Why Do All Real Estate Logos Suck So Bad?
Last year, I had the chance to work at Nike for several months. More specifically, I worked in the Nike Golf division, primarily helping them design and produce some of their marketing collateral materials.
It was a great experience, and I was privileged to learn from some of the top marketing and design professionals working in the business today. My time in Beaverton, a suburb just outside of Portland where Nike's World HQ is located, got me thinking on just how it was that a lopsided checkmark could become one of the most instantly recognizable brands in the world and whose brand attribute has come to embody the sporting ethos.
It prompted me to write this post on my personal blog about just how powerful a symbol the Nike Swoosh has become. I called it Brand Hieroglyphics because just like ancient Egyptians, whose used pictographic icons to represent certain cultural concepts, some companies have succeeded in positioning their corporate logos to convey certain meanings in our collective consciousness.
For example:
(creativity)
(luxury)
So why is it then, with this in mind, that Real Estate companies’ logos are so universally bad?
I threw together a quick collective of Real Estate 1.0 and Real Estate 2.0 companies’ logos. With few exceptions I would argue that none of them communicate any tangible brand attribute.
Remax – Ugh. Crosshatched lettering makes this logo hard to read, overly busy and hard on the eyes.
Coldwell Banker – Unfriendly. Combine the word ‘Cold’ in the name and a Borg-like design and you might as well throw away the welcome mat.
Century 21 – Out of Touch. Retro font and design makes it feel like this company is stuck in 1968.
Prudential – Unoriginal, but somewhat effective. The Rock at least embodies some character: steadfast, resolute, etc. (Full disclosure: I work for a Prudential affiliate so I’m probably biased.)
Keller Williams – Clichéd. I chose KW to represent the thousands of brokers out there who jump lemming-like off the same design cliff. Will this industry ever move away from flowery scripts and people’s last names?
Zillow.com – Uninspired. Not terrible, but I'm not sure what the Zorro-like slash on the house is supposed to tell me.
trulia.com – Weird. What is that thing, a parking meter?
Aside: Both Zillow and Trulia really need to jump off the Flickr bandwagon and lose the Beta designation from their logos. It’s one thing to have hack together a new web application, float it to your friends and call it a Beta – but when you have millions of dollars in VC money backing you, it just looks like a half-assed cop out.
Redfin – Boring. Not bad, it’s clean and simple and I like that. It’s just that that red house is plain-Jane boring.
I won’t even bother getting into the legions of home-grown designs that plague this industry. That’s one headache I’ll steer clear of. For now.
Can anyone point me to some good examples of Real Estate logos?
For the story of a great corporate logo redesign, read on about the secret in the new Fedex logo.
Technorati Tags: logos, branding, brand hieroglyphics, Nike, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Blogging, Real Estate Blog, Real Estate Blogs, Real Estate, Realty Blogging
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26 Comment(s)
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Ed Kohler | Jun 8, 2006 | Reply
I think it may be easier to create a memorable logo for companies people use every day. It would be hard for a real estate company to make it to the universally recognizable state Nike has reached. However, it’s possible that Zillow could go with just the logo years from now if the site continues to grow. The Prudential rock is fairly well known. Especially among golf tournament watchers.
Boring isn’t necessarily bad. People are looking for security and stability more than flashiness from the company they’ll trust for their largest investment.
Robert Wilson | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
I’m a marketing guy by trade as well. You worked for Nike - you lukcy SOB! I’ve done work for some real estate companies, and I completely agree that their stuff is univerally awful.
Here’s a pretty cool real estate logo I found for a small, upscale, boutique company that I used to buy a house, Professional One. It’s a lot more in keeping with the apples and nikes and mercedes that you view as quality logos (and I agree). I like this logo because it’s clean, sharp, clever (it incorporates the “P” and the “1″ that are the key attributes of the name) and it isn’t just the name of the company written in some soon-to-be-dated font. Let me know what you think of it. I posted the URL of that company’s site below. The page to which I directed you is not the home page, because they don’t feature the more “simplified” version of the logo (which is the one I like) on the home page (they use the longer version that is not as powerful, in my opinion).
