THE LOGO IS the visual mark of your brand in a small graphic element. Ideally, it can function as the foundation of your brand identity.
“Don’t underestimate the power of a really great logo that ties your brand together,” writes Tracy Matthews, jewelry designer and author of The Desired Brand Effect: Stand Out In A Saturated Market With A Timeless Jewelry Brand.
Matthews recommends hiring a professional graphic artist to create your logo. “You’ll save yourself a lot of pain,” she says.
Beyond the design, consider the colors carefully. Colors evoke emotions, mood and feelings. Are you going for a luxurious look? A playful vibe? Or a natural and sustainable feel? The colors you choose will help create that brand experience, which will be visible everywhere from your packaging to your signage, social media, website, marketing emails and advertising.
According to Tailorbrands.com, effective logos foster brand loyalty, grab attention, make a strong first impression, and separate your business from the competition. Paperstreet.com reports that simple logos are the most memorable. They also need to be scalable, meaning they can be scaled up or down and still look good.
Here are examples of logos that express the foundation of their companies’ brand identities in memorable ways.
The Revolution
When Jennifer Farnes launched her business, Revolution Jewelry Works, in Colorado Springs, CO, she wanted to revolutionize how clients perceived jewelry stores. She hadn’t grown up in the business, and she perceived jewelry stores and the people who worked there to be stuffy, overdressed and snooty. She wanted a place that would appeal to her: laid-back, open and casual, with a knowledgeable team focused on custom design. She came up with a sit-down environment that invites clients to get comfortable and a profit-sharing approach that encourages team selling. The logo, designed by a friend who is a graphic designer, expresses her revolutionary fervor perfectly.
Rings Ahead!
The Kessler experience begins with a literal touchpoint: custom created logo door handles, the design of which speak to the brand’s focus on wedding and engagement rings. Employee-owned Kesslers Diamonds in Grand Rapids, MI, stocks nearly 2,000 loose diamonds in their stores. They carry an expansive collection of engagement and wedding ring settings, and if a client doesn’t find something they love, Kesslers will design it for them.
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A Three-Pronged Approach
The logo for the Jewelers Guild in Milwaukee is integral, says owner Robert Peter, to expressing the company’s approach to success. “The green symbolizes our classroom and is highlighted in promotions for new classes. The blue represents our workshop. The purple represents the retail store. People key into the facet that appeals to them.”
Along the Path
WEND Jewelry’s logo illustrates the meandering path that founder Wendy Woldenberg has taken in her career as well as the journey her clients take. “WEND” is related to the verb “wind,” which means, among other things, to follow a series of curves and turns. “People from different paths, some that wander off the beaten track, have finally found what they’ve been searching for at WEND Jewelry,” says Woldenberg, whose career path motivated her to develop responsible practices for jewelry design.
An Antique Look
“When my grandmother purchased our current building in the early 1980s, my dad decided it was time for an official logo,” says Julie Walton Garland, who owns Walton’s Jewelry in Franklin, TN, with her father, Michael Walton. “He wanted an old English inspired logo that gave an ‘antique’ vibe. Two years ago, we did update the font ever so slightly to be more translatable, but this change is hardly noticeable. It simply gave it a refresh and allows us to use it in a variety of ways and platforms in today’s modern age.”
A Beachy, Artistic Vibe
Les Olson Jeweler’s logo, happily displayed on the store’s sign out front, signals both the store’s laid-back, beachy vibe in historic, downtown Palm Harbor, FL, and the fact that the custom-focused jewelry business has an artistic soul. “Over the years, the logo has been seeded in much of the marketing, as it speaks to the creativity of our family and making this business ours,” says Pam Shinsky, who bought Les Olson Jewelers with her husband, Bob Shinsky, in 1988 and opened their freestanding location in 2020. Bob and Pam are designers and bench jewelers, who have been joined in the business by their son, Rob. “We wanted our signage to reflect the feel of the inside of our studio, which is fun and bright, cheerful and artistic,” says Pam, who sketched the logo and asked her graphic artist niece, Melissa Slocum Evanko, to bring the playful design to life. The sign is rendered in Key West colors and it sparkles at night, adding to the sense of fun.
A Distinctive Diamond
Ronnie Malka of Malka Diamonds in Portland, OR, says it’s not easy to design a diamond-themed logo without having it looking like everyone else’s, or like Superman’s logo. “We wanted a diamond, but we also wanted the “M.” OffenseUnlimited.com created the logo, and we were and still are thrilled!”
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An Award Winner
The logo for Cut Fine Jewelers in Baton Rouge, LA, won a gold award from the American Advertising Federation for its graphic design, which lends a modern, contemporary feel to the store. The name gives owner Matthew Patton the opportunity to educate customers about the importance of cut when assessing a diamond’s quality. “The most common question we get from almost everyone we have the opportunity to meet is, ‘Why is it called CUT?!’ The answer is amazingly simple: ‘Cut’ is the most important aspect of a diamond when it comes to picking the perfect one.” He also likes the simple and concise nature of the name, “CUT.” “We didn’t need another Family Name Fine Jewelers,” he says.
On the Lake
When Jeff Guntzviller designed a new location for Miner’s North Jewelers in Traverse City, MI, in 2021, he wanted people to walk in and get the sense that it’s a diamond store. The logo reflects both the artistic vibe of the store design and the store’s location directly across the street from Lake Michigan. “The diamond logos around the store and the pattern were done by a local design and signage company we used,” Guntzviller says. The design was a collaboration between Guntzviller, the sign company and the store designer.
DIY
Like everything else at Raintree, the distinctive tree logo was designed in house and appears in different iterations on the door of the store in Burlington, VT, as well as on social media and Raintree’s website. Husband and wife owners Michael Tope and Shannon Mahoney also designed and made all of their cases, fixtures and the storefront, as well as their jewelry, and they do their own photography. They carry their design aesthetic through every element of their gallery.