A Logo Makeover Achieves Results

We all know a picture tells a thousand words. That’s why your company logo can make you or break you. A logo needs to work quickly and powerfully. It needs to create a positive first impression so that the customer feels comfortable exploring the possibility of doing business with you.

My client Salazar Packaging, Inc. had a logo that just wasn’t working. It looked like this -

There were several issues -

• The roll in the drawing is supposed to be a roll of industrial plastic film, but it could be a roll of anything.
• The red lettering in the company name is distracting. Originally the client was thinking of going by its initials, SPRI, but when they scrapped that idea, the red became totally unnecessary.
• The tagline had become limiting. Like most good entrepreneurial companies, this one has been evolving steadily into new services and products.
• While the logo appealed to some departments within a customer’s organization, the logo was felt to be insufficiently “corporate” to be effective for high level presentations.
• The client wanted a logo with a look and feel that reflected their technical competence and years of experience.

Working with the client and my designer, Red Street Studio, we developed this logo and tagline -

You’ll notice we dropped “Resources” from the company’s name. This paved the way for a cleaner look and more memorable presentation. Retaining the color scheme we all liked and felt was appropriate for an industrial business, we focused attention on the words we really wanted people to remember - “Salazar” and “Packaging”.

The tagline, “Delivering Sustainable Results”, was a natural choice for two reasons. First, it will continue to be meaningful as the company expands into new areas of service and products. Second - and far more important - the idea of helping customers achieve sustainable results is what the owners of the business are passionate about. If a tagline is genuine, you will naturally weave it into your business conversations. If a tagline is inauthentic, it will come off like hype.

Logos and taglines are a lot like websites. Customers glance at them and form an impression - quickly. If the impression is positive, it opens the door for serious conversation. If the impression is negative, a conversation might never start.

So far, so good. The new logo is proving effective in conveying the sense of expertise and experience that Salazar Packaging wants to emphasize. And what’s gratifying for me to hear is that the new logo is being well received at all levels, from executive management to purchasing to the shipping and receiving department. That’s really important, because the client works closely with people in all parts of an organization.

There’s been tons written about taglines lately. These tagline tips from Liz Strauss make a world of sense. Liz also recommended 25 posts on writing taglines. They’re all interesting. I particularly enjoyed Drew McLellan’s observations on pork, Holly Hall’s tagline self-diagnostic quiz, and Rajesh Shakya’s spiritual tagline perspective.