Article - Logo Design Do's and Dont's

The logo message:
While it’s always nice for a logo to actually ‘mean’ something (i.e. – this color represents growth, this dot represents our product) sometimes clients wish to write long stories with their logo’s metaphors. The most memorable logos are also the most simple. Any memorable complex logos are often highly rendered illustrative logos. Dozens of swirls, dots and colors – all professing to ‘mean’ something will not mean anything to the first time viewer.

Group approval
When working on projects involving a large group of people who are responsible for selecting, approving and modifying the logo, finalization is the most difficult. Keep in mind that it is usually the most verbal and opinionated who invariably makes their preferences heard – not the committee member who has the keenest sense of design. If groups selections have to be utilized make sure that all members are present during the discussions to avoid sending design instructions through in a “piece-by-piece” manner. This cuts down on the efficiency of the project and often incurs extra costs.

Your Opinion Counts
As designers, we are trained in many aspects of design, graphics and technology. Micro-tweaks will not improve the design if it is not to your liking from the start. As professional designers our staff understand the first two rules of design: 'don't get married to any artwork' and 'it's never personal'. Our designers can take direction, criticism and frank opinions.

Value for money
When you view your new logo and your reaction is instant. “There it is! It’s perfect! Just what I want”. The next reaction might be: “Now, why don’t we try moving the text down, and change the colours?” Often the tendency to tweak and pull the elements around is brought on by client’s desire to get their ‘money’s worth’, and exhausting what they perceive is the time paid for in the design charges. Remember, you’re not paying for someone to put X number of hours into your design. You’re looking for the designer to utilize their skill, talents and knowledge of software into creating the icon that will represent your company for years.

Logo trends
Logo trends come and go every couple of years. For example the bevel and emboss 3D look was being used and reused by anyone who had photoshop in the mid 90’s. How to tell of a logo trend is just that? Simple. Is everybody doing it? Then it's a trend. Once the trend passes you'll be stuck with tens of thousands of business items plastered with a logo that no longer “look right”.

Copying logos
As strange as it might seem, we sometimes get asked to 'copy' other people's logos. The bottom line is that it defeats the purpose of developing a great logo in the first place. While it's very helpful for our designers to view types of logos that you 'like' in order to assess the direction that your project will take, it's best to keep the influence of other people's brands to a minimum.

ClipArt
One walks a dangerous line when utilizing standard clip art icons as part of your Corporate identity. Our advise is to stay away from clip art entirely. As with the point above, clip art can be used as a reference of the kind of graphics that appeal to yourself.