You need a logo. Cool. So, you head into the design process and create something (either by yourself or with the help of a trusty design expert friend).

The finished result is just what you had in mind; you’re proud of it, and confident it perfectly reflects your brand ethos and mission.

So, onto your website it goes. It looks great.

Next, your Twitter profile image.

Ah; it looks terrible. No matter what you do in terms of resizing, cropping or adjusting, your shiny new logo just doesn’t work on Twitter at all.

This is more common than you might think, and we know why.

Why branding needs to be cross-platform

We’ve seen far too many branding companies and marketing agencies create digital assets for businesses without planning ahead.

Just like our fictional company above, they create a logo or set of brand guidelines which work for one platform (usually the company website), but fail to think about channels like social, print, and video.

This is why it’s so important to have a cross-platform strategy for your branding right from the start.

It’s the branding equivalent of futureproofing.

Why don’t logos work on all platforms?

One look at a social media logo dimension cheat sheet, and you’ll realise how different each platform is when it comes to image requirements.

They all rely on logos working to their standards rather than the other way around, and this is for one simple reason: there’s no such thing as an industry standard dimension for a logo.

This is what makes logos so unique, but it’s also why you probably can’t squeeze the logo you have on your website into that tiny circular Twitter handle.

So, should you use different logos for different platforms? Well, to a degree – but you have to be careful.

It’s common for brand assets to be developed which can be adjusted for different formats and aspect ratios without confusing the audience.

Disney is a great example of a logo which can be modified to fit different platforms. You’ll see it with or without the famous castle behind, but you’ll never be in doubt about the brand thanks to that unmistakable, unique typeface.

Amazon’s the same. The ‘smile’ which features on their full logo is so ubiquitous that it can confidently sit on its own within their smartphone app icon.

The assets you need to consider for your logo

When we first start working with a new brand, we always talk strategy before anything else. We want to know the goal of the brand before creating a logo to go with it.

From there, it’s important to start thinking about the assets you need. And it’s scarily easy to underestimate just how many things on which you’ll want to attach your logo.

For instance, modern marketing assets include:

• social media profile logos;
• social media profile banners;
• YouTube banners and watermarks;
• Zoom backgrounds;
• PowerPoint presentations;
• PDF documents (for instance, quotes or brochures); and
• app icons.

There’s the more traditional stuff to think about, too. How confident can you be that your digital logo will sit nicely on a piece of paper or at the top of a letter, for instance?

How to create a cross-platform logo

Well, firstly, you need to work with a great branding agency (ahem…), and then you need to think about everything your brand might need to touch.

And when we say ‘everything’ we mean everything and anything. That means everything we’ve mentioned above, plus any merchandising you may get into, and products you’ll create, and literally any form of promotional material which might be required in the future.

Clothing, emails, text messages, videos; there are so many things onto which your logo may be attached, you’ll need plenty of time to think about it.

Of course, if you need some assistance thinking this stuff through, just get in touch with the Be Smart teamand we will happily lend you our expertise.