Why One Logo isn’t Enough
When you tell people that they actually need more than one logo, they tend to give you the side-eye. It’s a bit counter-intuitive: shouldn’t you just have one super-recognizable logo that you use for everything?
I mean, you can. Many businesses do. But having a few secondary logos will make your life so much easier.
To be frank, no matter how great your logo is, there’s a pretty good chance it doesn’t fit perfectly everywhere.
Your tall, somewhat portrait-mode “beer-label” style logo might look amazing on a t-shirt, but how’s it going to work in a narrow horizontal letterhead? Your wide typography logo might be perfect on your business cards, but what about the little circular userpic on your Instagram account?
To be honest, it wouldn’t kill me to make a few more secondaries for myself - but you know what they say about the cobbler’s kids.
What type of secondary logos you need will vary depending on what your usage needs are and what your primary (or main) logo is like - some are more flexible than others! A few variations to consider:
With or without an icon
Not every logo has an icon component, but if yours does, it’s often beneficial to have a version (or 2) without it. This comes in handy when space is limited.
Vertical applications
Think of tall spaces, like a sandwich board on the sidewalk or vertical ad spot on the side of a website.
Horizontal applications
Letterheads and website banners are the classic examples here. Often times your main logo will work in these spaces, but if you have stacked words (like both the logos above) it can be handy to have an unstacked version as well.
Round applications
So many social media sites today use round userpics, so you want something that will fit within that space without cropping out anything important. A lot of times you’ll end up using a different sort of brandmark or monogram in those spaces (since they’re so small) but if you want your full logo, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got something that fits and stays legible.
Tagline or no tagline
Not every logo has a tagline, but if yours does, it’s nice to have an option without it as well. You may want your tagline on your website and packaging, but not your physical shop sign or certain merch.
Secondary Logo vs. Brandmark
“Brandmark” is one of those terms that people use to refer to a couple different things. Some people use it interchangeably with logomark (which would be the icon portion of your logo, if you have one) but my use is a bit broader. For my purposes, a “brandmark” is any logo-esque symbol that you can use to represent your brand that doesn’t make the full brand name the main focus. It can have a monogram, tagline, or no text at all. Or sometimes it does feature the brand name, but usually smaller and alongside some other graphic elements (I would consider the graphics below to be brandmarks even though “Haze” is the full company name. The Stitching Hour logo at the very top with the cat and moon is sort of straddling the line between the two.) Brandmarks are awesome to use for merch, watermarks, social media, packaging- generally anywhere where the audience already knows what brand they’re dealing with or can easily find out (by, for example, looking at the username on your Insta.)
