The old adage, “less is more,” is an important idea to remember when designing your seasonal logo. The temptation to sprinkle Christmassy goodness over every element of your logo is understandable, but it could end up looking so overwhelming that you actually deter customers.
How to Incorporate Holiday Cheer in Your Logo
Branding has increased in complexity over time. The advent of the internet has allowed companies to stay in tune with their customers so they can stay relevant all year round. One of the easiest ways to stay ahead of the game is with seasonal branding. During the holiday months, most consumers are overwhelmed with Christmas and all it entails. If you fail to adorn that seasonal spirit, it’s unlikely you’ll attract customers.
However, it’s not as easy as just sticking a Santa hat all over your logo. You need to make sure the finished product is aesthetically pleasing and still communicates your brand’s personality. Follow these five tips for creating a seasonal logo so you can ensure your company stays relevant and well-received this holiday season.
Tip #1: DO Use Seasonal Color Schemes
Color is an undeniably essential factor. Over 92% of people say that visuals are the most important factor when making a purchasing decision, and 80% claim that color enhances brand recognition. Considering these statistics, making a change to your brand color scheme should not be taken lightly. However, around the Christmas season, color is one the key signs that holiday cheer is here. The following are all instantly recognizable Christmas color schemes:
- Blue and Silver
- Red and Green
- White and Blue
- Silver and Gold
- Gold and Red
- Purple and White
- Red and Cream
Tip #2: DON’T Make Your Logo Unrecognizable
As previously mentioned, changing your branding colors can be risky. To add holiday cheer — and avoid a holiday nightmare — it’s essential to ensure that your logo doesn’t become unrecognizable. The best way to do this is by establishing which elements of your emblem truly define your brand. It could be the color, the font, the icon, or even the general layout. If you’re unsure, here are some examples:
Color: Target
Target’s branding is so recognizable that you only have to see the red and white circle to place the company. However, if they did decide to change their color scheme, it would be much harder to understand who the brand was. Whenever Target releases seasonal branding, it’s always with the classic red and white icon, no matter which other elements are changed.
Font: Disney
The Disney logo is best defined by its iconic font. In fact, often the emblem is shortened to the first letter because the lettering is so distinctive. Because of this, Disney can easily change their logo color and still remain recognizable.
Icon: Nike
The Nike tick is probably one of the most iconic logos of our time. The symbolism is notably simple, but it can be translated into any marketing campaign and still obviously be advertising the sports company. You can change the color, add text, or include a unique background and layout. However, if you took away the emblem, or covered it with another icon, then the brand impact would be taken away completely.
Layout: BMW
Some brands, like BMW, design a shield or badge as their logo. When these companies alter the arrangement of elements within the emblem, the logo’s recognizability diminishes instantly. The arrangement of the components in the emblem carries greater significance than the choice of letters, font, or even color. Companies such as BMW have the flexibility to incorporate seasonal additions, but altering the placement is not an option, as it would result in the loss of their robust brand identity.
What is a Seasonal Logo?
People love the holidays. And just in the same way people deck out their house or office space, you want your business to show some holiday cheer with a seasonal logo.
A seasonal or holiday logo is simply taking your original logo and modifying it slightly. Doing so allows your business the opportunity to use your existing branding to celebrate the holiday season without drastically changing the overall image.
It isn’t a complete branding redo! You still want to maintain your core brand messaging, but with a little seasonal spice. Once the season is over, you can go back to your original logo or get ready for whatever holiday is coming up next.
The good news is anyone who makes a logo with Tailor Brands automatically has a seasonal logo generated in their studio for every major holiday. Here are some examples of holiday logos made with our logo generator :
Halloween
When spooky season creeps up, you better be ready to serve a Halloween-esque logo! Just like kids go trick-or-treating expecting candy, your target audience wants to see you get into the Halloween spirit.
Changing your business’s icon is an easy way to do so; choose which icon works best for you depending on the visual aspects of your existing logo. Take Boho Bird’s logo as a good example. To coincide with their original abstract icon of an outline of a bird, they chose 2 bats mid-flight.
Thanksgiving
A great way to change your logo to fit the holiday is to add some season-appropriate colors. To fit the Thanksgiving season, Jasmine Personal Stylist’s logo added a few orange and yellow leaves surrounding her name, touching on the foliage of the fall.
