Some essential fundamentals for designing a logo
A logo is perhaps the most seen visual in the modern consumer-oriented world. Right from its presence on products or services to marketing and advertising, a logo is everywhere. However, it is only a remarkable logo design that wins the hearts and minds of consumers. Such logo ideas ultimately make a desirable impact on people and helps build an identity of businesses.
Since the importance of logo for modern businesses is well documented and recognized, designing a unique logo can be intimidating. Even an experienced designer goes through many design phases before finally coming out with a logo that drives attention. But the creative process for every designer is different. This means that we cannot set one process and standard that all designer should follow. So, designing a logo is a combination of following some basics and your creative instincts.
here we give you some essential fundamentals for designing a logo
01. Always Prefer Simplicity Over A Complicated Design
First, consider this basic tip that simplicity always wins the audience. People are too busy to spare some time to understand what a logo or a symbol really means. Your any message to the audience will be lost due to the intricate design.
Have a look at the logo of Twitter and Apple. These are great examples of simplicity and inspirational designs. Twitter logo is a bird while the Apple logo is a bitten apple. People can understand the meaning and symbolic expression behind these logos at a glance. Most global logos are simple designs. They first draw the attention quickly and then impress the viewers by conveying a brand message.
One of the tricks to follow when you create a logo is a simple design to focus on just one element. Then, let that element dominate the entire space of your logo. The Twitter and Apple logos do that by focusing on the bird and the apple.
Some clients preferred logos that had a lot of details. But a problem with these intricate designs is that when they are shrunk down for their display on shirts, fabric, banner ads, their fine details become blurry. So, choose a simple logo.
02. The Logo Should Spell Out Your Brand Promise
Does your logo translate your brand positioning? That is an excellent parameter to measure the usefulness of your logo. The logo should convey your brand message in a fresh and calculated manner. The design must also ensure that your message is credible.
Therefore, first, write down your message for the audience. This is where the significance of researching your niche and industry matters. A precise description of your ideal customer is essential to know who all the target audience of your logo is. Your message for that audience can then be created through various elements in your logo.
03. It Must Reflect Your Business Values
A professionally conducted business sticks to its values and never compromises on them. That is the secret behind most successful companies. They also express those values through all means such as marketing and advertising. A logo is one of those means to reflect what values a business follows.
By expressing the values, a logo becomes a source of the authenticity of your brand. What are those values? These may be dependability, honesty, efficiency, consistency, commitment and so on. Find out which of such core values you want to project. So, like your brand message, write down your business values. Then, make sure that the final version of your logo stands for those values.
04. Do Not Overwork The Logo
In their enthusiasm, many designers go overboard designing logos. They fill the design with so many details that leave the viewer confused. In many such cases, the designers add some unwanted elements such as shadows, glow, a gradient, and bevel thinking that it will be more creative. But creative graphic design ideas are always simple and unique.
With experience, however, the designers learn that such additions to a logo are unnecessary. The wise advice here is to follow minimalist principles by getting rid of all the extra elements one-by-one. Keep only those colors, lines, shapes, etc. which are capable of signaling your brand message to the audience.
05. Make It Last Long
As your business grows with the time and it expands to new markets, you may need to redesign the logo. But it must be remembered that the need to recreate a logo is mostly arises when it was designed only for a set audience or demography.
You should prefer a logo that lasts for many decades. This is mainly because people were buying your products for many years and now they have built some emotional attachment to the logo. Suddenly, if you redesign it completely, they may not take it kindly.
Therefore, ask your professional graphic designer to come out with a logo concept that does not need reviewing for many years. In fact, most global logos are almost the same for at least half a century. They just tweak their logos here and there to give it a new but exciting twist for the new generation of audience.
06. Research Your Competition
In your niche, several competitors are already making strategies to grab customers’ attention and market share. To survive and move ahead in the market, you must have some insights into your competitors’ activities. When a lot of research and details go in knowing the competitors, it will be reflected in the way you create your logo. This is also a way to design a logo that is different from your competitors’ logos.
Therefore, among other things, find out what colors and fonts your business rivals are using in their logos. If they are aiming at making a similar impression on the audience, know what that is and how you can be different.
07. Keep Your Target Customer In Mind
After all, business and branding are all about targeting the customers who are most likely to buy your products. Everything right from manufacturing a product and its marketing and advertising to designing a wide range of visuals, all such efforts are to please your ideal customer. You should also keep your target audience in mind while designing a logo for your company.
