Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs all use avatars as personal ‘icons’ for members. Depending on the image you choose, these postage stamp-sized images can portray you as professional, playful, creative, silly or somber. The questions for business and individuals are, “Do I use a photo, logo, or combination of the two?” and ”How do I want to portray myself to the online world?”

First off, let’s look at tips on avatars to avoid:

1. Don’t use those Flash-generated Japanimation style avatars. They all look too similar, which means they’re not unique enough to distinguish you from the rest of the millions of people who are also using them.
2. Don’t use inanimate objects or pets.
3. Don’t use a generic avatar. The worst thing you can do is not customize your avatar. A grainy, blurry photo of your dog is better than that.

Logos

Benefits:

1. Represents your brand and business
2. Often well-crafted and memorable
3. More room for creativity
4. Ties your blog / other social media pages together
5. Easily recognizable among masses of avatars

A logo is often the most remembered thing from our whole interaction with clients – indeed, that is the purpose a well-designed logo: Stand out in someone’s mind to remind them of your business over all others in your particular field.

But getting recognized is tough. Although there are so many different avenues, networks, tools, and channels available for creating your personal brand, standing out from the crowd is more difficult than ever.

For businesses, logos are often designed by professional graphic designers to capture the essence of your business and what it does in a simple yet creative way (or least, it should be).

Good examples:

Some may argue that a logo can be impersonal, cold or even stale. If that’s your opinion, then perhaps you would choose a photo avatar.

Photos

Benefits:

1. More personal
2. Everyone can do it
3. Not everyone is a designer
4. People recognize faces, even after a long time
5. People with highest twitter followers tend to use photos

Whether it’s a professional headshot, a candid photo, or a self-portrait, photos show a personal side to your online profile. It shows that you want to connect on a personal level and that you’re not afraid to be yourself. It also shows a level of trust, giving out your image to the online world, just like extending a hand to be shaken.

Good examples:

Overall, photo avatars are best used by two types of people in the social media sphere:

1. Personal profiles / accounts used mostly for personal information.
2. Professionals that are either the sole face of the business or an integral part of the overall team that interacts with the general public.

Symbols/Icons

Due to privacy concerns, some people use a symbol (a typewriter for a writer, a gavel for a lawyer) instead of a photograph. I’m not a fan of these simply because they are impersonal and too generic.

Combination avatars

Combining your company’s logo and your photo is a great way to combine the power of the two individual avatar styles listed above. Not only does it allow people to “see” who they’re connecting with, but it also shows people whom you represent.

Fuel Labs is one of the first companies to demonstrate an effective and consistent combination avatar design. The “company” accounts on Twitter, Facebook, show just the logo but the design for everyone on the Fuel Labs team is a combo avatar that successful locks company-name-face together. With this design, Fuel gets to show off its team, and brings clarity to its presence across various social media platforms.

Obviously, I’m of the same mind. Fuel’s implementation just makes sense to me. So for my avatar, I’ve combine a stylistic candid photo and my personal brand logo. Yes, it could be improved, but it hits all the touchpoints I was wanting to address: logo, face, and color palette that matched my current web site color palette.

The need for consistency

As designers, we should all have similar avatars displaying across the web. When you comment on a well-known blog and your comment’s avatar is the default generated “monsters” or geometric shape patterns, you do your business a disservice by not extending your brand recognition.

Use it on your blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, everywhere. Even if people don’t automatically remember your name or your website, they’ll remember your avatar and make an association. When they see it again later, on another network or site, they’ll be more likely to pay attention, to friend you, and maybe remove a few of those degrees of separation.

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