Nice blog, by the way.
Robert Wilson | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
Here’s the link to that logo: http://professionalone.com/professional-one/why-professional-one.htm
Heinrich Wiebe | Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
I’d agree that most re co’s are out of touch with image. What do you think about ours? http://www.geniusrealty.com.
realestatemarketing | Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
Heinrich, overall I like your approach. Your company seems to have a firm grasp on consistent branding. Your logo is clearly differentiated from many others on the market and I like that. You show a willingness to step away from the norm. The 5 is a nice subtle touch that communicates your value propostion. That said… the atom kind of threw me off - it has a very strong connotation with the words ‘radioactive’.
Richard M. Johnston, RE/MAX | Jun 13, 2006 | Reply
I cant agree with you more on some logos. I think the only way you can really understand if a logo is affective is to remember and company and see if you can remember their logo. If you can, then great. If not, then it needs to be easier for the mind to remember quickly.
I’m a RE/MAX agent here in the San Fernando Valley, CA. I know the RE/MAX logo can be difficult to read but so many people are familiar with this brand that they know we are real estate agents. With the Prudential brand, sometimes people think that you are an insurance agent.
Richard
Heinrich Wiebe | Jun 14, 2006 | Reply
Not that you asked, but I thought I should expand on radioactive.
ELEMENT. The story of our insignia… (It says a lot about who we are.)
We created an Element of Real Estate. Each ring of the element symbolizes the major stakeholders involved in every real estate transaction.
1st-ring – Buyers
2nd -ring – Sellers
3rd -ring – Real estate professionals - these include lenders, title companies, co-operating real estate companies and their agents.
Nucleus – Genius Realty serves as the nucleus. Genius Realty takes action as a central, positively charged core. Our objective is maintaining a neutral element that allows all stakeholders to react in a manor beneficial to all.
Randall Wilson | Jul 27, 2006 | Reply
The issue with the real estate companies versus consumer driven brands is that the real estate groups generally did not have significant input from brand marketers when they developed the logo. In point of fact, many of the logos were developed in small offices by one person companies. The companies grew and were successful, but the logo never changed.
By contrast, highly capitalized start-ups recognize the need for an essential brand and find the value in investing in talented brand management people who can recognize a good logo.
-RW
4MySales.com
Artemi Krymski | Sep 3, 2006 | Reply
what do you think of this logo?
Greg Tracy | Oct 17, 2006 | Reply
Cooming up with a great logo is much more difficult than most people think it is.
I like designs that are simple. Being unique is tough, but being unique and simple is something all together.
Athol Kay | Nov 25, 2006 | Reply
What the?! I’ve never noticed the arrow in the FedEx logo until now. Now I can’t stop seeing it.
ed | Dec 19, 2006 | Reply
there is a lot of helpfull info in this site.
i do live in california, i am about to open a real estate company, i do not want to get personalized, so i do not want my name on the realtor side. i need someone to design a unique eye catching name, so i can use as my logo. clean attractive eye catching and easy to remember. if is has a logo great. one of the one’s that i like is the remax logo. need help
pram | Feb 4, 2007 | Reply
i did some consulting for the 2nd largest real estate advertising agency a few years ago. one of my jobs was to increase the quality of creative and design coming out of their creative department. and let me tell you, it was horrible. these guys mostly did collateral, logos etc for agents across the country.
this is one of those companies that likely created 80% of all of the horrible real estate agent logos featuring 3D type with a photo of the agent leaning on some cheesy execution of their name.
one thing i discovered very quickly is that real estate agents, by and large, are cheap and cheesy. they want their face on their logo and marketing material. plain and simple.
