According to Will Rogers: “You never get a second chance to make a Good first impression.”
Diligently designed logos exude a clear impression of your restaurant and help foster your image by communicating consistent messages to your customers. Before your patrons even have the chance to walk through your doors, they are prone to form opinions about your restaurant by looking at your logo. As such, it’s highly indispensable that your restaurant logo is set to wow.
When designing a registered trademark, there are myriad logo types that a restaurant can opt for. Some go for text only logos or wordmarks, such as subway, while others incorporate intricate designs and pictures. However, in order to make a lasting statement and allow for instant brand recognition, most restaurants are jumping on the bandwagon to adopt minimalism and take up a wordmark logo. Here’s how restaurants can benefit from using a wordmark logo:
1. Easier to Identify
Unless we are ready to accept the demise of creativity with a heavy heart, you are hardly likely to name your restaurant “the restaurant” (although on a second thought, some people may appreciate the pun). If you have come up with an ingenious name for your restaurant but haven’t had a chance to impinge it upon the minds of your patrons, using a wordmark logo may be a more prudent choice than confounding your customers with an intricate web of fancy symbols that won’t resonate with them.
Since the wordmark spells out the restaurant name, literally offers it on a silver platter, people instantly recognize your restaurant and what it offers just by looking at the logo. This is one of the most infallible ways of making the restaurant name a household word. Especially, if your communication funds are depleted, you are saved from the hassle of splurging a fortune on branding, due to your wordmark logo taking up the publicity.
2. Save the Legal Blues
Although a purely unadulterated typographic solution for your restaurant can be rather challenging, it is far less excruciating in one aspect: the stress and pressure of the trademark search. After multiple decades of modern corporate identity design, the recent years have inundated us with a barrage of symbols and logos of every type. It is becoming harder than ever to devise an original symbol, simply because somewhere, in some nook and corner of the world, it might have already been trademarked and claimed, leaving you in the lurch, scratching your head in bewilderment!
The next time you reach cloud nine thinking that you have crafted the legendary logo in history, save the celebrations until it has been verified by the trademark attorneys to ensure its availability. These small humbling moments for designers, when they behold the fat spiral-bound reports replete with symbols bearing resemblance to the designs that they once thought the epitome of novelty, are saddening. This is where Wordmarks fit the bill; once the restaurant owner owns the name, trademarking the logotype is not necessary anymore.
3. Best for small Businesses
While fancy brand mark logos fare well for giant, global brands and restaurant chains, small restaurants, especially those planning to stay local, would garner greater benefits by using a word mark logo. Until you are the owner of an enormous food chain, chances are that a plethora of people haven’t heard of you, let alone reminisce the savor of your special succulent baby back ribs by your restaurant logo.
These days, when even your local fried chicken takeaway is sporting a fancy logo, you can hardly expect people to memorize every logo that they see. Since wordmark logos capitalize on the name of the restaurant to enhance brand awareness, they make sure your logo rings a bell everyone someone happens to chance a glance.
4. Easy to Comprehend
One of the best reasons to use a wordmark logo is the ease of comprehending it and simplicity. Graphic trademarks that comprise entirely of intricate symbols and pictures often seem too complicated and unnecessarily busy. This lack of crispness can appear unprofessional, and the absence of words leaves the customers in a conundrum when it comes to deciphering what these images represent and what to make of them.
In fact, most restaurants only resort to developing a symbol when faced with a compelling strategic reason. Since visual identities work through familiarity, you can’t expect to add a new visual element and aspire to establish it without making sure that people have learned it first. Each new symbol that you add to your logo translates into one new element that has to be leaned. The paradox here is that the people are willing to learn as little as possible. They are there to eat a great meal, have fun, and relax.
5. Mere Co-incidence or Passing off?
A plethora of restaurants in the same genre could tout similar graphics in their logos, which lead to misperceptions. This results in poor consumer recognition and brand confusion. However, since the name of your restaurant is visible in a wordmark logo, it is more prone to sticking in the minds of the customers. With the use of attention-grabbing fonts and aesthetically pleasing colors, your logo is bound to glean attention and stand out.
6. Communicate
Whether comprised of initials, multiple words or single words, Wordmarks are reliant on no accompanying symbols. While some people are apprehensive of sounding too run of the mill, you can always render an air of uniqueness to your logo by the typeface chosen. Different fonts have varying characteristics and can be employed to communicate the right feel and aesthetic pleasure, to leave the desired impression on a desired demographic. Be it vintage, rustic, chic, informal, fine dining, or casual, your restaurant wordmark logo can go to great length in depicting the ambience one can expect inside.
The vibrant burst of typography, textures, and warm, earthy colors hint at the subtle wafts of cinnamon, freshly baked buns, steaming coffee, and a delectable explosion of flavors. The elegantly curving letters and the swirls add a touch of softness, magic and mystique to the logo; a testament to the warm, glazed swirls of heaven one discovers inside.
The color of royalty and nobility, the logo is done up in purple not because the logo designer took fancy to it. The chic and graceful font over a backdrop of a luscious shade of plum promises sheer elegance, sophistication, decadence, flamboyance, and high end dining inside. Didn’t looking at the logo conjure up pictures of dim lit opulent settings, cigars, and gorgeously dressed people perched on lux upholstery?
The unsymmetrical letters and the traditional red and green hues of the pizzerias, invoke nostalgia and the craving for a hot hearth, checkered table clothes, wooden chairs, busty waitresses carrying jugs of ale, and the titillating wafting aroma of melting cheese bubbling in the oven teasing your senses.
After about twenty years of frown, the IHop logo seems happy again. The curve under the logo lends it an impression of a peppy smile, with the ‘o’ and the ‘p’ devotedly playing the roles of happy eyes and a nose. The animated font appeals to kids and gives away the casual ambience within and perhaps the hint of steaming pancakes topped with mountains of whipped cream and embellished with all manners of creativity.
