‘Can you make the logo bigger?’ That is probably the most common question I have ever heard from a business owner or a marketing manager in my capacity as a website designer. I’ve been designing websites for – Christ, how long has it been now – since 1998. I think I did my first website for a client back in ‘99 I, and I heard the phrase ‘can you make the logo bigger’ back then. Anybody in my industry, anybody in the web design industry who’s listening to this podcast right now will have heard somebody say at some point ‘can you make the logo bigger’ and they’ll be smiling to themselves now because it is it’s a cliché. You do a design for a client, you give them the design for the website, they look at it, they come back with ‘yeah, I like that bit, I like that, can you change that, I’m not sure about that’. Then, nine times out of ten they’ll say ‘can you make the logo bigger’, and at this point it’s almost a bit of an in-joke in our industry.
For business owners listening to this who have employed web designers in the past, whether they’re huge web design agencies with offices all over the world or whether it’s a freelance web designer or whether it’s a friend of a friend, you have probably thought at some point and possibly even said to them ‘Can you make the logo bigger?’ To clarify, I’m not talking about anybody in particular, so any of our clients who we’ve designed websites for who have actually said can you make the logo bigger, I’m not talking about you, honest. Unless I am, in which case I am, but by and large, I’m not talking about you. Quite often, the logo they want made bigger is actually – what’s a polite, subtle way of putting this – shite! It’s awful, and making something bad bigger and drawing attention to it is not necessarily a good thing to do. But what I try to say to people, and it’s often quite a bolshie thing to say so it’s difficult to actually come out with this, is something along the lines of:
“I will make the logo bigger on this web design for you, if you can say to me, hand on heart, that you have, at any point, looked at somebody’s website and you’ve said ‘I like it, but I wish the logo was bigger’. If you’ve ever said that, then I will make your logo bigger”. However, if you have never at any stage looked at somebody else’s website and thought I wish that logo was bigger, then it’s probably not a good idea for me to make yours bigger.
Now, when people do say that, they are not thinking about what the website is for. I’m talking to you now business owners, I’m talking to you clients of web designers. You are not thinking about who the website is for. You are thinking ‘that’s my logo, I would like to see it bigger because I want to see my brand bigger and I think if my logo looks bigger, then somehow my brand looks better’ and, more important, you are not thinking about the people who are going to use the website, which is your target audience. This is the most important thing I can say right now, so please, if you take anything away from this slight little rant and possible meltdown that I’m having, please take this away from it:
Your website is not for you.
You may well pay for your website, you may well be paying the bill, you may well be paying the web design agency, you might have paid tens of thousands of pounds, you might have paid 50 quid, you might have paid nothing, it doesn’t matter. Your website isn’t for you, it’s for your target client. That is who your website needs to appeal to, not you. So don’t be looking at a web design that you’ve had from a web designer and think ‘I want my logo bigger because I want my brand to be more important than it currently is on that design’ because your target client your Target customer doesn’t give a s**t how big your logo is on your website. What they want to know is can you solve the problem they’ve got? Can you help them do what they need you to do for them? The size of your logo on a website is of no consequence to whether or not you can help them.
Whenever I hear somebody say to us as feedback ‘can you make the logo bigger?’ I die a little inside because I know they’ve not quite got it they’ve not quite understood it that the website isn’t for them, it’s for their client.
So, apologies for the slight rant, apologies for the slight meltdown because it is something I hear so often, it’s a cliche in our industry. I’ve seen blogs about this, I’ve seen articles about this, I think I’ve even seen eBooks written about this. So before you go to any web designer and ask them ‘can you make the logo bigger’ please stop and please think about why you’re doing that. I will leave it here before my blood pressure goes, and I will catch you next time on the Engaging Marketeer podcast. If you’ve liked this podcast, then please consider giving me a five star review on Apple or on Spotify, or whatever you may be listening to. If you could give me a subscribe on YouTube, I’d really appreciate that, and I will catch you on the next podcast, thank you very much.