fortunately there is a current trend that turns that notion upside down. mostly originating from a more tasteful breed of higher end agents and agencies seeking out a more discerning niche audience.
you might ask, well, what does that have to do with real estate firms and their logos. aha! well, remember that real estate agencies are first an foremost operated and owned by AGENTS.
i have a new client, a real estate agency, that has a mandate that NO agent is allowed to put their face on ANY marketing material whatsoever. and, it is working wonders for them.
i am sure you might see i am not bummed about that at all.
pram | Feb 4, 2007 | Reply
oh, and ed. please, please, please don’t LIKE the ReMax logo. it is an example of one of the worst logo designs known to man.
it looked dated (not to mention poorly executed) 5 minutes after it was created.
i’d be happy to help you with your logo, and i charge a fair market price for my work. you get what you pay for as with anything.
Jeff | May 12, 2007 | Reply
Ok I have one for you. I saw this once while I was traveling through Iowa. It was so bad that I actually wrote the website down and went to it later. Check out http://www.wolfrealtors.com.
I mean seriously, c’mon. A wolf howling at the moon. Some Halloween style font. The only thing this logo is missing is dripping blood. What are they selling, haunted houses? Bad logo design.
Kristen Specketer | Jun 17, 2007 | Reply
Check out our website to view our logo. I’d love to hear any comments…I agree completely about how bad real estate logos suck. Not to mention practically every Realtor alive has a cheesy glamour shot on their cards…we don’t allow any photos on our agent’s business cards…neither should any other company.
Kristen Specketer | Jun 17, 2007 | Reply
Sorry…here’s the website. http://www.rerevolution.net It’s still under construction…we’re a relatively new company.
t | Jun 27, 2007 | Reply
eh?…http://www.nestwebsite.com/
Marius | Jul 5, 2007 | Reply
I work here in Romania under a brand name that is present in Russia, Czech Republic and here. It’s Hebrew by origin, and I simply love the corporate identity. The mix of the two colors and the simplicity of the whole thing is fabulous. Clearly we stand out in a long list of logos, and/or banners on buildings, far better than any big-time agency. And the customers love to receive corporate materials and gifts with our branding. It communicates trust to a level I couldn’t have thought possible.
Have a look at the categories on this page:
http://www.hirsh.ro/Catalog/index.htm
Note: yes, I know, I hate the current website design as well. A new and greatly improved version is on the way. But you’ll get the idea in the categories (too bad the real Pantone colors are not well represented online).
Daniel | Jul 16, 2007 | Reply
Am I the only graphic designer reading this blog? To understand address this issue you have to look at the bigger picture, which is… Why do all real estate designs suck? Everything from ads, flyers, logos, website, all if suffers from sever aesthetic deficiencies.
Ok ok. There are one or two good firms out there, that managed to hire some quality designers. But for the most part 98% of it is bad. Or if not bad, at least 10-20 years out of date.
In fact, I have been to design conferences where we all site around a make fun of real estate designs.
But why are they all so bad?
1. Time & Money: On the triangle of, time, money, quality - you can only have two, and real estate agents, and brokerages never have enough time for development, and often want to pay less than market value.
2. Conservative fears: Most real estate brokers and agents I have worked with suffer from a constant fear of rejection. I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, but the best designs will offend some people. And if you aren’t willing to offend some people, you will never have a good design. (Take the word offend in the broadest way… from dislike, to complete hate)
3. No need: Most real estate people don’t think they need good design. Nike obviously does, they are selling style, not a shoe. But real estate hasn’t had its Nike. There hasn’t been a national firm selling lifestyle as a product, because real estate by and large can’t control the quality of their product. If an agent gets a listing, they clean it up a bit and sell it. Unlike Nike who carefully creates their product around life style.
Thats it. Or at least thats my opinion after working with several small and large real estate firms.
