One of the most important parts of creating a business is developing its brand and the key to any brand is the logo. The logo becomes the signature of a brand and a company and is something everyone who is creating a startup needs to invest in. If however, you are a designer and creating a logo for either your own business or someone else’s, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Here are the 7 steps you need to know when designing a logo.
Here is a summary of the 7 steps to design a logo:
- Research Target Audience
- Design on Paper First Then the Computer
- Design on a Grid
- Design in Black and White
- Create the Logo as a Vector Image
- Research Color Theory
- Pay Attention to Typography
1. Research the Target Audience
Before designing any logo for a company, you need to do some research. You need to know as much as you can about the company, who they are, what they do, what they value, who they are selling to, who is the competition. The more you know about the company, the better your design will be. If you can figure out who your or your client’s target market is, you can create a logo designed for them.
For example, if the company’s target market is middle-aged women and the company is selling a woman’s makeup, you are probably not going to be successful in creating a logo that would be suited for a men’s football club.
You need to make sure your logo appeals to the target market and can stand out enough from the competition. By standing out and creating something unique, you are more likely to capture and retain a potential client’s attention so you can convert it to a sale.
2. Design on Paper First Then the Computer
After the research is all done, it’s always a smart idea to sketch out ideas. Don’t jump straight into the computer; you can get a lot more of your ideas out onto paper a lot easier and faster than the computer.
By sketching out ideas, you can see what works and what doesn’t as you develop concepts for the logo. Not only is this a more efficient and professional approach, but it’s always a fun and inspiring part. There is just something inspirational by having a pencil to paper to spark creativity.
3. Design On a Grid
Designing on a grid is always helpful. By creating on a grid, you can create symmetrical and geometrical designs easier. These types of designs are ideal for logos as they tend to be timeless, scalable, and appealing to the eye.
Don’t get me wrong, asymmetric designs can work for a logo too, but even then designing on a grid makes it easier to space things out and keep them in proportion.
My personal favorite is to design on a dotted notebook, where I can easily keep my designs in one place.
4. Design in Black and White
It is always a good idea to first design in black and white before color. There are two main reasons to do this:
The first is that by designing in black in white, you and your client can see the mark for its merits alone and not be influenced by color. People have different preferences on colors and if presenting your logo designs to a client, they may be against your best design concept just because they aren’t a fan of the color you put into it. By designing in black and white, the design of the logo concepts itself is the only thing that can be compared.
The second reason to design in black in white is that you know that if someone reproduces your logo without color, you know it will still look good. People don’t always have access to color printers and copy or print in black and white, so things like gradients, while they look good in color, become muddy and hard to see in black and white.
This goes into another concept of good logo design that is not on this list, but don’t put a gradient on a logo. It might look good now but it won’t be timeless and does not transition well across printers with various color accuracy.
5. Create the Logo as a Vector Image
This is kind of a no brainer for designers, but always design a logo in a vector-based program, like Adobe Illustrator (affiliate link). After you sketch out ideas on paper, you can narrow down the concepts to your favorites to create as vector images.
For those who don’t know, a vector design is a 2D point-based graphic defined by x and y axes. This means that the lines and curves are always going to be smooth no matter how much you scale the image.
In a pixel-based design software (like Adobe Photoshop (affiliate link) usually is, although it has vector capabilities) the image is created by usually square pixels that, when magnified, can show up and become pixelated, or distorted.
6. Research Color Theory
After you have the black and white concepts of the logo created, now is the time to add color. But what colors do you use? This is where color theory comes into play.
Color theory states that each color has different meanings and psychologically can invoke different emotions. Depending on what the company is and who the target market is, you would want to use the right colors. For example, a true blue invokes trust and reliability while yellow invokes emotions of joy and happiness. Be aware of the different meanings of different colors and their shades and tints as well.
Be aware of different color combinations too. You might want contrasting colors or tonally similar colors depending on the design. Be careful though of your combinations as they might invoke a different meaning or emotion than you intend. For example, if you chose red and green, people will often think of Christmas time rather than your company. This is not to say you can’t use these combinations,but just be aware of how you apply them. When in doubt, ask someone for their opinion and get some honest feedback before presenting it to your client.
7. Pay Attention to Typography
So if your logo has a shape or symbol attached, you still need to think carefully about the typography of the logo. Different fonts have different implications and can make or break a logo. Some logos only use the name of the company itself (this is called a logotype) and the typography is the most crucial aspect of the design.
Make sure the font, whether you custom-make it or have a license for it, fits the brand image you are developing. For example, if you are creating a logo for a brick company, you probably want a solid, thick font to showcase the strength of the bricks and not a whimsical script font. Also make sure you pay attention to the kerning, or space between the characters or letters in a word, as that can influence your design.
Bonus: Pay Attention to Negative Space
As a bonus, be aware of both the positive and negative shapes in your design. You can get some really cool logos by utilizing negative space but you can also get some unintended shapes as well, so just be aware of that as you design your logo.
Some good examples of negative space in a logo can be seen in the FedEx logo, where you have the arrow pointing forward to mimic the movement of the package you’re mailing.
You can also see this in the Amazon logo with the arrow creating a smile to give you a sense of happiness (see the yellow in the arrow). That wasn’t an accident, but intentional by the designer to invoke feelings of happiness through the color and hidden messaging to make you happy when buying things on Amazon so you keep buying from that platform.
Conclusion
As you can see a good logo design incorporates a lot of information to be something memorable and iconic.
A great logo is thoughtfully designed not only for the target audience but also for the type of emotions and message it wants to convey to the customers.
I hope this helps you when designing your own logo and leave a comment of what you think of this process or some of your favorite logos!
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