Having a logo does not mean you have a brand.
Having a brand does not mean you need a logo.
Let's explore the difference....

What is a Logo?
A visual symbol to represent your company. Effective logos do not require a person to read, are distinctive and instantly recognizable, and convey something about the brand experience of your product or service.

What is a Brand?
A brand is the mark/impression that your product or service leaves on a customer. It's how people feel about and what people think of their experience with your product or service. A logo can be used to help customers recognize a brand, but is not required for a brand to be effective.

In order for a logo to be effective, a customer has to come into contact with the brand in its intended context before the logo can mean anything to the customer. For example (I'm only using DJ because I know he can take it), DJ's logo of the silhouette with shadow means a lot to photographers and clients who are aware of DJ and his work and have experienced him in one way or another. However, if DJ's logo were placed on a t-shirt and he was wearing it in a mall - people who have never seen DJ's website or slideshow would just think it's an interesting design and would have no idea that it stood for the guy wearing the shirt, or any of the things attached to the DavidJay brand. Also consider how differently his brand is perceived by wedding clients vs. photographers - a brand means different things to different markets based on the context in which people have encountered a name or logo.

When I say "Gary Fong," what do you think of? Here's a guy who doesn't really have a logo, but has a very strong brand. There are a lot of feelings and thoughts attached to his name and whether you like him personally or not, you recognize his name every time you hear or see it. The name Gary Fong can also be perceived differently based on the experiences you've had with his products or service - OR based on what OTHER people have said about his products or service (regardless of whether or not they've tried them!) Anytime you encounter a brand via personal experience or by word-of-mouth, you add more impressions of what a particular brand means to you.

Let's try some more...

BluDomain and Pictage have a strong brand and an identifyable logo (once again- to those that have seen the logos in their original contexts). If you have never experienced the products and/or service of either companies for yourself, your impressions of these brands are based solely on what other people have said about their experiences. If you have only read or paid attention to the complaints about both services and products, you probably have quite a negative impression of the brand and wonder why anyone would use either. Since most people tend to be more vocal when things are going wrong (squeaky wheel gets the grease) and people are skeptical by nature, negative comments appear to happen more often and have more impact than positive comments. There could be thousands of people who are happy with both services but because they are perfectly content, they have no need to go out of their way to say anything. And if someone does make an unsolicited comment about how much they love a service, it appears as a solicitation because we are skeptical of the intent behind the self-promotion of a particular product or service.

Now apply this to your business. Here are some essential questions to ask yourself, and to answer. Rather than simply reading them, I suggest taking the time to copy them and write out the answers for yourself. You may be surprised by what you discover when you take time to read and reflect on your answers over time:

• Right now, are you more focused on building your logo or your brand? Which is most important in the long-run?
• Do you need a logo? If you don't need one, why do you have one? If you do have one, what does it communicate when it's seen out of context - and is that helping or hurting your brand?
• What impressions are you deliberately sending to your clients and potential clients? What impressions are you accidentally sending to clients and potential clients?
• What impressions are you deliberately and accidentally sending to non-clients?
• How does putting your logo or name on different products affect your brand? When do you want to avoid using your name or logo?
• How/When/Where do your clients and potential clients experience your brand? How/When/Where is your brand experienced by people who are not clients or potential clients? (Vendors you deal with, people you meet or talk with outside of your business, other photographers, etc.)
• How do the experiences of both clients and non-clients affect your overall brand?

I don't claim to be an expert, and this is by no means a definitive guide to logos or branding, but I do hope that it gives you something to chew on and to apply to your business.

I'm sorry I even have to mention this, but I've had some of my intellectual property stolen recently. If you copy any part of this and publish it elsewhere, just be honest and quote your source. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

Another great post by Anne.

Green is good!

thanks so much Anne. You're ringin' my bell

great post anne!! really useful information. Your brand - is so much more than a logo or a slogan. Everything we communicate on every level contributes to brand "you". Consisentency is so key here i think.

This really drives this point home.

Love it!

Sure it does. We all have brands. Heck, even a person is a brand, but certainly every business is a brand.

The question is, are you managing that brand or just letting it unfold?

I have to agree with Kevin....

what is more important is do you have brand recognition?

For most of us, the answer is wide-range - no, regionally - maybe.

thats what needs to be worked on, getting your brand out there, utilizing it and making it profitable

I think she is to mean, a logo in itself is not a brand.

But I do agree we all have a brand whether we direct it or not

Also interesting to determine is....

do we need wide-range brand recognition or is regional sufficient?

regional. most turtles dont like the desert. or the mountains. or the snow.

ding*ding*ding!!! You win! I see a lot of people stressing out about their logo and thinking that once they have that finished than they're done and they've created an instant brand! This is just to encourage people to think more deeply about what a brand means and how a logo plays into a brand.

I'm totally splitting hairs at this point...but an icon is a pictorial image, and a logo is usually letters/type. I learned all this when I was researching my own logo/icon. Like I said...I'm being annoying at this point. hehehe. But most folks insert the term logo for the whole shebang.

