Educational Startups: How a Well-Designed Logo Can Help Shape Your Brand Identity

Branding for startups is a complex topic with many exceptions and niche rules, depending on your specific area of activity. However, there will always be elements in common with all Branding, regardless of if you run a small hardware store, a used car lot, or an educational startup. 

One of the most memorable aspects of your public-facing strategy will be your logo. With just a half-second glimpse, most of us can recognize the emblems of many companies. There is no need for long commercials or sales pitches, you only need a single look. That is the power of a logo, like a real-life hyperlink for your memory. 

Let’s look at some of the primary benefits of well-designed logos for startup branding:

1. Making it easier to recognize your educational startup

Human memory does not work like the memory of a computer or a hard drive. We don’t just take in a steady stream of information without sorting. Usually, our memories are sorted by our emotions, visual or audio queues, and smells. 

Did you even smell something that instantly brought you back to your childhood? Or maybe a 30-year-old theme song instantly transported you back to when you used to watch Sunday morning cartoons. 

It is very powerful to associate a commercial service or product with a song or visual logo because our minds are hardwired to respond and recognize instantly. Coming up with cool logo ideas is a fun part of the process. Many new businesses focus a lot of their efforts on their page design and color schemes, but not enough on the emblem. Both need an equal amount of attention.

2. A good logo helps to accumulate trust

Regardless of what you are selling, you are participating in commerce and promising a certain level of quality. As you deliver (or fail to deliver) those services or products, people will start to notice a pattern and associate it with your startup logos, and overall brand. 

Think about the reputation that certain European cars have. People even have phone and desktop wallpapers with their Logos, that’s how much goodwill they’ve gathered. Of course, the quality of the product ultimately decides, but the Logo channels and focused attention, become the representative of your business. 

3. Elegance through minimalism 

Startup logo design is not that different from the logos design of large companies with billion-dollar returns. If you try to observe what’s on the market already, you will notice something surprising: most logos are simple. 

You would expect emblems to be highly intricate and elaborate, but that is not the case. Even though we do not often think of brand logos as pieces of art, they often are. And in art, whatever is too ostentatious, brash, direct, and without nuance is considered a kitsch.

Designing a logo that is over the top is what a teenager would do. Just focus on a few clean lines, curves, and reference images, and integrate them as simplistically as possible. This will help with memorization and demonstrate your prudence and elegance. These are important qualities to have if you’re working in education.

4. Increase customer identification with the brand

Did you know that Sigmund Freud was the father of psychology? Did you also know that his nephew started the science of public relations and marketing? 

Overall, people have some hardwired psychological impulses that are almost impossible to change, and advertising of any kind tries to make use of that to sell more products.

So, what impulse are we talking about? Well, we are social creatures, and it is our instinct to try to feel part of groups and teams. This is why people can develop fanatical devotion to sports teams, even though those sports teams have players from across the world constantly being changed and traded. Fans tell “us” and “we won”, even though the team doesn’t know they exist.

Some are very devoted to a genre of music, or movies, and the opposite is also true. Some define themselves by their opposition to certain brands. Overall, this is just marketing making use of our base instincts. 

These products rarely reflect any actual value, and many competing companies have their products made in the same factories. Logic would dictate that you should buy the best service at the time, not stick with a brand because it’s “yours”.  

Even knowing that brand loyalty is basically a brain misfire, this will still happen to you. This is how powerful it is. Your logo will be the first, and most recognizable visual cue of your education startup and services. 

If you manage to survive on the market and get some customers, they will start developing brand loyalty eventually.

5. Small things can make a big difference

Just like we mentioned previously, most competing products are made in the same factories. Most courses use the same basic data and understanding. The range of quality in many cases is not that great, because in many cases, the government would step in if your quality was very low. 

So, in a field with many similarities between you and your competition, every little difference adds up. 

This can apply to any type of competition. Watch a race on TV. People don’t beat each other’s time by 2 hours. It’s often a difference of a few dozen seconds that separates the 1st place guy, from places 2 and 3. 

For example, if your education startup and your competitor are very close in quality and price, and someone must choose, small factors will be the tiebreaker. 

Is your HQ a little closer to their location? Is your website better designed, with colors that are easier on the eyes? And, of course, which is the superior option, out of the two educational logos?

These may seem like highly superficial differences, but they can shift an undecided customer’s opinion towards your company. There’s a reason why corporations spend millions of dollars caretaking their image.

Take advantage of every small detail or advantage. It will add up in the end. 

6. If you can afford it, hire outside help

Thanks to the inflation in Tech and Arts degrees, the market is full of skilled and talented graduates willing to freelance. In fact, a lot of them form their own companies that offer complete packages for web support. An assignment service can provide web content, especially if your education startup is more focused on the technical STEM field and are not very good writers.

You can do all these things on your own, but you can save a lot of time by hiring a third party.

Conclusion

In conclusion, in the eyes of many people, your company and your logo are the same thing. Make sure that you design a logo that is simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing and mark your greatest accomplishments under that logo. 

If all goes well, with time, people will start to develop brand loyalty as your Education Startup’s reputation increases.