As a small business owner, you’re proud of your logo. It’s sleek, it’s vibrant, and it captures your company’s image in a great visual metaphor. It cost a hell of a lot of money, so you’re damn well going to get your money’s worth.
You highlight your logo everywhere - in your signage, your brochures, and your billboards - and it is effective. People remember that logo and it’s becoming an icon, similar to Apple Computer’s Apple or the FedEx hidden arrow logo, which are synonymous with their brands.
So why does your web designer insist on shrinking your logo to a small space in the upper left corner of your website? Doesn’t he or she realize how important that logo is to your website? Doesn’t he know how expensive it was?!
Hold your horses, boss. You might have a great logo, but your web designer is looking out for your best interests. It probably is a waste of both a good logo and a good website to make your logo so big on your homepage. When visitors hit your homepage, the brand recognition battle is already won. The customers are through the door, and now your website design has to drive them to buy. Broadcasting your logo only wastes space and valuable selling time.
There are occasions where a big logo on a website makes sense. Usually it’s on a splash page or on an entertainment site, where the visual impact is the point of the site, or at least complements the content and function of the site. On a business website, however, a big logo often affects the usability of the site.
Take Pepsi, for example. The ostensible purpose of the website is to market Pepsi products, not sell them. But this current website is a perfect example of too much taken too far. To start, you have a giant, animated Pepsi can which transforms into a hodgepodge of logo themed art. Even after that all settles down, you’re still inundated with Pepsi logos on a Flash menu, a cluttered layout that can make it difficult to navigate. Sure, you’re going to remember the logo, but good luck accomplishing any actual business on a site like that. Your visitors would struggle to find what you’re selling, let alone how to order it.
A good business website should have clear design and function. Remember, when visitors come to your site, they’ve already discovered your brand. That first job of catching their eye is already done - the next step, and the purpose of your website, is to further your sale. Your website should clearly attract and direct visitors to the functionality of your website: product or service information, contact information, and ultimately sales.
Take, for example, bank websites like HSBC or Bank of America. They’re sites are function driven. A small logo identifies the site, but almost all the other iconography and text is driven to the sale - advertising loans and checking accounts, driving customers to register for more information or online banking.
Sites that aren’t so reliant upon web functionality also benefit from function-based design. The Left Brain is a 360 PSG-designed site for a Buffalo-based bookkeeping firm. Its site is pretty basic - a homepage, pages that describe services, then a contact page. They also have a very unique, visually effective logo. However, on a site used exclusively for directing visitors to place a phone call, it does not resort to logo-overload.
The Left Brain site is built to inform - it has clean design and respects that visitors who come to the site already have brand recognition for the company. With a clean menu design and functional information, the site drives business by providing basic research and incentive to contact Left Brain offices.
So when you are deciding how to handle the logo issue, think about what your website is trying to accomplish. Is it selling a product or a service? Is it driving visitors to make a “real life” connection through e-mail, phone or in person? Is it driving people to use a service? In terms of your logo, however, the specific function doesn’t matter, only that you allow your website to showcase your company, not just your logo.
[…] stuff like “Make a bigger logo” or “Make the text as big as possible” or “Can you add some flashing […]