How To Design A Logo

Written by Jacob Cass

Want to know how to design a logo like a professional and have all the resources you need in just one post? Then this is the post for you… Learn professional logo design in just 5 steps! This article was posted on David Airey’s blog for a guest post on 5 Vital Logo Design Tips.

1. Learn What A Logo Is & What It Represents

Before you design a logo, you must understand what a logo is, what it represents and what it is supposed to do. A logo is not just a mark - a logo reflects a business’s commercial brand via the use of shape, fonts, colour, and / or images.

A logo is for inspiring trust, recognition and admiration for a company or product and it is our job as designers to create a logo that will do its job.

One must know what a logo is before continuing.

For further Reading on what is a logo check out Wikipedia’s Definition or CreativeBits’s discussion on what is a logo?

2. Know The Rules & Principles Of Logo Design

Now that you know what a logo is supposed to do, and what it should represent you now must learn about what makes a great logo aka; the basic rules and principles of logo design.

As David quotes…
1. A logo must be describable
2. A logo must be memorable
3. A logo must be effective without colour
4. A logo must be scalable i.e. effective when just an inch in size

For Further reading on the rules and principles of great logo design I highly recommend to read the logo design tips from Logo Factory before continuing.

3. Learn Off Other’s Successes & Mistakes

Successful Logos

Now you know what the rules of logo design are, you can distinguish the difference between a good and a bad logo… By knowing what other logos have succeeded and why they have succeeded gives a great insight into what makes a good logo.

For example, lets look at the classic Nike Swoosh. This logo was created by Caroline Davidson in 1971 for only $35 yet it still a strong, memorable logo, effective without colour and easily scalable. It is simple, fluid and fast and represents the wing in the famous statue of the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike - something perfect for a sporting apparel business. Nike is just one of many great logos, think about other famous brands that you know about and check out their logos - what makes them successful?

For more quality, lesser known logos I recommend checking out LogoPond or going to your local book store or library and looking at a logo book.

The Not So Successful Logos

We can also learn off logos that have not been as successful such as the ones in the above picture. Some more very bad logos can be seen in the post ‘Is Your Design Phallic? As seen in that post, some logos can depict things that may have not always be noticeable to the designer (as in the middle logo above) or they could just be plain bad design, as in the logo to the right.

4. Establish Your Own Logo Design Process

Now that we know what a logo is, and what the principles and rules of logo design are and what makes a successful logo we can now finally begin the design process. This it hardest part of the 5 steps and is its own topic in itself - Each persons logo design process is different and experience usually is the key factor in creating your own logo design process but for an example of a well established logo design process check out David Airey’s.

In short, a logo design process usually consists of

1. The Design Brief
2. Research & Brainstorming
3. Sketching
4. Prototyping & Conceptualising (See Step 5)
5. Send To Client For Review
6. Revise & Add Finishing Touches
7. Supply Files To Client and Give Customer Service

If you ever get stuck before or during your design process check out this great article on How To Boost Your Creativity.

5. Learn The Software & Complete The Logo

After you have got your design process sorted out, it is usually a good time to begin mastering your software (Here is a short tutorial for beginners). But before I get to that, I just want to point out that Step 4 and Step 5 overlap - as it is a catch 22 situation… You can’t design a logo by just hopping straight onto the computer nor can you design a logo without knowing your software (such as Adobe Illustrator).

Anyway, putting this aside, after you have got your initial ideas and sketches from brainstorming you can then usually jump onto the computer to start digitising your logo. After you have got a great concept(s) digitised you can send it to your client, get revisions, and eventually complete the logo and thus, you have successfully created a professional logo.

Do you have any other tips or suggestions on how to create a professional logo?

The Anatomy of a Logo

If image is everything then your company’s logo is its first impression.

Before any knowledge of the company has been acquired, perceptions have already been formulated based off of the logo.

Have a look at the logo below:

• What things come to mind?
• What adjectives did you think of: clean, conservative, tech-savvy, conventional, boring?
• What type of company do you think would use this logo?
• You likely wouldn’t assume this logo for a restaurant, but you might assume an automobile company.

What makes a good logo?

