A logo is the first impression of your business on customers. It’s important that you make the right first impression with a professional, high quality logo that reflects what your business stands for.
Here are some helpful tips to help you create the perfect logo out of thin air!
Brainstorming Ideas
The design process starts with brainstorming and sketching. This is where you can explore different ideas without any pressure or limitations from reality.
Sketching might not seem like it would be very productive but it actually helps us think more creatively and efficiently about an idea by combining imagery, words, symbols etc into one sketch in order to convey meaning quickly and effectively using a minimal amount of material/time.
Brainstorming Tips
Consider the company’s product or service and think about how that relates back to the name of the company.
What do you want people to think about when they see your logo?
- Classy/elegant
- Modern/fresh or
- Retro/vintage
List adjectives that you want associated with the company.
Think of superlatives like “most” and “best.” For example: best custom candy shop, most delicious ice cream, most unique t-shirt shop.
To generate more ideas, think of words that are negative (or opposite) to what you want your business to be like. For example: best coldest ice cream shop or most unique least customised t-shirts/tshirts
Lastly, write a list of adjectives describing the business in general.
After you have finished your list, circle the most important words for the company and put an asterisk next to them so they stand out when creating your final logo.
For example: creative*, delicious, modern, friendly*
Tips for Sketching
Use pencil/pen/marker that’s visible on paper but won’t show up when scanned/emailed and used on the computer.
Don’t worry about perfection – Just create!
Use a blank white background. This will make sure that your logo stands out, isn’t distracting and is easier to read without other designs underneath it that could potentially clutter the design or make it more difficult for you to focus on the design itself.
Don’t limit yourself to small space – Make it big! You can always shrink it down later but you can’t make it bigger without distorting the image beyond recognition.
Think about what kind of shapes represent your business?
- Are you a farm with green grass, tomatoes and red flowers?
- Are you a cell phone store?
- Are you an accounting firm with clean, crisp lines and shapes?
Now think about what kind of colors represent your business or product. Make sure to use colors that are visible online as well since the majority of your customers will be shopping online.
- Are you an organic fruit and vegetable farm with green grass, red tomatoes and yellow flowers?
- Are you an electronics store with lots of clean, sharp angles and shapes?
- Are you an accounting firm with light colors like silver/white/beige/off white etc.
Look at logos that have been successful in other industries and try applying those concepts to yours.
For inspiration, you can also look through books and magazines for ideas that would be appropriate. Don’t steal the idea but use it as a jumping off point for your own creativity!
Researching Your Competitors
After you have finished your initial sketches, find 5 logos from other companies in the same industry as yours.
Then find 5 logos from companies in other industries. You can use Google Image Search or Adobe Illustrator’s “Samples” feature to search for these logos.
Create a slide presentation of each logo you researched, along with the name of the company and its industry.
Do some research on each of the companies.
- What do they sell?
- Who is their target market?
- How do their logos reflect their company and industry?
Iteration
Once you have a few sketches to work with, it’s time to get your creative juices flowing. Try combining elements from different sketches or using new colors. Remember that the design isn’t set in stone. You don’t need to pick just one sketch from your 5 original design ideas.
Don’t be afraid to try new things. Many iconic logos started out with terrible first drafts, but the designers worked hard until they had something that would work well in the real world.
One of Apple’s early logo concepts for example was a picture of Isaac Newton under an apple tree. Thankfully, Steve Jobs realised it wasn’t the best idea and they found a better logo.
Use Realistic Colors
Once you have a few final sketches, it’s time to pick colors for your logo. The color isn’t set in stone yet either. Try several different color combinations and see which ones look best with your logo design:
Avoid using colors that clash with your logo design. You don’t want your text to be unreadable because it’s the same color as your logo.
Once again, Apple hit a home run with their colors. The current logo uses bright, bold colors which work well together and make the apple stand out even more than in previous versions of the logo (which were white text on a solid green background).
Once we have a few sketches we like, we can move onto exploring how they will look in different sizes and perspectives.
This is where we can see how they appear when scaled down and when zoomed in, to help ensure the design looks great both in a large format and when it’s used as part of a website navigation, for example.
Once this is done, you’re ready to get started on your vectored logo design.
If you are doing this yourself and you get stuck at this point, you can get your sketch vectorised here.
Vectorized Logo Design
You can think of vectorised artwork as being made up of many different shapes, which are all joined together to form one overall image.
The overall design is always solid however the details may change depending on what size the logo will be used at.
The process involves moving around individual objects that make up the overall vectorized logo design in order to convey different details and have it appear correctly.
The best way to do this is to zoom out on your image until you can see all of the objects that make up your picture as one whole object. By doing this you are able to focus on how they work together as one solid piece.
Get feedback
Get feedback from others before finalizing your design – this will ensure that you’re making something people want rather than just designing something based off personal preference alone!
A good logo design is timeless and reflects the company that it represents. A researched, iterative process will help you create a high quality logo than can be used for years to come!
Take this article with you when you get your next freelance or part-time project and impress your clients with your new found skills!
Conclusion
A logo is the first impression of your business on customers. It’s important that you make the right first impression with a professional, high quality logo that reflects what your business stands for. Here are some helpful tips to help you create the perfect logo out of thin air!
Once you have a few sketches to work with, it’s time to get your creative juices flowing. Try combining elements from different sketches or using new colors. Remember that the design isn’t set in stone. You don’t need to pick just one sketch from your 5 original design ideas?
Don’t be afraid to try new things – many iconic logos started out with terrible first drafts but designers worked hard until they had something that would work well in real world environments and drive sales.