Maintaining Logo Integrity

Logo integrity is the basis for building and strengthening your brand. Misuse of an established logo results in a brand that is inconsistant and detached from your overall strategy.

Once a logo has been developed all efforts should be made to maintain the integrity of that logo when used in marketing pieces, on websites and by resellers or partners.

Thus it is essential to establishe and communicate basic uses of your logo to appropriate users.

Logo Integrity 101 - Standard Rules

Below are a set of accepted principles for logo usage. Companies may need to expand on these to cover all the various usages within their corporate environments, but these basic rules are pretty much set in stone.

Never alter the color, angle or layout of the logo. The logo should always appear the same. Everything around it can change, it needs to stay untouched. The only exception is when appearing in a black and white ads.

The font or appearance of the logo must remain true. For instance, if a text logo is a flat helvetica, it would, under no circumstances, ever appear as beveled or with shading or highlighting that is not in the original logo.

Graphic and text logos alike would never be shown in odd angles or with slight variations of the original color(s).

Establish clear-zones. A clear zone must surround any freestanding logos. This deters your logo from being crowded out by other graphics. Commonly, a ratio for required space is established for the best visibility. This clear zone will assure that sufficient space is maintained around the width and height of logos.

Logos should always be easy to read. Logos should never be placed over mult-colored backgrounds or photos. Dark backgrounds should be lightened at the placement of logos or if absolutely necessary, the logo can be reversed to a pure white only.

Which brings us to the rule of black or white. Only reproduce your logo in 100% black or 100% white when you can't reproduce the logo in its original color.

To better communicate the use your logo, provide sample do's and don'ts so there is no confusion as to what to do in any given situation.