Important Tips for Logo Design

Designing a logo is easy, right? Think again. There is more to crafting a brand's visual identity than simply putting a name in a square and calling it a day. Logo designers are in high demand, and it's for good reason — a logo is usually a company's 1st impression, one that may impact a customer's brand perception, purchase selections and overall perspective toward a product.

We are live in a society painted with brand logos. Even toddlers who can't tie their own shoelaces but recognize several logos or are able to deduce what a company sells just by viewing its brand mark.

Be unique and clever

A logo is helps to pick a brand from its competitors and so it is important that the image stands out from the rest of many brands struggle with.

Once something seems online, there’s simply no way to guarantee it won't be used in some shape or type in another forum. Designers who are unsure of the originality of their design can actually check for plagiarism on sites like logo thief.

Creating a unique style is not all about avoiding imitation, however also about planning something out-of-the-box. It’s tempting to simply throw a business icon on the page, however it’s necessary to think creatively. The Mercedes logo isn’t a car. The Apple logo isn’t a computer.

Understand the brand

Yes, a logo is an image, however it’s also an introduction to a brand. The logo should reach a particular audience and when designing, you need to keep this in mind. However be wary of becoming inspired by only aesthetics instead of deeper meaning. Researching different visual brands may be useful, however designers need to be careful not to take the inspirations too literally. Any design work should be original and map directly back to your client’s unique brand attributes.

More than anything, understand what your logo means. Each logo has some kind of a history, filled with meaning and purpose. Take Apple, as an example — the fruit is missing a "byte." Or Wikipedia, an unfinished globe of puzzle pieces covered with glyphs from different writing systems. Both logos are simple, however have one more twist that circles back to brand ideology.

What's in a name?

A logo consists of two elements: word mark and symbol. Before a company will think about only representing itself with a symbol, a great deal of advertising should be done (think: Starbucks or Mercedes). Some companies prefer to stick to logotype entirely, like Coca-Cola and IBM.

Whether your brand will use a logotype depends on the type of name the brand has. If your company has a distinctive name, then you'll get away with a logotype. However if you've got a generic name, then you are going to need something to identify the company by, which might be achieved by using a logo mark. Once considering styles for your text, avoid gimmicky fonts, utilize negative space. Some logos even become recognizable due to their custom fonts. Coca-Cola originated the slanted font

Don't expect instant success

Nike, Puma, Audi are iconic logos, however like with anything successful, it took time for these to achieve popularity. Logos won’t become instantly iconic, although you’ve designed the most beautiful combination of vectors. It depends on the product’s success and the market in which it exists. What you think is your best design may be very well be for a local craft store that only people in the nearby area ever see. And the style won’t be classed as iconic because it doesn’t have the reach of multinational businesses. Ultimately, iconic style status will only be achieved if the consumer fulfills their potential, too.