Logo Design

Don't ignore this critical visual element when
planning your design. It will have long term positive effects for your clients business.

What is a Logo?

According to Wikipedia, a logo is "the graphic element of a trademark or brand, which is set in a special typeface and/or font, or arranged in a particular, but legible, way. The shape, color, typeface, etc. should be distinctly different from others in a similar market."

Logo Design

Logos provide visual identity. As mentioned above, a logo is the "graphic element" of a brand. Customers begin to associate the shapes and colors of the logo with the company.

Did you ever notice that when you are shopping in a store for a familiar product that you look for the shape and colors that appear on the box -- it is not necessary to read the label? Having a professional logo can can allow this association to be made for your customers so you are instantly recognizable.

Therefore, logos are extremely important elements of any design. As a designer, it is important to determine early on whether a client has an existing logo they would like to use. If they do, they usually are using it on their business cards, brochures and stationary, and you'll need to include it in your web page design equation, along with integrating other existing design elements, colors, styles, etc.

Other times, a client may not have a logo or asks you to redesign their logo.

Here are a few samples of logos I've designed for clients over the years.

Learn From the Best

In our commercial society, you'll often have the opportunity to view hundreds of different logos in a single day on television, billboards, stores, magazines and newspapers. You can learn a lot about logo design by noting the design details used in these logos. Of course, the internet is an endless source of material and inspiration for the aspiring logo designer - for example, read this very interesting interview of the designer of one of the most recognizable logos - FedEx.

How Will the Logo be Used?

Most logos will be used in typical situations - on business cards, stationary, brochures, fax cover page, web site. When designing a logo, it is important to keep in mind that it will most likely be used in a variety of sizes. A complex design that looks great in a large size, may lose a lot of it's detail when shrunk down to use on a business card, and may become difficult to read or recognize. Or, how will your logo look when coming in over a fax machine? The idea is to create a logo whose elements are easily visible in any size or use, or is easy to adapt.

Logo Design Elements

There are so many ways to design an attractive logo, you can easily spend way too much time having fun with all the variations.

You can;

When looking for a font to use in a logo, sometimes I'll look at the company name in every font on my system, until I find one that has the right "feeling" for this particular application. What do I mean by "feeling"? I'm not sure, but it would be very different for a company selling anitque hats than for a modern technology company.

Don’t go crazy.  In most cases understated subtlety is better than an over designed masterpiece meant to showcase the designer's prowess.  As mentioned above, examine the logos of some of today’s major companies.

Don’t underestimate the time and effort it takes to design a good logo. You’ll almost always need to create several variations to show a client. Sometimes it takes me longer to create a logo and to create an entire web site.

For a good exposition on some of these techniques, see the chapter on logo design in the book Robin Williams Design Workshop.

Software for Logo Design?

Since logos can be used in sizes to fit a business card or a huge banner for a trade show, it is good to create a design that can be scaled to any size and not lose detail. In order to accomplish this, it is good to create the logo using vector tools.

I primarily create logos using either Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop. Both have vector tools that allow the logo to be scaled to any size without quality degradation. Illustrator has especially good tools for creating and modifying vector artwork.

If you use a bitmap image in your logo, make sure you can obatin the image at a sufficient resolution so that it looks good scaled to the largest size you will need.

How About Buying a Logo?

Don't have the time or skill to create a smashing logo? There are alernatives to doing it yourself.

Buy a Custom Designed Logo

You can purchase a custom designed logo from a company like LogoWorks. They've created a well defined process for a small company to get a custom designed logo at  a reasonable price.

Buy a Logo Template

For quite a low price, you can purchase a logo template that you can customize for your business. The file is usually provided in one or more standard formats (Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, .jpg, etc). You can select from a wide variety at either Template Monster, BoxedArt, or many other sites.

Note: I receive some compensation if you purchase products mentioned on this page.