How Can a Culture Impact a Logo Design?

Each particular area, town, city, country, region has its own religious, moral, ethical and humanistic cultural values that the people residing in those areas respect and observe. These cultural values have been developed and passed down over generations and disrespecting them either intentionally or unintentionally can turn out to be disastrous for any brand.

And the brand asset in which you should show the most care regarding this issue is logo design as it’s the most impressionable marketing tool for any brand and your introduction to a new group of people. Any mistake here and you are risking your investments. Too many brands have done this and have seen their business closed even before they started and no matter how many apologies or rebranded launches they try, the audience fails to accept them.

To avoid meeting a similar fate for your brand, the foremost thing you need to do is research extensively about these very cultural values and try to end up on the right side of the perception with your logo design. A right perception will definitely strike the chord with the audiences and has the power to transform your brand into an overnight success.

When trying to do so, you would need to make sure that you do two things during the research phase. First, you need to hire an expert logo designer or an expert logo design firm, one that has had a lot of industry experience to know and understand how to avoid these disastrous conundrums with designs. Secondly, you would need to make sure that the most sensitive logo design aspects that can hold some sort of cultural insinuations or relations are researched for thoroughly to avoid anything that could send the wrong message.

Here is a list of design aspects of a logo that you need to take care of the most:

Colors:

In many cultures around the world, certain colors are regarded as symbolic representations of various emotions and feelings.  What a certain color means in one area might be entirely different to what it means in another area altogether, even if these two areas lay in close proximity to each other. One of the biggest examples of this cultural divide of colors are the colors white and black. While black is regarded as the color of mourning in the west, people from the east regard white as representing the same thing.  In the west, brides wear the white color, but in the east, it is mostly adorned by widows.

White cannot be used to represent something funky or upbeat in the east, while green is a very sensitive religious color in most Islamic countries. When trying to choose a color template for your logo design, make sure that you have studied the culture well and know how it uses and regards certain colors to make sure your logo turns out to be a success.

Symbolism:

Just like in colors, certain symbolic gestures like the thumbs up sign or the full hand sign can certainly have different connotations in different parts of the world and they are even more sensitive than colors when it comes to know about a certain culture.  Just as no two languages can sound alike, cultural symbolism of a particular area is also unique, so make sure that you communicate what to avoid incorporating in the logo design. This factor is important for firms who want to grow internationally, where they have to cater to and respect the cultural beliefs of a large number of diverse people.

Design:

The codes of moral and cultural decency vary highly with each region and that’s where you need to take care during the logo design process. Even small things like the font that you might use, or a picture that might come off as suggestive, can turn out to be a huge turn off for the people you would want to target and influence. Expert logo designers know how to avoid these design mishaps but it’s best that a brand takes part in the design process at each stage to make sure the end results turn out to be great.

It is important to think about every aspect of the logo design before you make it the face of your brand. Always consult your logo designers, especially with ideas that you believe would work well within a certain culture, and work your way to make the design distinctive and beautiful. The importance of research is indispensable during the logo design process to avoid bad publicity for your brand. Make sure that you are not just choosing a logo design that you like, but the one that can connect to the maximum number of people through ingenuity, creativity and mutual respect for the cultural values they hold in a high regard without creating any misperception.