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“Make my website logo bigger”

“Make my logo bigger” is probably the most frequently requested change a web designer gets. There are many reasons why you shouldn’t make your logo bigger though – despite that fact that your logo is a very succinct encapsulation of your business and your brand.

User Centred Design

The key thing to consider is your website users’ perspective.

Think about any time you have visited a website and been concerned about or even thought about the logo? Which website logos do you remember? Which website did you sit and study the logos and want to know more about them? Did you study my logo when you arrived at my website today?

Unfortunately, I think it’s fair to say that website users don’t really care about a website’s logo – even though from the perspective of a business owner, it is very important to the essence of the company.

The best websites are actually websites that are built for the users of the website, that have the *users of the website* first and foremost – and not the website owners. It’s hard to get used to this fact.

Users come to your website to “perform tasks”, and their tasks have nothing to do with your logo. Sure, the logo needs to be present on your website, for recognition and branding, and also so that the user is constantly aware which website they are (still) visiting.

I know that you want people to ‘get’ your logo. But forcing your logo in front of people is not the way to achieve it – and at the end of the day, it is still just a logo – just like all other logos.

Can you think of a time when a logo has specifically made you buy something from a website? I can’t think of a time when I’ve ever actually bought something specifically because of how a logo *looks*. I also can’t think of any time when I’ve studied the logo of a website whilst considering making a purchase, let alone a time when a logo has convinced me to make a purchase from a website.

Sure, I have bought clothes and accessories due to the logo and brand, but that’s because I’ve come to know the brand and I associate with what it stands for, and perhaps because I want to be associated with the image of that brand. But the reason for all of that did not begin with what the logo looks like.

If you provide good service and products, and people come to associate your logo with everything good about you and your brand, then people may buy from you because they recognise the logo and because it gives them the confidence to buy from you – but this is still largely nothing to do with the first impression that a large version of your logo gave them (nor is it because a large version of the logo was shoved in their face when they first visited your website!).

To prove a point, here are some examples of logos that are too big:

Apple MacBook Pro with Big LogoFord truck with a big logo

Balanced to suits user needs

One of the main reasons for not making a logo bigger is to keep the website design balanced and functional, so that people can use your website easily and achieve the objectives for their visit. Emphasis of different elements on the page should be proportional to what users generally need from your website – and which can be pretty safely be summarised as not your logo but *your content* (they don’t generally need ‘your logo’ when they visit your website).

If you don’t have well balanced pages, the alternative is that your logo fights for attention, overshadows your content, and distracts the users from what they are trying to achieve – the end result being a cluttered website that is hard to use and has an oversize logo – all of which negatively impact the brand that you were so precious to emphasize in the first place.

Isn’t what you really want a slick, clean, professional website?

 

The ‘Lowest Common Denominator’ screen size is 1024 x 768 pixels

Another key reason for not making the logo bigger is how much available ‘screen real estate’ will be used up by the logo, leaving precious little for your all-important content to be seen and to gently persuade users that you are the solution to their problems.

Websites need to be designed for the *lowest common denominator screen size*, which at the moment is considered to be a screen 1024 pixels wide x 768 pixels high. And once you factor in all of the browser chrome (menus, buttons, status bar and other items), the height remaining to fit important content in for the average base computer users is only 568 pixels high! How big did you want your logo to be again?

Your important content should be *above the fold* – ie. above the bottom of the screen (before scrolling), to ensure that all visitors your important content straight away.

If you really must have a big logo on your website, you would be better off having a small logo in the website header, and creating an ‘About’ page or a ‘Philosophy’ page where it might make a bit more sense to have a big logo, and where you can explain the philosophy behind the logo and the company (and why you have put such a big version of it on your webpage). Be sure to monitor your website statistics to see how many people visit the page…!

Now then – are you sure you still want that big logo?