When you decide to sell your product or service, you want two things:
(1) To succeed and (2) To be recognized as a reputable company. The basics of growing a successful business will tell you the importance of getting branding right. One of the first few crucial steps in beginning the branding process is creating a striking logo design.
Logo design does not have to be difficult or tiring, and I show you how with six easy-to-follow logo design tips:
1-> Create Your Brand Personality
To create a notable and relevant logo, you need to start with defining the personality of your brand or service. There are two easy ways to create your new logo design-
- Word Association: Think of up to five words in which you can describe the brand’s strongest values and concepts. Some examples of brand personalities which can be used in word association are cultural, adaptable, efficient, energetic, responsible, cheerful, etc.
- Image Association: Come up with three images of objects to be associated with the words describing the brand personality. For example – if you are selling honey and have ‘cheerful’ as a word associate, you could use bees, honey pots and honeycombs as images that can be associated.
2 -> Define Your Logo Type
There are five types of logos for you to choose from when thinking of a new logo design. It is easy to narrow down from the many options to one perfect logo type, and this is how you define it-
- Lettermark Logo: If your business or brand name is long.Abbreviate the brand name and choose the most notable initials to keep in your logo. Examples include IHOP, NASA, HP and ESPN.
- Wordmark Logo: If your business or brand name is short, sweet and unforgettable. Examples include Google, Ebay, Disney and Canon.
- Pictorial Mark Logo: If you want your logo to be represented with an object image.Examples include Instagram, Nike, McDonalds and Apple.
- Abstract Mark Logo: If you want to create your brand’s own unique logo image. They offer the chance to come up with a creative new graphic to set as a logo, as opposed to well-recognized objects in pictorial mark logos. Examples include Adidas and Pepsi.
- Combination Mark Logo: If you want to combine images and text together to form a customized and unique logo representing the brand. Examples include Adobe, Converse, Domino’s Pizza and Burger King.
3 -> Visualize the Logo’s Aesthetics
After creating a brand personality and defining the logo type, you need to figure out what the logo design aesthetics are. The key idea to make the logo resonate with the brand is to evoke an emotion within the target audience.
Creative visual elements are of the utmost importance when designing your own logo, and they include font typography and color.
Font: Do you want the logo to carry a timeless classic font, a sleek minimalist font, old-school vintage font or a fun and offbeat font? It comes down to the brand persona and the target audience on whom the logo will make an impression. An example is to use Calibri as a classic font, which can be used for multiple industries because of its timelessness and adaptability.
Other factors to remember while choosing a font for your logo design is comparing traditional serif to modern sans serif fonts, check the fonts competitors are using in their logos and to avoid using too many fonts in the logo.
Color: The different colors for your logo design can make or break the brand aesthetic. Colors psychologically evoke a certain trait in the audience’s mind, and it is important to choose colors which resonate with the brand persona. Refer to online guides about color psychology and color combinations that successfully work to create an astounding logo.
- For a traditional and evergreen industry business, neutral tones like brown, beige, cream, off-white and earthier tones like dark green and terracotta work well.
- For highly creative businesses, bright color palettes like pinks, yellows, reds and oranges resonate very well. Pastels and colors like millennial pink have been highly trending since the past few years for creative businesses.
- For minimalist, sleek and modern businesses, colors likeshades of grey, black, blue and white denote stability and simplicity in design.
4 -> The Underdogs of Logo Design
Here are some aspects of logo design that are not given much credit but can make a lot of difference.
Geometry: When the logo has symmetry in its design, it can be broken down neatly into the different shapes that have created it. But asymmetry in logos makes them creative; a compelling art by itself.
To create a logo that is not conventionally symmetrical but not imbalanced visually, follow the principle of the golden ratio. This helps in creating a symmetrical-looking logo with a unique design.
Placement: Logo placement is not given much thought, quite often. But it can bring a great deal to the table for brand recognition and recall. Create just enough negative space around the text and images to ensure it doesn’t look cluttered.
If you are using icons and 3D models in the logo, ensure that they balance the other visual elements and not overpower the logo. Logo placement on the left side is traditionally heralded the best for brand recall, as our eyes scan from left to right.
5 -> Think Long-Term
There are a few aspects to keep in mind when creating your own logo on a long-term scale.
- As a rule of thumb, avoiding logo design trends as they can quickly become outdated. Some logo design faux-pas include use of outdated fonts like Comic Sans and Papyrus, using random shapes on your logo to add more spirit, using Helvetica which has been overdone in many logos, using arc over texts and chat bubble designs.
- Keep the logo design responsive, i.e., adaptable across different devices and products. The logo should appear clear and opaque on smartphones, laptops and physical products. The icon size, the color scheme and typography should be evergreen, independent of staying trendy. There may be a few changes needed along the way to tweak the logo design, but the logo style should stay true to the brand’s personality.
6 -> Stay Informed, Stay Ahead
You must stay informed on two things to stay ahead:
- Your competitors
- The graphic design trends.
Observing your competitors’ logo designs can tell you whether they have had the same design since their establishment, the color palette and typography they use, the changes they have made to logos and how relevant their logo is by today’s graphic design scenario.
You can also get a picture of the brand personality your competitor has established for themselves with the image, text and color they have combined.
Knowing the graphic design trends is a good place to start while creating your new logo, as it can help your logo looking timeless but modern.Some logo design trends majorly seen in 2018 include creative typography, real-life adaptive logos that work across print and digital screens, nostalgic retro aesthetics and geometric line logo art.
A logo is like putting a face to your business, and that’s why it is worth making your logo a memorable one.
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