The Use Of Language In Logo Design

Before you approve that new logo you’re considering for your travel or destination brand, stop for a moment to consider how people perceive visual information. According to a recent issue of the online newsletter, The Wanderlust Report, a successful brand identity requires an understanding of your market AND the influence of design and language on your target audience.

“Every aspect of your logo contributes to its ability to communicate,” says Sara Tack, Executive Vice President of Image and Identity at Wanderlust. “The content of your logo is third in the sequence of visual recognition – behind shape and color – because the brain takes more time to process language. Letterforms can be very powerful in creating content and meaning. The use of initials as an identifying mark has been around for centuries, since medieval kingdoms became economic enterprises. Letterforms are often abstracted to create clever symbols which act as metaphor for the core brand positioning. These symbols combine a strong form and shape that influences content,” she explains. 

Many logos consist of only the name of the destination without any iconic symbol. These wordmarks or logotypes range in complexity from straightforward typesetting of an existing font, to a completely custom typographic mark. The most effective wordmarks have something unique embedded or changed in the typography that create metaphor and imply meaning. It can be a clever graphic inserted into the word, a texture applied to the letters, or the transformation of a letter(s).

“Too often travel and destination brands rely on clichés such as script typography to denote luxury, even though it doesn’t necessarily distinguish or get to the heart of the brand,” Tack adds. “It's not that these logos aren’t nice on the surface, but do they really speak to the core of the brand message? It's hard to understand why so many believe that script type is the only way to attract a luxury customer. 

“If you’ve ever had the pleasure of staying at the Lake Placid Lodge, the script type might confuse you. The Lake Placid Lodge is designed in the Adirondack Great Camp tradition – solid, rustic and earthy. The script type has little to do with the resort’s heritage and brand position,” Tack comments.

Clearly, there are many decisions to be made in creating a new logo or identity for travel and destination brands; obvious considerations such as which words to include, to more subtle factors like shape and the emotional impact of certain colors.

Read more of Logo Design for Travel and Destinations in the Wanderlust Report, Volume 1, Number 5.

If you'd like to learn more about logo design and how shape, color and language content are interpreted by the human brain, we recommend these sources:

• Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheller

John Wiley  & Sons, Inc., 2006

• 'Meggs’, A History of Graphic Design, 4th Edition by Philip B. Meggs and Alston W. Purvis

John Wiley & Sons, 2006

• An Osteopathic Approach to Children by Jane E. Carreiro

Elsevier Health Sciences, 2003

• “Dual perspectives give science added insight into brain” by Michael Purdy Homewood

The Gazette Online, the newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University 2002, VOL. 32, NO. 2


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.