While it may be difficult to pin down what it is that makes a great logo there certainly are some common characteristics that all great logos share. Let’s look at some great logos:

What characteristics stand out?

Let’s take a look at some of the characteristics that are common throughout these logos:

Colors

The majority of logos consist of but a single color, typically a primary color. Some may have two colors, but rarely do you see more than two colors. This makes it easy to attach an emotion to a logo.

Together the eyes and brain produce a cognitive and emotional response to each color. Because of this, colors themselves take on meanings. The exact meaning is often a cultural understanding and can have mulitple meanings across cultures. In the UK, white is considered pure and positive where in China, white is used in mourning, symbolizing heaven. Red is often used to symbolize strength and life, but is taboo in financial communities.

Some color meanings in the North America, Canada, and Western Europe include: Blues are said to be calming, loyal and trustworthy, greens are healthy, wealthy and natural while reds express passion, excitement or danger.

Finally, it’s also advantageous to use a single color for your logo as it will save you money when it comes to placing it on different medium; this can be a real bonus for many small business owners.

Case Study: Virgin

The color red and the name Virgin are linked in the minds of consumers the world over. Virgin devotes a lot of time to ensure that exactly the right red appears on their publicity materials, trains, cola cans and company vans. By ensuring that the correct shade of red is used, it helps consumers instantly identify a Virgin company or a Virgin product. Virgin finds this important enough that the company produces an eighteen-page guide to ensure ‘Virgin Red’ links all the company’s activities.

Simplicity

“If you can’t explain the idea in one sentence over the telephone, it won’t work.” - Lou Danziger.

You will notice in the above logos there’s nothing overly fancy, no gradiants or drop-shadows, just clean and simple lines. This helps to make the logo easy to recall on demand and pick it out from the many other logos you are bombarded with on a daily basis.

Case Study: H&R Block

H&R Block approached Landor Associates to develop a new identity that would expand the perception of the H&R brand beyond its historical roots in tax preparation. Landor developed a new corporate identity system, anchored by the green block. The block, an obvious graphic representation of the company’s name, expresses the solid relationship between H&R Block and it’s customers.

Design for multiple media in mind

One thing remains constant - change. The constant evolution of media and information delivery systems of today’s times means that a logo will likely take on more than one form of medium in its lifespan. Because of the likeliness that the logo will be found on more than just print it’s best to use clean lines. You don’t see drop-shadows or beveling being used. This allows for the logo to be easily placed on billboards, on business cards, on black and white fax copies, mugs, t-shirts, mouse pads and all the rest.

It’s recommended that the logo be developed in a vector program to keep the logo scalable and easily transferable across different media.

Case Study: Federal Express

Lindon Leader, designer of the Federal Express logo, in an interview talks about creating a typeface that would allow for the ‘hidden’ arrow to be maintainted across mediums. “I was studying Univers 67 (Bold Condensed) and Futura Bold, both wonderful faces. But each had its potential limitations downstream in application to thousands of FedEx media, from waybills and embroidered courier caps to FedEx.com and massive signage for aircraft, buildings and vehicles. Moreover, neither was particularly suited to forcing an arrow into its assigned parking place without torturing the beautifully crafted letterforms of the respective faces.”

Logo Longevity

A logo should be able to convey its message over a prolonged period of time and it must be able to adapt to cultural changes. It might be exciting to design a logo that is influenced by a trendy typeface, but it will become outdated and need to be replaced in later years.

Logos designed with a focus on current style and trends are often outdated in a short amount of time and soon become “quaint.” I don’t know of any clients who would like to be perceived as either outdated or quaint.

Case Study: ABC

The ABC logo, developed by Paul Rand, has been in use since 1962 and remains unmodified to this day. Rand said that he designed it for durability, function, usefulness, rightness, and beauty.

The typeface used for the famous logo is a simple geometric design inspired by the Bauhaus school of the 1920s.

This article has looked at some of the characteristics that make up a good logo: color selection, simplicity of design, support for multiple media and design for the long term. Hopefully the next time you have to design a logo these characteristics will come to mind and aid you in development.

* Much of the info in this article comes from the ‘Logo Design Workbook - A Hands-On Guide To Creating Logos’