By Eric Brown

Almost all massage therapists can’t wait to print up their new business cards. As they start to put the design together the first things they come up against is designing a massage logo for their business card.

However, is it really necessary that they have a massage logo?

Logos are used in conventional advertising to develop a certain amount of comfort with a product. Logos are also used to anchor and reproduce a certain feeling or emotion that the logo is associated with. Because of this logos (and branding in general) are way more important for commodity products, that is products where there is very little perceived advantage in the consumer’s mind.

Faced with a rack of candy bars at a convenience store checkout for example, an advertiser wants a consumer to get an instant sense of familiarity and comfort with choosing their product. They do this by and large through logo design (there’s not enough room to place much more than a logo on a candy bar wrapping) which has been related with a specific message or certain feeling through considerable brand advertising on the boob tube and in print. If that candy bar doesn’t get picked right away from the vast selection of comparable candies, then that business is out of luck.

Most small businesses, massage practices included, don’t have the the same need to brand as the candy bar manufacturer. Massage is not a “commodity” item. It’s what sellers call a “high involvement” product. The ordinary buyer doesn’t see a dozen offices lined up down the street and on a whim select one. They research, get suggestions about, seek referrals to, converse about, and take time making up their mind before they pick up the phone to reserve a massage. The need for instant visual recognition is really not that vital.

So for massage therapists, massage logos tend to serve more as artistic components in the design of business cards than any kind of branding tool.

Basic principles of massage therapy logo creation…

Here are some basic rules and principles for creating your personal massage therapy logo.

1. Keep it simple

Avoid a lot of details. Prospects are only going to look at it momentarily and leave with a feeling. Keeping the design elementary makes your massage logo easier to remember and easy to reproduce.

2. Don’t get overly literal

Your massage logo doesn’t have to convey what you do. Think of some of the greatest logos: Golden arches (nothing to do with hamburgers), a swoosh (nothing to do with running shoes) or an apple (nothing to do with computers). So you can breathe a sigh of relief recognizing that you honestly don’t have to have hands in your logo… seriously, you don’t.

3. Make it memorable

To be unforgettable your logo should be bold, graphic and unusual. Avoid cliches. There are so many massage therapy logos that have illustrations of hands and the low back curves that they are now indistinguishable from one another.

4. It should look good without color

You never know how your logo will be reproduced, so it should be recognizable in black and white.

5. Can be resize

Your logo will need to look good no matter if its large or tiny. You had better be able to shrink your logo down to an inch and have it still be readable. It should look good blown up on a storefront sign as well.

6. Make it a rectangle

Our eyes roll easier across images that are wider than they are tall. Design a wide logo instead of a tall one.

7. Utilize your company name

If it makes sense, use your name in your logo design. This is known as a logotype or wordmark. It does double duty making your name as part of the design rather than an afterthought. You’ll see how I’ve done this for my logo at BodyworkBiz.

In summary, don’t worry about your logo too much. A massage logo is not going to determine the success of your massage practice.

If you are just starting out, you can generate interesting sales materials without a massage logo by using simple typefaces and decent quality graphics.

If your logo is not remarkable then think about doing away with it. It’s better to have a simple layout in your website and collateral materials rather than stick with an awful and impractical massage logo just for the sake of having one.

About the Author: Take a look at BodyworkBiz for massage business courses and resources. If you don’t have a massage logo you can use one of our

free massage logos

when purchasing massage business cards or stationery from BodyworkBiz.

Source:

isnare.com

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