Characters and Figures: How They Support a Brand’s Logo

The goal when designing a logo is to ensure that it’s not only memorable to its intended audience, but embodies the brand’s identity which can ultimately contribute to the brand’s success.

Designing a logo entails a cohesive harmony between font, color, and most importantly, a character or figure. A character brings the logo to life, conjuring ideas, themes, events and emotions that humanizes  the efforts of marketing.

A character tells a story, representing the brand and how they want to be perceived. In other words, a character defines how a logo will be understood for the brand itself and anybody interacting with it. From a psychological perspective, branding creation is directly linked to understanding how individuals communicate through figures.

A comfortable association between a brand’s logo and the consumer creates a relationship of satisfaction, loyalty, and relatedness. This emphasizes the importance of psychology in the realm of marketing, which is often overlooked or highly misunderstood.

The association people make via the characters is crucial in how they eventually classify brands in the grand scheme of the competitive marketing world. Thus, this provides for a defining element in how individuals choose to interact or not interact with the brands. A strong character equates a strong logo, which leads to a memorable brand with potential for longevity.

Let’s have a look at some examples:

1) Chewy.com http://www.chewy.com/

Chewy’s logo elicits a jovial and heart warming mood due to the use of man’s best canine friend. A dog, puppy or pup, call it whatever you want but pet-owners will surely recognize the brand’s mascot. A happy disposition and vibrant emotion of the character welcomes the consumer to the brand, inviting them to potentially take advantage of some friendly prices.

2) Jackpot Jane http://www.jackpotjanebingo.co.uk/

Jackpot Jane is one savvy lady. With a keen eye for big jackpot wins, a sassy vibe and, a dynamic personality displayed via the obvious color scheme, she is sure to draw the attention of like-minded bingo players. In fact, a large majority of bingo fans are older women, making Jackpot Jane a relatable, lovable character.

3) http://www.ask.com/

Jeeves will forever be associated to Ask.com, depicting a gentleman’s gentleman, capable of fetching answers to life’s complicated questions at whim. Although the US phased out the character, the UK/Ireland decided to bring Jeeves back to due to popular demand, understandably so.

Characters and figures play an imperative role in the overall marketing scheme for many companies. As a brand name is often established through memorable visuals, the additional character element brings forth a familiarity that stands the test of time. In fact, with a model figure to support the story and theme behind one’s brand, a more human approach to marketing is introduced, one that taps into that emotional side that astute marketers know so well.