Why a logo means nothing
Without a handful of key elements, a logo is just a smudge.
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE # 275
Indulge me for a moment if you will.
In your mind’s eye, I want you to picture a simple shape.
A circle, perhaps, with a single leaf curling from its side.
Or a stark, sans-serif letterform on a plain field.
It’s clean, right? It’s modern, yes?
It is though, nothing. It doesn’t stand as a representative of a product or service.
It’s not associated with a meaning, an emotion, or a feeling.
It is a meaningless shape and this is the logo in its rawest state.
A vessel without water. A trellis without a vine. A car without a road.
We are told, in furious marketing missives published the world over, that a brand’s logo is its face, its flag, its most vital asset.
We’re also told that a brand is a promise.
Both these statements are nonsense.
The promise side of things is a topic for another discussion, but on its own, a logo is the least vital thing imaginable. It is a cipher. A mark (or marque if we’re dealing with luxury cars).
All logos mean absolutely nothing until we pour a story into them. Until we assign them with a history, with a record, or with a highly particular series of feelings.
Or until we tether them emotionally, spiritually, or commercially to a specific memory—real or imagined—, or to a particular meaning, or to the warm, dusty, reassuring light of nostalgia.
Think of the shell of a snail, abandoned in the garden. It is a beautiful, spiraling form. But its true worth wasn’t in its architecture; it was in the life it housed. The slow journey it made, the rain it weathered, the tender body it protected. A logo is that empty shell. Its power comes only from the journey we associate with it.
That simple apple with a bite taken? It is not a logo. It is the feeling of unboxing your first creative tool. It is the sleek rebellion against the beige box.
That swoosh? It is not a checkmark. It is the sound of gravel under your running shoes at dawn, the burn in your lungs, the personal record you never thought you’d break.
The golden arches are not an ‘M’; they are the smell of French fries on a rainy childhood car journey, the promise of a consistent, greasy happiness.
Without these stories, every single logo reverts to a mere shape.
A highly geometric fruit. An elegantly styled check mark or tick. An abstract arch.
In and of itself and in your own quiet corner of the internet, the symbol for your business or website may not be particularly remarkable.
But as your audience grows and becomes more aware of you, and as they feel safer in your presence and as they become more attentive to whatever it is that you have to say, or share, or offer that mark is no longer just a mark.
For the few who return to read your articles, or watch your videos, or listen to your podcasts your presence becomes the promise of a quiet moment, or a fulfilling thought, or of an insightful opinion.
For these people—your people—over time and with repeated, reassuring calm, your logo begins to personify and encapsulate the feeling of stepping away from the algorithmic storm into a space where things grow at their own pace.
In time, your audience learns to associate your logo with a certain weight and substance that slowly builds meaning with every word and image you place behind it.
This then becomes the great task—and by default, the great folly—of the modern creator.
We chase the perfect, timeless mark, the iconic silhouette, believing it will somehow bestow some sort of significance.
But in adopting this attitude we come to see that the work is not in the design. The work is in the living. The work is in the consistent, daily act of filling the vessel with something true, something helpful, something human.
While a logo does not create loyalty a shared experience does, and although a font does not build trust, a belief in a message does. And while a colour palette or style of image does not evoke feeling, the real or imaged memory does.
So, to anyone fretting over typestyles and kerning and negative space, I say this: step away from the screen. Go and live the story you wish your mark to tell. Do the quiet, unglamorous work in silence. Be helpful. Lead with value. Be consistent. Show up again and again. Be genuinely yourself, in all its flawed and specific glory.
Let your actions, your words, and your creations be the rich soil. In time, that simple, empty shape you started with will put down roots. It will begin to hold the meaning you’ve lived. It will no longer be a logo. It will be a landmark—a small, familiar signpost pointing back to everything you’ve built, and everything you are.
Start with the value you add and the life you’re living.
The symbolism will follow.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Gary
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Next time on Shaking the Tree: Defining the outcome …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Originally from the U.K., Gary Bloomer is a writer, branding advocate, marketing specialist, and an award-winning graphic designer.
His design work has been included in Creative Review (one of the UK’s largest design magazines). Since 2009, he has answered over 5,000 marketing and business questions in the Know-How Exchange of MarketingProfs.com, placing him among the top 3% of contributors. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.