“Products are created in the factory. Brands are created in the mind.”  - Walter Landon, founder, Landor Associates

Every organization worth its salt has a logo or visual identity that helps distinguish, identify, or describe its brand to audiences. And if you’ve visited the Internet at any point lately, you can see that everyone has opinions on logos. But when people say “I don’t like it!” or “That’s terrible,” what do they actually mean? There is a deeper question beneath such reflexive comments, though. Honestly, how do you evaluate a logo? How do you know if your company has the next Nike swoosh on its hands, or something much less awesome?

Being identity designers, we’ve seen thousands of logos, and have designed many of them ourselves. It can be tricky evaluating a logo’s strength, because there is more involved than just judging good looks. Below are some considerations, based on the criteria we use to judge our own work at Hexanine. Taken together, all of these put combine to form a useful benchmark for determining if the “front door” of your organization is doing what it should. How does your logo rate in each of the following categories?

1: Differentiation. How well does it stand apart from other logos? Is it unique and memorable — especially when compared to your competition? Or does it get lost among other organizations who share adjacent mindshare or audiences? In an age of constant brand bombardment, the Zag is a crucial ingredient in standing out. For some industries, differentiation might be the difference between market dominance and permanent second-class status.

2: Aesthetics. This is traditionally considered the chief responsibility of designers — and rightly so. Having a visually-strong mark is now the cost of doing business, and organizations who don’t pay attention to the power of beauty do so at their peril. Is your logo well-crafted? Does it employ great symbology and excellent/appropriate typography? Are the visual details of layout, color harmony, and illustration executed at the highest levels? Does your logo scale well and reproduce effectively on a variety of platforms? Clients who come to us for identity design or redesigns typically have beauty atop their wish lists, but it’s only part of the overall brand picture. Visuals are the glue that hold an identity together, but they also work in service of all the other following areas.

3: Conceptual Strength. Differentiation and beauty are not enough. Strong, sophisticated conceptual thinking is what separates logo makers from true brand identity designers. A logo that doesn’t tap into the brand’s ethos and business goals is like a cheap Hollywood set  – beautiful to look at, but not strong enough to withstand close scrutiny. How well does your logo echo the brand story? Does it communicate an appropriate metaphor? Does it include necessary chunks of the brand’s essence and heritage? Does it function like a page torn from the larger brand’s tale? Is it correctly aimed at the people and audiences who will draw the most meaning from it?

4: Surprise / Unusual / Aha! Factor. This is that difficult-to-quantify aspect of identity design that causes someone to take a second look, or to dwell on your logo for another moment. That Something Special could be almost anything, as long as it makes sense within the context of your brand. It might be a surprising and unusual combination of symbols, a visual pun, or some hidden element that reveals itself over time. None of this is absolutely required, but it’s certainly icing on the cake of the best identities. This isn’t flash and sizzle, but it’s something that helps an identity remain in the mind, tying itself forever to a set of products, services, or a larger brand.

5: Usage. How well is your logo being used? This seems like it’s outside the purview of logo design, but in truth, some of the most important work is done after a logo is designed. Building a context and visual language around the mark is essential to making sure your overall brand identity is successful. Some visually unimpressive logos benefit from exceptional visual positioning and a proper context that allows them to shine all-the-more brightly. What other visual parts of an overall identity are paired with your logo? Do photography, illustration, original patterns, and imagery add up to help the logo be more than the sum of its parts? Context can become the perfect stage to spotlight the best aspects of a less-than-perfect logo, while also minimizing its weaknesses.

To show how this might work in practice, we’ve rated some well-known logos. Very few corporate identities are going to rate perfect in every category, but the ratings below will show you how well-rounded logos can be successful, and how some brands choose to focus on some aspects at the expense of others.

Nike: Usage makes all the difference
Nike does an amazing job with its very simple logo. But the power of the brand is not in the visual execution of the mark, but in the power of its use. The swoosh has been burned into the brains of billions of people via amazing association with athletes, emotions, and sporting events. Wherever the logo appears, it is always used flawlessly, transcending any issues with the construction of the logo itself.

FedEx: The Godfather of hidden images
While the FedEx logo seems austere, its simplicity and strength are memorable in themselves. Its unique and varied usage across parts of the company was quite provocative in 1994, and allowed the brand to grow and define itself visually on the canvases of its moving delivery trucks. And of course, there is the infamous hidden arrow. 

Microsoft: Simply bland
The Microsoft identity is decently-made and generally unremarkable. The mark is very static, and the typography is completely forgettable, which might be an unforgivable sin in the software industry. The brand took a risky move by porting the brand’s most powerful (only?) brand asset — the Windows color palette and iconography — and poured them into a new corporate identity. Simple logos are not always easy to execute, but in this case, simplicity means losing what little personality the original had. This execution is bland, except when used to great success in its motion graphics applications.

Apple: Cleverness that ages well
Apple’s once-bitten piece of fruit has evolved with the company since its initial rainbow-colored rollout. It has been beveled, liquefied, and stamped on the backs of millions of iPhones and iPads. The original brand story of hidden knowledge (Eve, the Garden of Eden, etc.) has been all-but-lost in its modern incarnations, but the company’s backing with gorgeous, functional product design has only increased. The cleverness of using fruit to sell computers and electronics hasn’t aged a bit.

