A Glossy Logo From the Web 2.0 Years

Shine from a particular few years

Between about 2005 and 2009, a great many small business logos were drawn with the same few effects.

A gradient from light to dark. A white highlight across the top, as if the logo were made of wet plastic. A reflection underneath, and a soft shadow behind.

It was the look of what people then called Web 2.0. Websites had glossy buttons, software had glossy icons, and a logo with shine looked current.

The trouble now is partly that it looks dated, and mostly that the places a logo has to work cannot reproduce shine at all.

Where the effects fall apart

• One-colour printing: stamps, bags, invoices and newspaper ads turn gradients into blotches.
• Embroidery: thread cannot blend, so highlights become patches and fine lettering closes up.
• Vinyl signs and decals: cut from solid colours, with no way to show a glow.
• Small screens: as a profile picture or tab icon, the effects blur the shape.
• Dark backgrounds: a shadow drawn for white paper turns into a muddy edge.

The first costs money quietly. Every printer asked for a one-colour version has to decide what to do with the gradient, and each one decides differently.

Why it reads as old

In the last few years, the iPhone's own icons, Windows and many large websites have dropped gloss and texture for flat colour and simple shapes.

Customers do not analyse this. They see a glossy logo the way they see an old car: still running, perfectly usable, clearly from a particular year.

That impression transfers to the business. A logo unchanged since 2007 suggests a website, a price list and perhaps a way of working that have not changed either.

Flat design will date too, in time. The aim is not to follow the new fashion but to remove the parts that only ever belonged to one moment.

Simplify rather than replace

Customers recognise a logo by its outline, its colour and the shape of its lettering. Almost nobody remembers the highlight.

That recognition took years to build, on vans, signs, bags and uniforms. A brand new logo throws it away and makes every one of those items look out of date at once.

Simplifying keeps what people know and removes what does not work. Done well, regular customers barely notice the change, which is exactly the point.

It is also cheaper to roll out. The website and profile pictures can change this week, while printed items switch over as old stock runs out.

What to keep and what to take out

Keep the outline of the symbol, the main colour, the lettering, and the arrangement of symbol and name.

Take out the gradient by choosing the one colour it was built around, usually the shade in its middle. Take out the highlight, the reflection, the shadow, any bevel and any outer glow.

Thicken lines that were thin to begin with. Effects often hid weak drawing, and a line that looked fine with a shadow behind it can look frail on its own.

Check the spacing between letters too. Lettering set tight for a large screen can run together when it is printed small or stitched.

A worked example

A kettle corn stand works farmers' markets from May to October and caters weddings, school fairs and company picnics, with two kettles and a canopy.

Its logo was drawn in 2008: a red kettle with a white highlight down its side, a heap of popcorn on a yellow-to-orange gradient, and the name in rounded letters with a reflection underneath.

On the website it looked fine. On the paper bags, stamped in one colour, the gradient became a dark smudge and half the name disappeared into it.

Three suppliers had each simplified the logo on their own: the embroiderer for the aprons, the sign maker for the canopy and the printer for the stickers. The stand had three logos, none of them the original.

A designer redrew it from the original file: the same kettle outline, the same red, flat popcorn shapes and slightly heavier lettering, with no highlight, reflection or shadow.

The new files went to all three suppliers with their next orders. Regulars kept recognising the red kettle, because nothing they recognised had changed.

The versions you need

A simplified logo should come as a small set, each version made for a particular use.

A full-colour version for the website and print. A one-colour version, usually black, for stamps, forms and engraving. A reversed version in white for dark backgrounds, vans and canopies.

And a small square version, often the symbol alone, for profile pictures and the icon in a browser tab, where the name would be unreadable anyway.

Each should exist as a vector file, which scales to any size without blurring, plus ordinary image files for screens. Write down the colour values for print and for screen alongside them.

Why suppliers should not do the redrawing

Embroiderers, sign makers and printers simplify logos every day, because they have to. Each does it for their own process and to their own taste, and the business ends up with a different logo on every surface.

Having a designer simplify it once and hand every supplier the same files costs less than paying each one to guess. It also means the next order matches the last.

The counter-case

Not every logo from those years needs work. A mark whose gloss was subtle, and which already prints cleanly in black, may only need a flat version added to the set.

A business about to change its name, merge or reposition should wait and do the work once, as part of that change.

And sometimes the effects are hiding a deeper problem, such as lettering nobody can read or a symbol that says nothing about the business. Then simplifying is a first step rather than the whole answer.

For most glossy logos, though, the right move is the modest one: keep what customers know and take away the shine.

Before the next print order

1. Find the original logo files from whoever drew it.
2. Print it in black only on plain paper.
3. Shrink it to the size of a postage stamp.
4. List every place the logo appears.
5. Ask a designer to simplify it, not replace it.
6. Get the four versions as vector and image files.
7. Send every supplier the same new files.

Step two is the quickest test there is. A logo that survives black ink on plain paper will survive almost anything else, and one that does not will show exactly where it fails.

Pictures that show customers an out-of-date version of the business cause a similar problem, covered in an old shopfront photo in the map images.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.