Do you want to create an amazing slogan and logo for your restaurant?
When you go through the city, you can see logos of restaurants and all kinds of businesses on the road, on banners, on flyers, and more. The same goes for slogans — that phrase that reminds you which business has the best wings or which restaurant is a good vegan option.
If you have a restaurant, or if you want to open one, you may at some point wonder about restaurant logos.
In this article I will tell you about:
- What are logos and slogans
- The importance of restaurant logos
- The importance of restaurant slogans
- A few tips to create the best restaurant logos
- And some ideas so you can create the best slogan for your business.
This article will be very useful to know if you should create a logo for your business, if you should change your current logo and more about this aspect of the visual identity of your restaurant.
Let's get started!
What Are Restaurant Logos?
First of all, I'd like to start this article with the basics — what is a logo?
You probably already know what a logo is in practice since we have all been trained to recognize the logos of international companies, such as McDonald’s, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, or Ford.
However, it is much more than just an image or marketing tool. In fact, a logo is many things:
- A logo is the story of your business summarized in a design with specific elements.
- It is the trademark that will represent your business in the minds of consumers — not just the minds of your target audience.
- And it's also the image that will make your business resonate with your target audience.
Of course, it goes without saying that a logo is a crucial part of your marketing and your branding strategy.
Types of Logos
It is worth mentioning that there are also different types of logos depending on their composition. These are the most used:
- Wordmarks: words that serve as the company's brand. Example: Google.
- Combined: these are words and images used at the same time, but that gives you more versatility since the words are not part of the images. Example: Spotify.
- Symbols: these are images that individually represent the brand. Example: Apple.
- Emblems: These are designs that use images or graphic elements together with words, but words are an integral part of the design. Example: Starbucks.
Your restaurant can use any of these types of logos — there are other types — as long as their designs really resonate with your business brand.
Importance of Restaurant Logos
The importance of your restaurant logo actually goes beyond its use. Yes, it is about the image that your brand will represent everywhere, from the banner or advertisement of your restaurant to your social networks.
But, also, a logo is vital for your business because it is what will make it recognizable among thousands of businesses competing for exposure in the market.
The real importance of your logo is its uniqueness.
It is also important for the ideas or information it conveys about your business.
A logo that is in line with your restaurant's branding and marketing strategy may be the missing piece for both strategies to be effective.
If you don't invest time, effort, and money in a high-quality logo for your business, your restaurant may suffer the many ramifications of a poor visual identity decision.
For example, it is always possible for your logo to make the public understand that your restaurant has a specific theme that is not actually part of your business.
This can cause your restaurant to receive confused customers, who are not part of your target audience because your restaurant was lost in translation when designing the logo.
Remember that your restaurant logo is possibly the first interaction of your audience with your restaurant, and if it is unique and impressive, it will stay in the minds of those who will become your diners.
Once you cement what's behind your logo — incredible service, a story about your restaurant's origin, food that takes your breath away, and more — your customers will learn to recognize your logo as a source of positive emotions.
In short, you will make your logo cause emotions.
Tips to Create the Best Restaurant Logos
Now that you know the importance of having a good logo in your restaurant, it is time to start creating the perfect logo for your business.
It should be noted that this guide will not help you design a logo.
In fact, as you will read later, I recommend 100% that you look for a good graphic designer to be in charge of helping you define the visual identity of your restaurant.
With that said, this short guide will help you better understand the process of creating a logo and the elements that you should consider in order to create an incredible one for your business. In addition, it will be very helpful for your graphic designer if you have already thought about all these details.
1. Consider the History of Your Business, Its Ideals, and Its Objectives
The first thing you should consider is not really about marketing or design, it is actually about branding. I invite you to read my article on marketing and branding for restaurants so that you have a better understanding of branding, and how to create a branding strategy for your business.
The history of your restaurant, its ideals, its objectives, and more elements of your brand must be considered when creating your logo.
Your logo must convey specific ideas about your business, so defining what are the most important ideas you want to convey is vital to creating a good logo.
These are important questions to ask yourself:
- What is the origin of your restaurant?
- What are the ideals that you maintain in your restaurant?
- The vision, mission, and values of your restaurant.
- What differentiates your restaurant from the hundreds or thousands of restaurants in your city?
- What is the voice of your brand like? Is it relaxed, casual, playful? Or is it formal, sophisticated, elite?
- What should your logo communicate?
2. Study the Market
Studying the visual identity of other businesses is very useful to recognize specific details of the elements used in their designs. It is a good idea because this way you avoid using elements that have already been used in other businesses, which makes your business logo more unique.
It will also help you identify design trends in the local market — it is even a good idea to study businesses that are not your competition and that are outside your niche.
You don't want your restaurant logo to resemble that of any local business or a business with a bad reputation by mistake!
3. Consider Your Target Audience
It is always important that your business resonates in some way with your target audience, as this will facilitate interactions, promote interactions with the right audience, and more.
Therefore, it is a good idea that you know your target audience very well.
In fact, one of the first things I mentioned in the restaurant advertising article is that you should do a market research as soon as possible.
It is what will help you get to know your target audience and create a buyer persona profile, which should define other aspects of your business in addition to your logo.
4. The Use of Your Logo
One aspect that is essential to creating a good logo is that it is easy to use in the different media or channels of your restaurant. For a restaurant, those would be:
- Billboards, banners, brochures, and more types of traditional marketing.
