Logo Design Essentials

A logo is one of the most important things you will ever create for your brand and that is partly why there are so many things to think about when designing one. The process is not as straightforward as many might think. In fact, a good amount of careful research and planning goes into the process before pen even hits paper. However when you are in the flow of designing your own logo, there are a few things you must think about in terms of appearance. This article will discuss tips on making the typography, colour and shape of your logo work successfully.

Typography

If you choose to hire a branding studio to design your logo, it is likely you will have a specialist dedicated to typography. If you do not however, it is not the end of the world.

Going back to your target market research, you should start looking for patters in commonly used fonts. See what your top competitors are using and what industry players have used. You can learn a lot from looking in magazines. For example, film advertisements in the action movie genres use bank gothic such as in X-men and Hancock. The ITC Avant Garde is a font style commonly used in the fashion market. For more antique or traditional brands Trajan Pro is used which evokes Roman associations. So if you own a company that sells baby products, this would not be the best font to use as you would want something that triggers associations of the new and fresh.

When choosing a typeface, you want to customise it somehow, just as Fedex have done. You also want to select something that will look effective on a variety of different platforms from magazines to presentations. Your choice of typeface needs to align itself with the company’s goals and aims for the future. It is something that must be thought about carefully as soon the logo will be on a number of marketing materials.

Colour

The green used in the Starbucks logo has helped make the brand iconic. This is why colour is an element that should not be overlooked. If anything, colour should be give a lot of careful though and consideration. Your logos shape and typeface must be able to stand on its own two feet, with colour or without it. However brands, such as Starbucks, have become distinguished by their carefully chosen use of colours. Colour psychology is behind a lot of the colours chosen in brand logo schemes. Understanding what sort of emotions and feelings a certain colour can trigger is very useful when planning your logo design. For example blue is normally used in corporate industries and it is often associated with feelings of peacefulness. If a logo should be more alluring, then blacks and reds are often a good choice to make the right impact.

Shape

Certain shapes you will see used again and again in logos. Blue boxes are often common as well as circles. If you want to work a letter into a shape you should think carefully about the preconceived associations this combination already has. For example an ‘M’ within a circle is often thought of as a sign for public transport.

Scale

Scale is an important factor in the design process. You have to design the logo so that it will keep its quality whether on a billboard or a postcard. This is where using Vector helps. It stops the logo from becoming pixelated when you change the size of it. Also watch out for gradients, they are a trend and if used you should be wary that they can be used in monochrome and still look good.

Posted by Fz 0 Responses

Liked this post? share it with your friends and peer !