Logos Get the Love. Data Gets the Shrug.

In over two decades of working with membership bodies, I’ve seen Board members glaze over at the mention of governance reform, look blank at data strategy, and politely nod through conversations about engagement metrics. Yet mention a logo redesign and suddenly the entire boardroom is animated. Everyone has an opinion, everyone wants to be heard, and the whole process takes on a significance out of all proportion to its real impact.

So why does logo design exercise such excitement amongst membership professionals? And what does this reveal about the way we run and lead our organisations?

A Visible Symbol of Progress

Logos are immediate, visible, and accessible. They are one of the few aspects of organisational change that can be shown instantly: put it on a website, a membership card, a LinkedIn banner, and voilà, the world sees progress.

That’s attractive for boards that want to demonstrate momentum without getting bogged down in the long tail of structural reform. One body I worked with spent a year wrestling with member engagement metrics and reporting dashboards. Hard work, crucial to their sustainability, but hard to explain at the AGM. Yet when they unveiled their new logo, complete with a glossy video, the applause was louder than anything the data work ever received.

Modernisation is more than a typeface. Without substance behind the symbol, you’ve achieved little more than new stationery.

Everyone’s an Expert

Ask a room of directors or senior staff for their views on Articles of Association, and you’ll get polite silence or nervous glances towards the lawyer in the corner. Ask them whether the logo should be teal or navy, and you’ll get 15 impassioned answers.

This is one of the reasons logo projects feel so exciting: they’re accessible. Everyone interacts with brands. Everyone has personal tastes. Everyone feels qualified to weigh in. Governance and data? Those belong to the specialists. Logos? Those belong to everyone.

Quick Wins Beat Long Hauls

Logo redesigns are neat, bounded projects. A few months of workshops, some designer mock-ups, a board decision, and you’ve got a shiny new identity to launch at conference. There’s a sense of closure and achievement.

Compare that with member engagement strategies or data reform. They are never finished. They demand patience, investment, and iteration. You don’t get a neat “before and after” reveal, just incremental progress that slowly changes the organisation’s effectiveness.

One professional institute I advised spent two years building the case for a data warehouse. It was unglamorous, painstaking work that transformed how they understood member journeys. But it was a grind, with no single “big reveal.” When the same organisation later launched a rebrand, the press release received three times the coverage. The irony? The data project had done more for member value than the new logo ever could.

The Illusion of Control

Membership bodies exist in complex environments: shifting regulation, changing industries, evolving expectations. Much of what matters is outside the organisation’s direct control.

But logos? Those can be controlled. Choosing fonts and colours, approving a design, signing off a rebrand, these are tangible acts of leadership. They create the illusion of control and decisiveness.

I’ve seen boards agonise for half an hour over the placement of a curve in a graphic element while signing off multimillion-pound risk exposures in less than five minutes. It’s not that Directors don’t care. It’s that logos feel safe to debate, whereas governance reform or data infrastructure feel daunting.

Pride in Identity

There is, to be fair, a positive reason for all this excitement: people genuinely care about their organisation’s identity. Membership bodies are proud of their history and their standing. They want their brand to look modern, credible, and ambitious.

That’s not trivial. In a crowded landscape, perception matters. A tired, outdated visual identity can undermine confidence and alienate prospective members. A strong identity can help open doors, particularly with younger audiences.

I worked with one sector federation whose dated crest was a running joke amongst its members. The rebrand didn’t fix their services overnight, but it did restore a sense of pride and relevance. Members felt more confident putting the logo on their websites and marketing material. That matters.

The danger is when pride in identity becomes detached from substance. A modern logo can’t mask outdated services, poor data, or disengaged members. Members will see through it quickly enough.

Where the Excitement Should Be

In every rebrand project I’ve witnessed, I’ve wanted to bottle that excitement and apply it to other areas that really matter. Imagine if boards argued as passionately about retention strategy as they do about colour palettes. Imagine if members’ focus groups had as much to say about strategy as they do about logos, because:

• Governance determines whether an organisation can act decisively or whether it’s trapped in endless circular debate.

• Data strategy determines whether decisions are evidence-based or anecdote-driven.

• Engagement metrics determine whether you actually understand what members value, or whether you’re flying blind.

• Member journeys, from joining to renewal, determine whether people stay.

These are the things that keep the lights on. These are the things that decide whether your organisation grows, stalls, or declines.

Linking Brand and Substance

The challenge for leadership is not to dampen enthusiasm for branding but to connect it to the rest of the organisation’s development. A rebrand is an opportunity, but only if it’s the start of a bigger conversation.

• If your new logo is meant to signal accessibility, ask whether your governance model is genuinely inclusive.

• If the brand is about innovation, make sure your data capability matches that claim.

• If the logo is designed to look modern, ensure your member journey feels just as modern.

Brand can be the spark, but it should ignite the harder, more technical conversations that determine whether the organisation actually delivers on the promise the brand makes.

I understand the excitement. Logos are fun. They’re tangible, immediate, and everyone can join the debate. I’ve enjoyed watching boards light up with ideas during design workshops.

But I’ve also seen the same boards drag their feet on governance reform, delay investment in data, or sidestep serious conversations about member value. That’s the imbalance. Too much energy in the wrapper, not enough in the product.

If you’re leading a membership body, enjoy the logo debate by all means; but then apply the same urgency and creativity to the substance: governance that works, data that informs, engagement that retains, and services that genuinely add value.

Because at the end of the day, a logo can open the door. but only substance keeps members in the room.