We’ve matched up company logos with custom stress balls many, many, many times over our 40+ years in business. Through that time, we have noticed two important facts. The first is that logo design is somewhat cyclical—certain kinds of features are popular at different times, go out of style, and then come back later on. The second important fact, though, is that there are some features that are always effective, no matter how the styles change. Today, when a customer uploads their organization’s logo for us to imprint on a stress ball, we use the experience we’ve collected over the decades to help them make their promo item as effective as it can be. Here are some interesting facts about logo design and how it’s changed (and what’s stayed the same) over the years.
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Ornate or Plain?
One of the most fascinating trends in logo design is the popularity of certain types of fonts. At any given moment, companies may opt for a flowery, highly decorative font with lots of extra flourishes to display their name (think of Coca-Cola or Ford), or the exact opposite: a blocky, plain font with zero distractions (think Facebook or LinkedIn). Almost any time you see a company refresh their logo, you’ll see them move in one of those two directions with the font they use for their name.
Why change font, though? At the beginning of the “cycle,” it could be an attempt to separate that company’s branding from the many other logos that the average person sees every day. Once a certain style has taken over as the most common, “expected” one, anything radically different from that is bound to attract attention. Inevitably, other companies will move in the same direction, and before too many years have gone by, the “fresh, new” look has become the new norm.
Sometimes, however, there is a more concrete reason for companies to alter the look of their logo. Today, a huge number of people conduct their shopping and information-gathering activities on their smartphones and other mobile devices. On a small smartphone screen, an ornate, flowery logo can be very distracting and hard to read, not to mention taking up extra valuable real estate on the screen. In order to be more effective on the small screen, companies are opting to use logos and fonts that are very simple and easy to read. That trend inevitably bleeds over into other offline marketing avenues, as companies work to keep their branding consistent across all their advertising platforms.
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Things That Don’t Change
As a business that supplies customized stress balls, it’s not really our intent to advise you on how you should design your company or nonprofit organization’s branding. But we do know a lot about what looks good on our stress balls and what doesn’t look so good. A stress ball presents a relatively small area for imprinting, and that area varies depending on the specific stress ball design that you choose for your promotional campaign. If your business is a law firm with four partners, each with a long, hyphenated last name, you may want to reconsider printing the entire firm’s name on a small stress ball! The print would have to be so small that the ink would likely bleed together and make your company name very hard to read, defeating the purpose of your marketing campaign.
Likewise, the ornate, flowery fonts that we discussed earlier are not nearly as successful on custom stress balls as the simple ones that are more popular at the moment. Just like a blocky, plain font is more easily readable on a small smartphone screen, it shows up much better on the small imprint area of a stress ball. The same goes for the graphics that may be part of your organization’s logo. A complex line drawing might not show up the way you picture it on your promo item; simpler is always better.
Even if your company is “locked into” a somewhat complex logo and font in the rest of its branding, you may want to consider coming up with an alternative for your custom stress balls bulk order. In the end, your promotional products will attract more attention, and more importantly, they will continue to effectively communicate your name to the people who pick up those promotional products for years to come. If you have a question about how suitable your logo will be for use on one of our stress ball designs, just communicate with us during the upload process. We will be more than happy to give you advice on what we can do to work out a great solution and create a stress ball design that you are proud to offer to your audience.
See What We Mean
If you are a “visual learner” and are having a hard time picturing exactly what we mean, no problem! All you have to do is head to our large online catalog of stress ball designs to see hundreds of examples of what works well. Click on any stress ball design, and you’ll be able to see samples of various logos imprinted on that design, giving you an idea of how large the imprint area is, what fonts are easiest to read, and what images seem to work best.
If your organization has a multi-colored logo that you are determined to use with your stress ball order, check out our full-color printing products category. The stress ball designs in this category are specifically made to accept more complex, full color logos, and could be just right for your campaign.
With enough lead time, we can also create fully customized stress ball designs for customers that want to offer something unique. The sky’s the limit! Contact us today to find out what the possibilities are for your organization’s next campaign, and we’ll help you make it as successful as possible.