The Secret To Adding Corporate Appeal To Your Law Firm Logo
In the legal industry, branding and marketing are just as important as they are for businesses in fashion, construction or any other field. Your branding strategy could help you increase the reach of your law firm and attract more clients. There is a lot of competition in this sector and you need to make your company stand out with impressive marketing and branding elements like a professional logo design and business card.
Now, as a law firm owner or partner, you should know that your logo will most likely be the first thing that people will notice about your business. Be it on print and digital mediums like your magazine ad or website, your brand identity design has to catch the attention of the viewer from the first look. So you have to try to come up with one that has corporate appeal and a unique appearance.
Basically, adding corporate appeal to a brand symbol is about making it appear professional and clear-cut. This is how you convince people that your business can be trusted to solve their problems. Given the industry, you have to try and avoid a brand identity design that has an amateur look as that could send the wrong message to your target audience.
You may be wondering about how you could add this corporate appeal to your law firm logo. Well, the answer can be found right here. The secret formula to enhancing the appeal of a legal brand symbol is quite simple. All you need to do is focus on some of these factors.
– Choose A Single Or Two-Color Palette For Your Legal Design
When it comes to adding corporate appeal to your law firm logo, the secret lies in a minimalistic color palette. You should choose one or two colors for the brand identity design of your legal company as that will help you create a strong and lasting impact on the audience. It is important to pick the right colors which bring out a positive response from the audience and convey the message that you want.
Colors like blue, black and green are quite popularly used by law firms as they represent traits like trust, authority and growth. You can go with any of these to bring corporate appeal to your legal business logo. If you opt for a one-color palette, you can have blue or red for instance as any of your primary colors and skip the secondary one. Otherwise, it is also a good idea to pair these up with neutrals such as white or gray.
Take the brand symbols of some of the biggest law firms in the world like White & Case or DLA Piper. Both these companies have chosen blue as their prominent color and managed to create impressive logos with a wide corporate appeal. Blue stands for professionalism, trustworthiness and security, and can work very well in law firm icons.
Image Source: allvectorlogo.com
Image Source: wikimedia
– Pick Modern And Practical Fonts
You have to pay a lot of attention to the fonts in your logo firm visuals . These are crucial to adding a corporate appeal to the logos and forming a good perception in the minds of the audience. It is best that you stick to fonts that are modern such as Sans Serif ones like Helvetica or Montserrat. With a clear-cut and contemporary typeface and font, you can make your law firm logo highly appealing and give it a professional look.
The Sans Serif fonts are commonly associated with stability and objectiveness. So when you use them in your brand symbol, it can create a very positive impression on the viewer. While these fonts certainly add a lot of corporate appeal to a legal company’s logo design, it doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from Serif fonts.
In some brand identity designs, Serif fonts and typefaces such as Garamond or Playfair Display might be the better option. These are the classic and timeless fonts which highlight tradition and reliability. You can maintain the appeal of your logo with the right typography that matches the Serif font style. At the end, the fonts you select should be easy to read and clearly visible on both print and digital mediums.
Image Source: zilliondesigns.com
Image Source: zilliondesigns.com
– Use A Wordmark Or Lettermark
If you look at most law firm logos, you will see that a lot of them are wordmarks, lettermarks or both combined together. The reason why legal businesses go for these types of logos is that they appeal to the eye instantly and can be relevant at all times. Other than that, using a wordmark or a lettermark is a great way to add corporate appeal to the logo design.
Consider this for a moment. When there is elaborate imagery, lines or icons in a law firm logo, it can be quite confusing for the target audience. People who are searching for legal businesses want straight and simple answers such as the name of the firm and its area of expertise. The use of wordmarks and lettermarks can clearly tell potential clients everything important about your law firm.
If there are multiple founding partners, their initials can be featured as a lettermark or elegant monogram along with the wordmark. Take the logo of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP here. You can see how the company has maintained the global corporate appeal of their brand identity design by displaying both styles side by side.
Otherwise, the wordmark alone is also highly professional and convincing as you can see in the example of Ropes & Gray below.
Image Source: wikimedia
Image Source: wikimedia
– Incorporate Geometric Shapes And Legal Symbols
The use of shapes or symbols can certainly make the logo of a legal company appealing in the corporate world. However, you have to be smart about incorporating them in the design. So you can have anything from simple squares and triangle logo designs to circular or irregular shapes. This could help your law firm logo grab attention and convey a message of power, stability and comfort.
Apart from this, different symbols that are associated with the legal industry can also work well in law firm logos. When used in the right way, symbols such as bars or pillars, the scales of justice or even a gavel can increase the corporate appeal of a logo. Take a look at the examples here. In the logo of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, you can see the angel holding a spear beside the wordmark.
The symbol inside the circle actually gives the logo a very unique appearance and would most likely stay in memory as well. While this is one way to have both a symbol and shape in the brand identity design, you could also go with something more subtle. If you look closely at the other logo design, you will see how the pillars are forming the initials of the company name.
Image Source: wikimedia
Image Source: zilliondesigns.com
Both of these logos are quite eye-catching and can look good on business cards, on websites or social media pages as well. The symbols could also appear on billboards without the entire names to increase brand recognition.
– Showcase Your Specialty In Law Through The Design
Now, you may not want to include this in your design to keep it minimalistic but a specialty in a law firm logo does give it an advantage over the others in the market. Potential clients would know exactly what your expertise is and would find it easy to go with a law firm that fits their requirements exactly. For instance, if your specialty is injury or bankruptcy, you could include it in the name or incorporate a relevant and unique symbol to showcase it. This can also add corporate appeal to your design and help in branding and marketing.
Consider the example here for a moment. The law firm logo mentions the expertise in both the name and through the prominent red key. You can go with a similar concept and come up with creative graphics that highlight your specialty and represent your firm in the best way possible.
Image Source: zilliondesigns.com
To Sum Up
These are a few little secrets to adding corporate appeal to a law firm logo. You can keep them in mind and start designing your law firm logo right now. At times, maintaining this can be a bit tricky as you want your message to go across to the target audience without having a lot going on in the logo. Well, now, you can simply consider these factors and come up with a brand symbol for your legal company that is widely appealing and requires minimal upgrades over time.
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