Starbucks: Pouring a tasty cup of omnipresence
This beautiful and transcendent mark is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t need typography. The logo’s application on thousands of street corners and billions of coffee cups doesn’t hurt, but it succeeds not just because of its constant presence in modern living. It endures because of solid coffee and a whimsical mark that stands for a brand experience that has changed modern retail and the way people think about hot beverages forever.

T-Mobile: Not so pretty in pink
Pink (magenta, really) — is the best thing the T-Mobile identity has going for it. The logo is clunky, seems difficult to use, and has far too many moving parts to be considered visually successful. The typography seems inappropriate for the brand, and suggests the fact that T and Mobile are headed towards a visual divorce, slowly drifting apart. But T-Mobile has ended up owning its magenta brand color in such a powerful way, that it barely needs a logo in its communication. Consistent, repetitive, and effective use of the color has allowed the brand to own that bright, cheery magenta in a way not seen since UPS captured Brown. Someone must have been thinking pink.

It’s easy to critique from afar, and every brand his its own idiosyncrasies and issues, but having a solid framework for success in logo and identity design is the first step in making sure it’s not your organization’s logo in the crosshairs.

Halloween is a hoot — let’s just get that out of the way. But for a seemingly-superficial holiday (dress up and get candy/get drunk), there’s quite a bit going on behind the scenes culturally. And for those of us in the branding world, that’s even more intriguing than the sweets (though less delicious).

This Halloween, we’ve noted the increasing trend for Trick-or-Treaters and Halloween partygoers to forego the traditional fun and/or scary character costumes, and don brand-specific consumer product attire for their once-a-year holiday getups. More and more Xbox consoles, Hershey Bars, Facebook pages, iPhones, and Schlitz beer bottles are sprouting arms and legs each year.

Picking a costume is a fun and personal decision, and with no lack of choices, what does it say about our society when someone shimmies into a specific representation of a branded product? What’s behind this shift away from mummy and princesses towards McDonald’s fries and walking iPads?

Here are a few reasons we think are worth highlighting:

Consumer Products Are A Shared Cultural Currency
As entertainment markets have fragmented into dozens of sub-genres, film and TV references are naturally more obscure than they used to be. So, if a Halloween party-goer is looking for recognition, attending a party in a DIY Aquafresh tube outfit will probably be received better than a meticulously-created-yet-little-known Star Trek character costume.

Better and More Thoughtful Branding
Over the past decade, consumer products have been branded in more distinctive and clever ways, and we’ve wholeheartedly accepted these items into our daily lives with gusto, building ever more robust emotional (and subconscious) attachments to such products as electronics, cleaning supplies, sports clothing, food and beverages, and countless others.

People Are Seeking Comfort and Familiarity
Culturally speaking, it’s often been suggested that uncertain economic times draw the public away from film dramas, and towards escapist comedies and fantasies. With the global markets still tenuous, to an anxious public, horror costumes like witches and Wolf Men may seem less desirable than a walking Coca-Cola can.

Halloween Now Aims At Adults
Marketers have succeeded in pushing Halloween as an adult holiday, and the results have been predictable. After all, it’s adults who buy all the candy and decorations, and it’s adults who purchase the costumes, and it’s adults who use most consumer products. The more grown-ups involved in Halloween, the more their fingerprints will appear on its various aspects.

So that’s the landscape, but how does a brand get in on this action?

Producing a licensed costume seems like an obvious choice. Though branded Halloween digs are becoming increasingly common, an organization rushing to market with a branded getup may be missing the point. It’s not the availability of a costume that’s going to entice people to wear it — it’s their feelings towards the brand in the first place. The stronger and more personal connection we foster towards individual products, the more likely we are to see those products as extensions of ourselves. And with a strong enough bond, we’ll create the costume ourselves, as the thousands of homemade iPod costumes from a few years ago demonstrate.

Branded Halloween costumes aren’t a tool in which to build your brand, they’re an end result of strong brand fundamentals in the first place. The connections people make with their brands and those products happen in the dark recesses of the brain, but they’re not random — they’re based on a few, essential practices that any great brand manager holds in the back of her mind:

Make a Great Product
Whatever opinions you hold about Apple as an organization, the design of their products is second-to-none. Consumers often pay a premium for the design, but the resulting bond that ensues is a powerful force that even today many other manufacturers have failed to realize. It’s not just the devices, though — Apple customer service routinely ranks high in surveys, which further imprints the company’s value and and friendliness amongst their customers.

Have a Consistent Visual Identity
Facebook page costumes have flourished over the past few years, in a way that we never quite saw with MySpace, even at the height of its popularity. Facebook’s consistent color scheme and standard visual look allow it to be recognizable from a distance, with the quickest of glances (A blue and white page with a sidebar, and bam — you’re a Facebook page). A MySpace costume, on the other hand, would not be nearly as identifiable, as they all looked so different. You want your costume to be recognizable.

Be Strong in Your Brand Message
Twenty years ago, bottled water barely existed. Today, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry and people are dressing their kids up in as Fuji water bottles for Halloween. This is a direct result of two decades of singular messaging: Bottled water is the freshest, cleanest, safest water you can buy. Despite this being demonstrably false, the powerful and consistent message has cemented itself in the public psyche, and the results speak for themselves.

Halloween only comes around once a year (as of this writing, anyway), and there’s no lack of costume choices. Those consumer brands that have made the leap from shelf to costume have accomplished something incredible. But it’s not so much the result of fickle consumer choices, as it is the byproduct of strong and consistent brand platforms, visuals, and messaging. With those in place, there’s no telling what people will be wearing come Halloween.

And that’s half the fun.