Avoiding Logo Design Fads
Tips on creating a unique identity for your travel and tourism brand
Understanding what makes your travel or destination brand unique is essential to creating a logo that expresses your singular position. The advantage is that no competitor can take this position away as long as you remain true to the promise. According to a recent issue of the online newsletter, The Wanderlust Report, successfully distinguishing your brand from the competition requires a firm understanding of the market and the influence of design on brand perceptions.
“One trap to avoid when contemplating a new and distinguishing logo is the design fad,” says Sara Tack, Executive Vice President of Image and Identity at Wanderlust. “Design fads not only occur within a specific travel and destination sector like skiing, but can also span across multiple industries. Often we see companies copy a trend regardless of the look having anything to do with the brand’s core message.
“A favorite handout in the Graphic Design for Corporate Identity class that I teach at RPI is a Graphic Design USA article from the late 1990’s.” In it is a page of logos that are all designed with what she calls The Swoosh Factor.
Tack explains: “After the Nike logo became popular, it seemed that whenever someone designed a logo, no matter for what industry, the trend was for it to have an arc. From health care to high tech, active outdoor to resort branding, the swoosh factor kept showing up whether or not the symbol made any sense at all. It was hard to tell industries apart, much less companies within the same competitive set. You have to wonder if Hyatt considered that their logo symbol is the same as many from the manufacturing or high tech industry.”
It’s difficult to stay away from fads. There's no sin in wanting a destination to be perceived as contemporary. But like the latest contemporary fashion craze, watch out: fads fade fast.
It is also easier to think we want something because we have seen it used successfully elsewhere. But design fads do not help your brand to stand out from the crowd (in a good way) anymore than knocking off the “Got Milk?” campaign does. If someone else has already done it, then you cannot own it. And everyone will know that it is not original.
Read more of Logo Design for Travel and Destinations in the Wanderlust Report, Volume 1, Number 5.
About Wanderlust
Wanderlust provides marketing and branding expertise to destinations, resorts and tourism attractions. We uncover what drives people to choose where they go and build integrated marketing programs to attract them — using the internet, social networks, direct marketing and mass media.
