wowing each and every customer, people are going to have positive associations.
They’ll immediately link outstanding landscaping with your logo. The thing about that association is that you can lose that positive association much more quickly than to build it.
It may take years to create the strength of your logo. One bad experience can undo all of those years of hard work.
6. Make Several Versions
Initially, you want to draft several versions of the logo. Experiment with different fonts, colours, and abstract symbols.
Don’t expect to create a perfect logo on the first try. You’ll find that there are always places where you can make improvements.
Create several drafts using a logo maker app. You can print them out, and show them to a few trusted people within the organization. Let them know what your concept is for each design.
The feedback you receive should tell you if you hit the mark or not. If you missed the mark, get more feedback that explains how you can make it better.
8. Crowdsource Your Design
One way to attract attention to your organization is to crowdsource the design of your logo. It’s what the Tokyo Olympic Committee did for the logo of the 2020 Olympic Games. They held a contest where designers submitted their work.
There were almost 15,000 people who submitted their ideas. This was eventually narrowed down to the current logo.
You can do something similar to create buzz around your organization. It also gets supporters involved in the process to create something meaningful. That can build awareness and engagement at the same time.
If you do a contest, you have to have very specific rules and guidelines to be followed. This way, you have some control over the process. It’s very easy for these contests to go wrong, which would create a negative impression.
9. Make Your Logo Scalable
The application of your logo is just as important as the design itself. The logo is going to be applied in many places – business cards, websites, water bottles, shirts, brochures, street signs, etc.
You have to make sure that your logo will look good wherever it’s used. How do you do that? By using the proper file format when you save it.
You can start with a JPEG file for your logo, but that will get pixelated in larger applications. This is known as a Raster file format, along with PNG files.
Ideally, saving your work as a Vector image will ensure scalability and preserve the colours of the logo for printing.
A Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format is one way to do that. You can also save your file in PDF.
10. When to Redesign Your Logo
Your organization is going to change over time. As the organization evolves, you may need to rebrand your company.
It’s a perfect time to redesign your logo. Companies tend to refresh their logo every few years, making very minor changes.
Canadian Logos That Stand Out
When you’re creating Canadian logos, it’s easy to slap a red maple leaf on it and call it good. Instead, you need to consider what your brand is about.
From there, you need to work with colours, fonts, and abstract symbols that deliver that message. You can then start to build the strength of that brand by emulating it and make it come to life in your work.
That’s how large companies have turned their logos into their most valuable asset. You can do the same for your organization.
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