When you tell someone you’re a graphic designer, undoubtedly the first question you always get is, “So you make logos, right?”
Why, yes, yes I do, as well as brochures, websites, signs, stationery, and more.
People always seem so much more interested with your ability to design a logo. And if they aren’t fascinated with it, it’s because they think it’s so easy that a caveman could do it, and don’t understand why you’re getting paid to do it. Either way, I decided to write out some quick tips and rules for designing a killer logo!
1. Good design starts on paper. You can draw anything your brain can think of, but sometimes finding the best way to go about it digitally can take some time and effort. Starting on paper allows your brain to run wild without letting some ideas get squashed by technical difficulties early on.
2. Prior planning prevents poor performance. Don’t just jump into things all willy-nilly. Take time to understand your client, their target audience, what style or personality traits they embody (more modern versus more traditional), and where this mark will be used.
3. Start in black and white. Showing a logo in color can cause a client to look past how awesome your design is and only see the shade of green that they have some sort of personal vendetta against for one reason or another. You don’t want to turn someone off to your design based on a bad color palette. And hey, your logo should be able to be reduced to a black and white version at the end of the day, anyways.
4. Keep it simple. If your design gets too muddled, try cutting out any unnecessary details, like extra leaves on a tree or extra flourishes. Remember, whatever you design needs to be able to shrink down to the size of a dime (for say, a business card) and still be legible.
5. Use clean, “normal” fonts. This goes a bit with the fourth point. You don’t want your logo to be illegible, especially at smaller sizes. You’re not going to impress anyone by using Comic Sans or Papyrus. *Shudders*
6. When in doubt, space it out. If you have multiple words and need hierarchy, there are other ways to do this other than making some words bigger than others. By spacing out letters, it makes the word as a whole less prominent and allows other words that may be more important to stand out more.
7. Can’t find the perfect font? Make it yourself! This won’t work with every project, but it’s very common to either hand draw a font or go in and manipulate a typeface and style it differently – maybe adding flourishes, interesting angles, or combining elements of different typefaces. This ensures that your end product is going to be 100% original!
These seven tips with ensure your logo is fresh, clear, and appealing.
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