You'll find the About.com tagline "Guidance. Not Guesswork" near the logo on the About.com home page. It's part of our branding, our message. This Design vs. Art blog post shows several Web site logos with their taglines. So, is a tagline part of the logo or is it a different creature? Sometimes you see it. Sometimes you don't. And when you do, does it mesh with the look and feel of the logo?
"A Tagline or slogan, is a statement that succinctly defines or represents an organization's mission." -- arslogodesign.com
Although the tagline can be and often is used separate from the logo, some people see it as a part of the logo -- with specific formatting and font choices made to work with the logo. A logo and tagline work together in branding but a logo doesn't have to include a tagline or always appear with the tagline. In What a logo does not have to be or do Brian Hoff writes, "Lengthy taglines typically require really small type to fit within reason of the logo size, making it illegible, while other times can make your logo appear cluttered and stuffed."
On whether or not the tagline should be a part of the actual logo, Erin Ferree of elf design says, "Your logo's graphic will be stronger if it's enhanced with the words in your tagline, and the words in the tagline will be more memorable if they are reinforced by an image." However, she goes on to suggest that there are distinct advantages to keeping them separate. Sometimes a tagline needs to change even if the logo doesn't, for example.
But that doesn't mean a logo designer shouldn't consider the tagline when designing a logo sans tag.
"Your tagline influences your logo..." -- Patrice Rhoades-Baum
Kimberley Freeman of Zag Studios, writing for About.com Advertising, calls taglines "the most important ad you'll ever create." Freeman, a freelance copywriter, says "A logo designer and copywriter should work together."
Are you a logo designer? Do you work with a copywriter or does the tagline influence the way you develop a logo? Do you include the tagline as part of the logo or include it when presenting logo designs to a client? I'd like to hear your thoughts.
Related:
Whenever I do a tagline presentation to a client, I always present each tagline on a black board WITH the logo. This is such hand-in-hand branding that a client should always consider the two together. Ideally a logo and tagline would be created in tandem but that rarely happens given the lifetime of brands and the revolving door of brand managers.