Your Logo is Too Big

Although I am a WordPress developer now, I studied marketing and design in college. Honestly, I love them both. And when clients come to me a with a bad design, it really makes me cringe. Sometimes I wonder, is it my place to say something about a client’s bad design? A bad design is going to affect a client’s bottom line. When a client’s website does better – I look better, so in the end, I say yes. I need to say something. That’s why I felt I had to write this post.

The most common issue I see is the client’s fault, not the designer’s. So many clients ask, “Can you make my logo bigger?” I do my best to tell them NO. This is why:

When a customer comes to your site, they usually have one or more of these three goals:

1. See your product
2. Learn more about your product
3. Buy your product

As a business person, you should be thrilled to have customers with the goals and you should do everything you can to assist them in those areas. So, that means your goals should be:

1. Show them your product
2. Tell them about your product
3. Sell them your product

But when you ask for a bigger logo – something that is on every page taking up valuable “above the fold” real estate,that means your goal is:

1. Show the customers the great logo that I paid a lot of money for.
2. Do all those other things.

Do you see how the big logo doesn’t really achieve what you want? Unless your logo is Apple or Nike, I can’t really imagine that it’s going to sell your products or services. And even with those brands, let’s take a look at the size of their logo:

The purpose of your logo it to show customers that they are in the right place. That they are purchasing a brand they can trust. You don’t need much space to do that.

Right now I have a client who’s logo is about one-sixth of the total space a customer would see when viewing their site. They manage to get about two lines of text in that same area. Again, that logo is at the top of every page, so every page has the same problem.

I understand that you love your logo. I’m sure it’s great. Why not get it on a mug so you can stare at it every day? Make it huge on those boxes that you deliver your product in. Make it huge on the email you send the customer thanking them for their purchase. But don’t let it get in the way of the customer seeing your product, learning about your product and above all – buying your product.