For you lay people, a logomark is the symbol part of a logo. For Target it's the target. For Etrade it's the two arrows that look like an asterisk. And for so many companies from the dot-com era it's some meaningless symbol. Sure, it might have meaning for the founders, but nobody else.

The word part of the logo is called the logotype, and many companies have done away entirely with having a logomark and just have a logotype. There are a few reasons why I like just using a logotype to brand a company:

1. KISS - Keep it simple, stupid, less is more, etc. There are a number of cliché statements that could be used to address the situation. Essentially the idea is that if you give the human brain less to process when it sees a logo, the logo will be more memorable. If the human brain has to remember a symbol as well as a name, then that's more to remember than just the name itself.

2. Logomark vs. logotype - If you wanted your customers to remember the symbol or the name of your company, which would you choose? In most cases you'd prefer they remember your name. But symbols are easier to remember than names. So remove the symbol, and then they'll have to remember the name, and your name will be branded more quickly than it would be otherwise.

3. It's a lot easier to design and designers can be pretty lazy sometimes. Oh, did I just say that out loud?