To say it simply, your logo isn’t as cool as Apple’s because it’s probably doing too much or doing nothing at all. If you focus in on the logos of any highly recognizable brand you will see that it’s a very simple mark, made to evoke a feeling. It does not seek to tell an overly complex story, because that’s not what logos are for.

A lot of the times, startups will say they want to look like Apple, Facebook, Amazon — they just throw out the biggest names in their field. But when they get work that looks like those brands, they tend to insist on creative decisions that are not nearly as sophisticated — decisions that don’t even work for them. It comes from an understandable need to micromanage everything, even things they aren’t good at, because at the start founders tie their brands to themselves.

The more secure you get as a business, the more you understand how to hire people who are experts in their fields and let them do their thing. When they do, the company elevates. This reaches the creative team and then designers are free to do their work well. That’s when logo and corresponding branding get a facelift, and the brand identity looks cooler.

This is Part 1 of a 4 Part series that takes a deep dive into what makes a logo uncool, and how to make them cooler. Check out the next article, Your Logo’s Doing Too Much