The debate over how much of a companys large reserves of spending power should be spent with greedy, oafish design agencies rages on and is not about to be resolved in this trite article, however we can suggest some alternatives to the usual company logo ideas and perhaps for once bad could be the new good...or something.
A company logo should make you stop and think...
How many times have you heard your design manager or someone from the marketing/advertising department going on about the need for a clever logo or a design that 'thinks outside the box'? In marketing terms this is met by much consternation by people with any sense of reality and nodding agreement from the rest of the clueless saps who pass off as the workforce these days. Thinking outside the box in this day and age is what all your competitors are doing. To move with the times we either have to think 'over' the box or get on a retro trip and think yourself back inside the box, now that everyone has gone outside to think.
A company logo should stick in your minds eye
Continuing with our theme of going back to basics in terms of logo design. The trend that is emerging and proving highly profitably in certain quarters is the 'so bad its good' theme. Easyjet, Pot Noodle, Tango, Spam... I'm thinking off the top of my head here but allthese brands once languished in obscurity and given a little bit of a trashy makeover have seen sales rocket. The same can be said for the previously unheard of Cillit Bang cleaning brand - design so off putting it makes you want to punch yourself in the face and with the most ridiculous name imaginable but hey whats happening, it's stuck in shoppers minds and bingo like groaning zombies they've bought the product without actually realising what it is and why they've just paid for it.
When good logos turn bad or how to undesign a logo
Built in obsolesence plays a big part in todays quick turnaround world. In a similar way to consumable products like mobile phones and cd players having built in components that only last a year or so before needing to be replaced by the latest model, cheeky graphic designers and logo designers have started to build in 'dated' fonts and styles that will make the company logo you spent 10,000 dollars on and proved a big hit at the time, look like a piece of bumfluff this time next year. Solution: Design it to be as bad as possible in the first instance and the vague whims of the fashion cognescenti shall sooner rather than later pronounce it a hit - meaning big time pay off for you. So there you have it in a nutshell, don't listen to your head when it says you are committing an atrocious mistake in combining stripes and polkadot patterns with some electric blue neon fonts, listen to your greedy heart and think of those filthy bank notes that will soon be piled up in your bank vault..