Picture it. You’ve worked with a graphic design agency to create your company’s new logo. During the process, they presented you with nearly a dozen mockups with unique characteristics and color combinations to represent your business.

After choosing a logo design you like, the designers refine it, pushing it closer to the finalized version. Once you see it again, you love it and feel excited as your brand identity comes together.

Next thing you know, you’re the proud owner of a new logo that you can’t wait to show off.

Fast forward a couple of years, and you want a change. You want to use one of the other 11 logo designs shown to you back in the day. But should you?

Let’s clear up some confusion about the logo design process and how it can impact your business if you switch it too soon.

Misconceptions about changing your logo

We’ve discussed the benefits of branding your business so it functions as your visual representative. Your company’s logo is one of the elements that not only introduces people to the brand but also helps give you more authority as they’re exposed to it.

Why? Because logos help people remember the brand. Studies have shown that it’s easier for individuals to commit logos to memory than brand names.

When asked how often a brand should change its logo, 28% of survey respondents said a company should do it once every decade. Another 14% said that companies should never change their logos.

Because of how much influence your logo has on brand recognition, changing it is a big decision. Unfortunately, there seem to be a few misunderstandings about this process, especially after you’ve already undergone a relatively recent logo redesign.

Changing your logo is quick
If we go back to our example from the beginning of this post, two years is not a lot of time. But it’s enough to have invested enough in producing assets using the new logo and building awareness for the new or updated brand.

When you decide to change it, you go back to square one with reviewing and choosing between the past mockups. You’ll go through the same process of refining those concepts to create the new final logo design, which takes time.

Updating your company’s assets is cheap
After launching a new brand and its logo, companies will roll it out in all their marketing and sales materials, including signage, brochures, and websites. Even the office often gets a makeover.

There’s usually a lot of money invested into pushing out the design. By replacing it so soon after designing it, you’ll spend more time and money updating your company’s branded print and digital assets.

Switching from one logo design to another is easy
When designers create mockups for the initial presentation, these concepts are for review only. They serve as a solid set of designs to look at and then narrow them down to one logo.

Setting up the multiple file types for print and web only makes sense once the design is finalized. Otherwise, the designer will do unnecessary work on logo concepts that are in their early stages.

Deciding to switch to one of the other designs after finalizing another means going through the same process again to refine the new logo and prepare it for use in your business.

People won’t notice the changes to the logo
Oh, but they will. If you quietly replace your company logo with a new one after such a short period, it will cause your customers to ask questions, but more importantly, it will confuse them.

Brand perception is multilayered and based on multiple factors, including your logo and what it looks like. Brand uniformity is how people build visual associations with your business, its offerings, and its message. Changing your brand’s logo is jarring to customers, especially those who feel deeply connected to it.

Making significant changes to your logo can wait

Unless there’s a good reason to change your current logo, like infringing on another company’s trademark, you don’t need to pick a new one.

There’s a recipe for good branding and design, and consistency is one of the key ingredients in this formula. Long-lasting, memorable brands keep their logos the same until they’ve squeezed every drop out of their visual identity, and it’s only then that they change it.

We’re not saying you need to wait 50 years before updating your logo. But ask yourself if modifying your logo after a couple of years is based on a legitimate reason or if it comes from a personal place.

Remember, your brand isn’t separate from the business. It’s part of it.