- Glasses, napkins, plates, delivery boxes, and more with your logo.
- Social networks.
- Websites.
- Applications.
- And email marketing strategies.
Why is it important for you to consider this? Well, it is always a good idea to maintain the visual image of your restaurant consistent on all its channels. This step will help your graphic designer create a logo that is easily visible and recognizable across all.
Now You Just Need a Good Graphic Designer to Materialize Your Logo
Getting a good graphic designer to be in charge of creating your logo and helping you define your visual identity is an interesting challenge that you must face with the right mindset.
It's easy to think that any designer can design your logo — technically, that's right. But, the truth is, you should be looking for specific attributes and skills:
- Look for designers who have experience designing restaurant logos. This is very important, especially since if they have experience, you will know the good design practices for this specific niche.
- That they know about the latest trends in design.
- It is also a good idea to choose local designers — especially if they are familiar with local logo design trends.
- Create a summary taking into account all the details on the list. This will be very useful for a designer to really understand what you need and can create a logo that fits your needs.
Note that I am not mentioning anything about the cost of designers — actually, the cost of a good design is relative. If you think it will be worthwhile to collaborate with a specific designer after studying the candidates, it is a good idea to adjust to the cost. After all, it is very difficult to put an objective value on creativity.
If you can't, you'd better redefine your design parameters, budget for the project, and find a competent designer with that in mind.
What Is a Slogan/Tagline?
A tagline is a short catchy phrase that travels along with your brand’s identity and in your marketing strategy. The purpose of a slogan is to make it easier for your audience to feel the emotions you want them to feel about the food in your restaurant or the experience it offers. In addition, they are external and apply directly to your target audience.
It Is Important to Differentiate the Slogan From the Company Motto
A company motto is a phrase, perhaps a little longer than the slogan, that sums up the ideals behind the brand. It can be applied internally, as part of your internal brand, in the training of your employees to promote the ideals of your restaurant.
Importance of Restaurant Slogans
Restaurant slogans are important because they are a way to educate your diners or to stimulate favorable emotions towards your business.
In addition, they play a role very similar to that of your logo in the branding of your restaurant, because they make it easier to identify your business with keywords.
For example, "(para pa pa paaa) I’m lovin’ it" is one of the most influential slogans/jingles in popular culture — and without mentioning which company it is, you probably already know.
In some cases, taglines are temporary because they are used in conjunction with a branding campaign, and only while it is running.
That makes them a very versatile tool that you can modify if necessary.
How to Create the Best Restaurant Slogans
Creating slogans is very important, but also pretty straightforward — it's all about creativity and aligning your slogan with your marketing strategy and goals.
In a sense, a tagline is the title of such a strategy.
Why? Because a slogan is your target audience's first encounter with the campaign in general.
For example, if you want to create a marketing campaign with the aim of establishing your restaurant as a low-cost option in your area, your business slogan shouldn’t be something like "we even charge for the napkins."
Obviously, you should charge for napkins, but the point is that you shouldn't contradict the objective of your campaign with the actions and identity of your brand.
Everything must work in unison for it to make sense and be attractive to the consumer.
These are the steps you must follow to create the best slogans for your marketing campaigns:
1. Study Your Target Audience and Buyer Persona
Again, it is vital that you think about your target audience and buyer persona since they are the ones who will define the language and voice that you will use in your slogan — and in all your marketing and branding strategy.
2. Think About the Effect You Want to Cause
Think about the way you want your audience to feel when they hear or read your slogan.
- Do you want them to laugh?
- Do you want them to be moved?
- Do you want them to feel curious?
This will help you tone your slogan better to get the reaction you want.
3. Brainstorming
Jot down several helpful slogan ideas that take into account the steps above.
It's time to put your creativity to work and brainstorm!
Make sure your ideas are also:
- Short.
- Memorable
- Easy to read and without complex words.
- Unique.
- And that they deliver the right message.
You can always invite people to help you create the perfect tagline for your restaurant — more heads, more ideas!
4. Test Your Ideas
You can test your ideas in several ways. With focus groups, surveys, and more.
Also, if you are using paid methods to evaluate the performance of your slogan, it is a good idea to add other elements to the study, such as your logo or various logo proposals for your restaurant.
This will help you recognize the best ideas you have brainstormed.
It is recommended that if you had a lot of ideas, you reduce the number of slogans to a small number.
You can always test these with friends, family, and partners to decide.
Start Using Your Tagline!
Once you decide, it is time to spread your slogan in all the channels of your restaurant, along with your logo, and other elements of your brand so that you begin to create an association in the mind of the consumer.
And that’s it! You cannot really study the performance of your slogan directly, but you must study the results of your marketing strategy, the specific campaign, or your branding strategy.
Remember that you should allow some time to pass before deciding to change your logo and slogan again.
The Logo and Slogan of Your Restaurant Are Its Cover Letter
The logo and slogan of your restaurant are probably the first visual and written interactions that a diner will have with your restaurant.
Therefore, it is vital that your restaurant has a good slogan and a good logo from day one.
In fact, a summary of the branding of your new restaurant should be part of the business plan of your project.
If you have a restaurant with some time in the market, remember that it is always possible to change or evolve your image gradually to avoid alienating loyal customers.
Finally, before venturing out to create your own logo, seek help or advice from a professional graphic designer. This way you will get the best results!
So, is your logo awesome enough?
