7 useful tips for Logo Design. Image Courtesy – http://www.grafikastudio.com.au
The logo has ever been the centre point of branding and it has a mixture of creative concept, visualization and design skill. Designers always try to focus a business or a company identity through its logo.
They use fonts or colours or tiny manipulation of text materials to execute their concept. It looks good that a small logo can represent a giant business in a playful and easy way. But, it is not so easy in reality. Mastering all aspects of logo design requires time.
Some important points a designer should bear in mind:
(i) Receive all the information from your client with possible competitors in the market. By doing that you can visualize what your client is expecting from you. Now, start research on your part – who are the competitors, which logos or brands are top in the market, which logos are visually appealing, which logos are logically correct etc.
Spend some time researching various brands and try to visualize some concepts which are logically compatible with your client’s business. It may be a little difficult at the starting, but with practice, you will be able to grip the technique gradually.
Designers should always bear in their mind that top brands of the world are established by visualizing their concept differently. So, inspiration is good, but a logo is always acceptable with its uniqueness.
(ii) Behind creating every brand there is consolidate planning which follow through till the end of the branding process. There are some points to be kept in mind –
‘necessity of the brand’, ‘purpose of the brand’, ‘working of the brand’, ‘realizing the point which differentiates with others’, ‘focus of the brand’ and ‘brand identity’.
(iii) Colours play a very important role in logo designing. So, designers have to study about colours – meaning of colours and implication of colours. Some uses and meaning of colours are described below:
Implications of black colour: Professional, direct, accuracy, definite, credible, strength, powerful, precise.
Use of black colour: Construction, fashion, corporate, oil, financial, manufacturing, cosmetics, mining, marketing.
Implications of red colour: Dangerous, sexy, romantic, hot, hungry, exciting, urgent, design, media, fast.
Use of red colour: Food, clothing, fashion, apparel cosmetics, sports, real estate, entertainment, emergency services, hospitality, marketing, public relations, advertising.
Implications of green colour: Nature, youth, nurturing, organic, educational, adventurous, ecological, calm.
Use of green colour: Medicine, science, government, recruitment, ecological-business, tourism, human resources.
Implications of blue colour: Professional, business, credibility, calm, clean, medical, judicial, power.
Use of blue colour: Corporate, technology, information technology, medical, scientific, utilities, government, health care, recruitment, tradesmen, legal, dental.
Implications of orange colour: Successful, innocence, enthusiasm, creative, dynamic, energetic, youthfulness, expressive.
Use of orange colour: Recruitment, food and drink, entertainment, education, sports, human resources, childcare, religious.
Implications of yellow colour: Knowledge, energy, dynamic, encouraging, ideas, youth, bright, positive, auspicious.
Use of yellow colour: Academic, food and drink, entertainment, new technology, automotive, eCommerce, religious.
Implications of brown colour: Earthly, historical, safe, financial, tradition, conservative, reliable, retrospect, steady.
Use of brown colour: Real estate, animals, mining, veterinary, finance.
Implications of white colour: Purity, clean, clear, medical, spacious, simple, easy.
Use of white colour: Dental, medical, science, technology.
(iv) Texts are the important ingredients of a logo. A company can prefer its logo to be text-base or iconic or, you can search for many samples in various web-portals. Iconic or symbolic logos are logos which incorporate a symbol with the logo text like ‘Adidas’, ‘Apple’, ‘NBC’, ‘Shell’ etc. Text-based logos are the type in which only texts are displayed in a professional way like ‘Sony’, ‘Nokia’, ‘Fila’, ‘Mashable’, ‘Time’, ‘FedEx’ etc.
Examples for logos with symbol or icon.
Examples for the text-based logo.
In a logo, you can play with the text in various ways. A simple idea is that you have to build a concept and choose font-face accordingly, then break the font-face in any vector software and try to give the non-editable font-face to different shapes as per your requirement. This technique generally acquired through proper planning, visualization and practice.
(v) In the modern design trend, there is a huge demand for a miniature representation of the logo. Most of the time the icon incorporated with the logo represents the particular brand. If we see logos of ‘Axis Bank’, ‘Mitsubishi’, ‘Airtel’ etc. we realize that the icon ‘A’ of Axis Bank logo or the icon ‘a’ of Airtel can alone represent the brand. That is the magic of its creation. Simplicity is a great way to create a logo design. Try to keep your style simple yet miniature.
(vi) A number of colours are an important factor while creating a logo for a particular brand. You have to think of the output of your design on printed materials or on the web. Two to three colours should be used as the maximum parameter because more colour is confusing and it generates more printing cost.
(vii) Logo design is a process designers use to grip gradually. With the expertise of software, the building of concept for a logo comes gradually. There is a sentence in English – “Practice makes a man perfect” – this line is applicable here too. If you want to be a good logo designer, you have to open your eyes – with viewing each and every design, billboards, packaging, various printed materials, magazines, online media etc.
There are various online websites like Logobee, Logopond, Design Crowd, 99designs, Logo Design Contest, Designmantic, Logospire, LogoMoose etc. from which you can get inspiration. But always try to create something unique which will be your identity as a designer.
Reference: The Science Behind Colors & thelogocompany.net which provides some nice information on colours.