But I like where your head is Anne, as usual. I too believe that branding does not equal logo and vice-versa. Branding is the "vision" or "feel" you get from a company--and it can be very intangible. And a logo/icon/mark is a concrete symbol which means nothing and everything at the same time.

Vicki Taufer made some interesting comments about this in her biz seminar at WPPI. She showed the evolution of her own logo/icon. It was very interesting. She used the Anthropolgie logo as her inspiration--which conveys a bohemian, free thinking, artsy feel with the logo/icon alone.

Where is Davina? She is going through all this right now! She has the branding/icon thing nailed!!

Geneve

Oooohhh...I have a lot to say about this...this is my favorite part of the business and I agree with all of you...but I am enjoying the FL weather right now...I'll chime in later!

Great post as always, Anne

Thank you for expanding on that Geneve - I tried to focus on the big picture so as not to lose people in the message and perhaps I ended up not being specific enough.

me=
you=

I'd much rather be you right now!! That's it.. I'm on my way...

My brain is going to explode.

Great topic!

In a nutshell...your logo is but one very small part of your brand.

As photographers (and for most service based businesses...but esp. high ticket services such as wedding photography), our brand is very much about the overall experience compared to consumer product manufacturers who need to rely on brand loyalty and repeat business from their customers.

Good point!!! If you aren't ready to think about this stuff now... just write it down or copy it in a "to think about in the future" folder so that you can come back to it when you are ready and can really dedicate some time to thinking about it. You should see my folder of stuff to think about... it's actually an entire journal!!!... but it has really helped me get ahead when I've taken the time to *just think*

This is something I'm thinking about and working on a lot right now, and it can be overwhelming! Thanks for the questions, Anne, I'll certainly use them in the process!

So what are some things that help create our brand as photographer's (something else to think about.)

I'll start with a few:
-quality of work (of course)

-the relationships you have with your vendors and clients

-how you present yourself when you are doing a shoot or wedding. Basically your professionalism (this encompasses alot...from how you act to what you say to how you are dressed all plays into your brand)

-how you deliver to your clients (from presentation to timeliness)

i could go on, but i want to see what other people think goes into the making or breaking or your brand


Great post Anne...copying and pasting as we speak

Actually, if you really want to split hairs... "Logo" certainly can just be the icon. It's a loose enough word that it's used to cover many things:

logo|?l?g?| noun ( pl. -gos) a symbol or other small design adopted by an organization to identify its products, uniform, vehicles, etc. : the Olympic logo was emblazoned across the tracksuits.

If you're in marketing, you're likely to hear logo refer to the "whole shebang" as you mentioned it, but when we're designing them, we break it down to the "mark" and the "logotype." We recently discussed Dave Richards' logo on another thread. The DRP he created is his mark, the daverichardsphotography below is his logotype. Apple's apple is their mark, the word "Apple," in the Garamond Light font, kerned just so, is their logotype. The word "logo" can be used to mean the 2 elements together, or either of them separately.

$.02

I totally agree with that statement

ericvon - that's exactly what I'm hoping for... pushing people to explore the ways of improving their brand through the little things they do every day.

So many times I've heard of photographers being "rude" or "impatient" with people at wedding or reception sites. It amazes me that I see those people in business year after year, but I know that they also pay a lot in advertising and bridal shows to keep attracting new clients which haven't been burned by them or haven't heard of their name and attached negative feelings to it. EVERYONE you meet is a potential promoter or demoter of your business.

How do you treat the customers who inquire about you but end up not being your clients? Are you grateful for their inquiry? How far do you go to make sure that they are taken care of?

How quickly do you respond? When do you respond? How easy is it for people to reach you? What does that say about your business and your philosophy?

I'd rather ask questions than answer them (obviously) because I think everyone needs to decide what is best for their business since this is not a one-size-fits-all equation. I think that by starting with the right questions, we can come to answers that give us direction.

Anne,

exactly! since we are all small business owners in a service industry...pretty much EVERYTHING we do contributes positively or negatively to our brand. I know that can be a little overwhelming to think about it that way but it is probably best to think of it that way so you are always reminding yourself to go that extra mile for your clients and vendors.

nor do cats like the beach.

nor do they like it when you put scotch tape on their paws

I think the term a lot of us are talking about is Brand Equity... What knowledge do consumers have of a product or service; what do they think of when they think of a product or service. There can be both positive and negative Brand Equity. A textbook by Kotler and Keller (sorry I don't have it with me right now to give the full credit) covers this subject well. They also state that the most important thing to building strong brand equity is, by far, the QUALITY of marketing done, not the QUANTITY. Of course this assumes a minimum threshhold of marketing is completed.

My rookie 2 cents.

Thanks Anne for posting this. Very insightful.

Or when you put them in the toilet and sit on the lid... (with scotch tape on their paws).

And you know about putting cats in the toilet how?.....