Remember that the logo is omnipresent on all of your marketing campaigns. So, designing it from the audience’s angle always helps in converting them into your local customers. Your logo’s brand message and tone should be based on your target demographic traits.
08. It Should Look Great In Digital And Print
Today, our thoughts usually centered on digital while creating a brand identity using a variety of visuals. This is because of the tremendous evolution in the digital technology. As a result, we have business cards, social media, wearable, websites, etc. in mind while developing logo ideas. But digital is still not the sole platform.
Also, let your business reach out to the audience through print mediums such as newspapers, magazines, photocopies, fax documents, stationery, and others. Your business symbol on these mediums and on several advertisements such as billboards will require you to make the design look impressive.
09. Consider Scalability Of The Design
What if your logo is printed on a small surface of the size of a samp? All of its color and font details must be easily visible without any extra effort. Similarly, if printed on an oversized billboard, the business symbol of your company will still look in the same proportion as in the normal size.
A logo with a lot of text, therefore, is not recommended by the experts. To create scalable logos, it is a good idea to design them using some grid software. Many design grids are available free on the web. When everything is in proportion, which the grids ensure, then you can reduce or scale up the size without fearing any loss of details or blurring of the logos.
10. Create-effective Colorless Version
Many media such as newspapers and billboards publish advertisements in black and white. Then, a photocopy, stationery, faxed documents, leaflets, printed t-shirts and a host of marketing means that use colorless versions of visuals such as logos. Therefore, the logo that looks great in colors should also be equally impressive in black and white.
This is precisely why approval of a design, like a logo, should come at the sketching phase, before the inclusion of colors. Once, the client and the designer are satisfied with the pencil sketches that colors should be filled in the design.
11. Use A Vector Format
Tell your logo designer to send you the design in vector files. These are flexible files that depend on mathematical equations that allow for generating files when you rescale them. Despite resizing, the image quality never deteriorates. Not only your logo but all the branding items should preferably be designed in vector formats only. Additionally, you can convert vector files to PNG and JPG formats quickly in case you want to use the image on different platforms on the web.
Avoid getting your logo in raster files as these are pixel based. As each pixel has a color, the image is distorted easily when scaled up or down. Each pixel goes out of shape, and the picture becomes unclear. So, ignore these files.
12. Use Colors Strategically
When you research and spy on what your competitors are doing to be ahead in your market niche, study their brand colors as well. What colors they rely on to convey their brand message. Since your visuals like a logo must stand out, use different colors so that the audience can identify your company.
13. Avoid Common Typefaces
Typefaces that we so often see have lost their novelty value and hence the power to grab attention. Such commonly used typefaces are no more capable of signaling any brand message to the target customers. So, there is no point in incorporating them. You will get plenty of them free, which is a reason for their frequent use in designs.
A reason for global logos drawing our attention is their custom typefaces. For example, Coca-Cola uses the classic handwritten style of its own. But that does not imply that your small business should create a typeface of its own.
Instead, use a typeface that makes your logo look different from that of your competitors. Also, your brand personality as a visual will depend majorly on the style of the text. So, choose the text style that delivers your message as well.
14. Make It A Memorable Design
Can you tell a story from your logo? If you can signal a story, it will make the logo a memorable piece of work. When you hire graphic design services of a designer, ask for a logo that people can retain in their memory. This means that right from concept to incorporating colors, typeface, and shape, lines, etc., it must appeal to the viewers’ senses. They must remember it for its message and business values it represents. By making it memorable, it will identify your company’s business.
15. Listen To What People Have To Say
Because you are the designer, you are very close to the design all the time. Such proximity sometimes results in biases towards your design and neutral evaluation becomes difficult. So, it is advisable to take a second and even third opinion from the expert designers, your client, and also from the public through the social media platform.
To get people’s opinion, post your logo on your social media page and request your followers to comment. You can also run a poll to see what percentage of people like the visual. If need be so, make some improvement in the design if someone points out a mistake that is worthy of your attention.
So, these are the tips we have for you when you intend to create a remarkable logo design. Make sure that you apply each advice with your utmost attention to the details. You can also explore Designhill, a marketplace for sourcing designs such as logos for your small or medium businesses at affordable costs.
A remarkable logo design is a memorable design to grab the attention of your potential customers. You should pick colors, typefaces, symbols, etc. to make the logo a pleasing visual. But it must also be versatile and scalable.
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