How Small Businesses Can Look Consistent Everywhere

Here's something I notice all the time. A small business has a logo on its truck, a slightly different one on its Facebook page, a stretched one on its website, and a blurry screenshot of it on a flyer taped to the coffee shop window. Every version is "the logo," but none of them look quite the same.

Customers might not be able to say what's off, but they feel it. When your business looks a little different everywhere, it's harder to remember and harder to trust. When it looks the same everywhere, people start to recognize you before they even read your name.

The good news is that looking consistent has nothing to do with being a big company with a big budget. It mostly comes down to a few decisions you make once and then stick to. I've been hand designing logos since 2013, and here's how I'd go about it.

Start with the same files, every time

The fastest way to look inconsistent is to grab whatever version of your logo is closest. A screenshot from your website. A photo of your business card. Something you saved off Facebook.

Every time a logo gets screenshotted, re-saved or rebuilt, it loses a little. Colors shift, edges get fuzzy, and proportions drift. Do that a few times and you've got five slightly different logos floating around.

Instead, keep your real logo files in one folder that you can find in 10 seconds, and always send from there. A vector file (like an AI file) for printers and sign shops, a PNG with a see-through background for screens, a JPG for quick previews, and a PDF that looks the same on any computer. If you're not sure which one to send, I put together a cheat sheet for my email list. The short version: screens get the PNG, printers get the AI or PDF.

And please, never stretch it. If your logo doesn't fit a space, you need a different version of the logo, not a squished one.

Have a version for every kind of space

One logo file can't do every job. A wide logo looks great across the top of a website and terrible crammed into a little circle on Instagram. A full-color logo looks great on white and disappears on a black shirt.

That's why I think every small business needs a small family of logo versions that all clearly belong together:

• A main version for your website header, signs and anywhere you have room.
• A compact or stacked version for square spots like profile pictures and app icons.
• A one-color version in solid black and solid white, for printing, dark backgrounds, stamps and stickers.

I wrote more about this in 3 logo mistakes I see all the time, because having only one version is one of the most common problems I run into.

Take the Epoxymize logo I designed. It's a stacked set of blue layers that form an "E," with "EPOXYMIZE" in bold capitals underneath. On a black background it pops (that's the version at the top of this post). On a dark textured background, it's the exact same shape and the same blues, just smaller, and it still reads instantly.

That's the whole goal. Different place, different size, same brand.

Pick your colors and write down the codes

"Blue" isn't a brand color. There are thousands of blues, and if you just tell a printer or a web designer "blue," you'll get a different one every time.

Once you've picked your brand colors (I'd keep it to two or three), write down the actual codes and keep them with your logo files:

• HEX codes (like #1A2B3C) for your website and social graphics.
• RGB for anything on a screen.
• CMYK for things that get printed.

If you don't have these written down anywhere, check the files from whoever designed your logo, or just ask them. It takes five minutes and saves you from ending up with three slightly different blues on your website, your shirts and your signs.

Use the same fonts (and only a couple)

Your logo has its fonts, but you're also writing things: your website, your menus, your price sheets, your social graphics. If every one of those uses a different font, it starts to feel like a different business each time.

Pick one font for headlines and one for everything else, and use them everywhere you can. If your logo uses a custom or decorative font, it's often best to keep that just for the logo and pick a simpler, easy-to-read font for everything around it.

If you want to know what makes a font hold up off the screen, I wrote about that in Fonts That Hold Up on Signs, Shirts and Stickers.

Make a one-page brand sheet

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that makes everything else easy. You don't need a 40-page brand book. One page is plenty. Put this on it:

1. Your logo versions (main, compact, one-color)
2. Your color codes (HEX, RGB and CMYK)
3. Your two fonts and what each one is for
4. A couple of "please don't" rules, like "don't stretch the logo" or "don't put the color logo on a busy photo"

Save it as a PDF in the same folder as your logo files. Now, when you order shirts, hire someone to build your website, or get a new sign, you just send the folder and the brand sheet. Nobody has to guess.

Here's one I designed for KozyBerry Knits: a gray ball of yarn with two pink knitting needles and "KozyBerry Knits" in a flowing black script. Because the colors are simple (a gray, a pink and black), they're easy to write down and repeat on tags, labels, a website or a market table sign.

Keep your voice and photos consistent too

Consistency isn't only about the logo. The way you write and the photos you use say a lot about your business too.

If your Instagram sounds friendly and casual, your website shouldn't sound like a legal document. If your photos are bright and natural on one channel, they shouldn't be dark and heavily filtered on another. You don't need rules for everything. Just notice what feels most like you and do more of that.

A 15-minute consistency check

Here's something you can do this week, even if you never hire me:

• Line them up. Open your website, your Facebook, your Instagram and your Google listing side by side. Grab a business card, a shirt or anything else with your logo on it.
• Look at the logo. Is it the same logo everywhere? Is anything stretched, blurry or sitting in an awkward white box?
• Look at the colors. Do your blues (or greens, or reds) actually match from place to place?
• Look at the fonts. Are you using the same one or two, or a different one every time?
• Fix the worst one first. Usually it's an old profile picture or an old flyer. Swap it for your real file, and you're already more consistent than you were this morning.

Want a logo built to work everywhere?

When I design a logo, I'm thinking about the website, the profile picture, the shirt and the sign from the first sketch, not just one screen. It's $250 flat, with 3–5 initial concepts, unlimited revisions, and final files in AI, JPG, PNG and PDF.

Start my logo →

Have a question first? Email me at Info@Jackleonardbirt.com.

— Jack