Jackie | Oct 8, 2007 | Reply
We live in a lake community where real estate ranges from just below $100k all the way up to multi-million dollar estates. For the most part, ours is a second home / vacation home market. I firmly believe that we’re selling fun, or access to it, more than we’re selling real estate.
In developing our name & identity, I thought we should take a risk and introduce a brand that embodied fun and that would also be memorable. It took some convincing of my partners (who are all agents), but they saw the value in this approach and so far it has worked beautifully for us. We get to have a lot of fun with our brand in all types of advertising, and have successfully adapted our logo colors to the season or lake event we’re advertising around (so long as we have a little discipline about how we do it).
I think your blog is right on, and would love to see real estate brands and advertising improve. And Hooray for no agent pictures - we don’t use them either! Would love to get some feedback on our brand: http://www.bigfishbunch.com. Trying to develop our site content and speed up the site now, but we’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in our first lake “season.”
PS - we’ve had lots of compliments around our advertising - a sample of headlines:
Our Backyard Is All Tow and No Mow
A Backyard That’ll Float Your Boat
Our Slips Are Showing … All 3 of Them (in reference to a boat dock)
Melissa | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
Great posts… My thoughts are that the current most popular real estate office logos today must serve and be used amongst a variety of media types (online, newspapers, vinyl, signage, prints, magnetic, business cards, etc.) and perhaps this is why we have seen such little change in the design and appearance of many of the existing realty logos.
However, we have noticed from many of the newer offices and real estate brokerages that they are leaning towards being more creative and daring in their logo design approach. Some of which are actually very very nice.
One major problem still remains, the deisgner must be sure to make the logo, even next generation ones as mentioned above, usable between so many media types.
Most of the real estate logos we get can be done and made into other marketing products (ie Real Estate Stickers). But, once in a great while we are given one that just cannot be done due to its complexity and desire to break from the norm in real estate marketing signs.
Have a great realtor, agent, broker or real estate logo? Send it to us, we would love to see it. Or, you can upload it and make it into an adhesive decal (sticker) to place almost anywhere at http://www.RealEstateSticker.com or http://www.realestatesticker.com.
Paul Tippets | Nov 6, 2007 | Reply
New upstart company Real Estate for 2 has a pretty good logo.
Darren | Nov 16, 2007 | Reply
I like what I’m reading but unfortunately it’s insufficient. So we all agree that realty logos need improving but where’s the suggestions for changing them? While some may not like the RE/MAX logo it remains one of the most recognized realty logos out there. From a branding recognition perspective - that’s the goal! Could it be improved? Sure. So someone offer some suggestions for the next generation RE/MAX logo, share it here and forward to RE/MAX - they just might pay you for it!
Rachel | Dec 6, 2007 | Reply
I think the problem with the real estate logos is just a symptom of a bigger issue: the lack of innovation in the real estate industry. Let’s face it, most of the people making big decisions in these companies are behind the times - the average Realtor I hear is at least 55 years old. This lack of innovation permeates all levels of the industry . It’s everything from a company’s logo, to the systems and technology they use company-wide. As a creative person and an oddball in this industry I am constantly bumping up against these barriers.
Ahh… I feel much better now that I’ve vented that. Thank you!
Kimberly-Florida Realtor/Mortgage Broker | Dec 18, 2007 | Reply
I have to comment on to Rachel. I think the root problem with Real Estate Company Logos are that most of the firms that are not branchs are owned by the independant small business person. I own a mortgage company and not having the ability to spend lots of money on logos, tag lines, websites, etc. we do the best we can and as creative as we can with what we can afford to do usually on our own. Of course we are not markting directors and our focus is in the business we are running. If I had access or suggestions on logos, tag lines, etc. than I would totally check it out. Our company is called Knight Mortgage Company and our logo is a knight on a horse - we symbolize strenght, loyalty, and honor in our reputation so that is why we went with Knight. Large companies like Nike and Fedex have people that just work on the logo…I have 5 people that work on loans, processing, marketing, etc. Just food for thought!