Logo design is an artisanal task that starts from scratch and has unwritten rules. As a product, you have to convince the customer. As a creative design, it has to attract an audience. Hence the complexity of its creation.
The world changes and, with it, the perception that people have about images, colors, and shapes. Hence logo design is constantly updated to give powerful proposals to clients and their targets. In addition, in 2020, with the health crisis caused by COVID-19 (coronavirus), the way in which we relate has been rethought. Having a first-class digital image has become an almost fundamental requirement for companies thinking of launching a new logo, but also for companies that need to redesign the brand they already have.
HOW TO OPTIMIZE LOGO DESIGN IN 2022
1) Ask for a briefing before starting with the logo
There is nothing worse than getting off to a bad start in brand development. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
Without an elaborate briefing, we do not have the necessary information to begin the process of designing a logo, risking that the client will feel deeply disappointed when we send them the first proposals. Some questions are essential:
Commercial name? Business concept? Target customer? Preferred colors? or applications of the brand? A good tip would be to design a briefing questionnaire. That way, you won’t have to write the same questions over and over again.
If you find yourself with a client who has trouble writing, call him if necessary and write down in your notebook what is essential to start the creative process. If you also send him an email afterward with a summary of the conversation, you’ve already earned it!
2) Paper and pencil for your brand
No matter how much and how fast technology advances, every good designer worth their salt should always have a blank sheet of paper and a well-sharpened pencil at hand. “Sketching,” as the term is technically known in the sector, encourages creativity much more than if we directly use the graphics tablet on the computer. Manual drawing better connect the movement of the hand with the parts of the brain in charge of the creative process.
This work philosophy allows us to have a clear idea of what we are going to design and how the different elements will work morphologically, shortening development times.
When you open Illustrator, you already know what you are going to do!
3) Logos inspired but never copied
There are thousands of pages where a designer must regularly enter, not only to get inspired but to discover new trends in the sector, what formulas are being used to apply them, as well as their use by big brands.
We recommend that you create your own feed of favorite designers or themes. Never stop looking.
But beware of losing track of time browsing between pages of logos. To do branding, you have to take action. Don’t get paralysis by analysis. Give yourself a maximum time to look for references and prepare an inspiration mood board that will serve as the basis for facing this new project.
This does not mean, far from it, that you copy. First, for professional ethics, but above all, to avoid problems with the subsequent registration of the brand, your client would not forgive you. Many times, by analyzing the logos of a specific market, we can create a very differentiated brand but one that does not deviate from the codes of the sector.
You can follow a style, you can let yourself be carried away by an influence, but you should always bet on originality and personality.
4) A good designer masters colors
Colors have meanings, they suggest things, they convey emotions, and most importantly, they play a critical role in the difficult task of making the brand memorable.
In this aspect, it is easy to identify how the most recognizable brands generate clear associations with your corporate color that, in addition, helps you to differentiate yourself from the competition within your sector.
For example, if we talk about banking entities and the name “Banco Santander,” the association with red is almost instantaneous. However, if we do it with “BBVA,” the association would be with the color blue.
It is also important to know where the brand will be applied (web, stationery print, rollups, etc.) to choose colors that are easily reproducible in all formats.
To do this, you can choose a Pantone color, although always bearing in mind that it is not a standard code, as we already explained in an article on our blog explaining Pantone colors.
5) Black and white logos, always
By definition, a good logo should work well in black and white. If not, you have to rethink the design. In fact, the black and white version should always be included in the corporate identity manual, regardless of whether the corporate colors of the brand in question are different.
Using black and white in the creation of a brand could be an interesting strategy to unify proposals since color could distort the client’s perception and make a wrong decision.
If we make a simile with fashion, if we design in black and white, we could emphasize the cut and the pattern, which determines the base of the garment, to later enter colors, prints, etc., that will give him the final personality.
6) Mirror, mirror, am I the best logo in the kingdom?
The mirror mode of your design program is tremendously useful. In addition to inverting photos at will, it can reveal “hidden secrets” in your design.
Before submitting a logo proposal, you should literally flip it both horizontally and vertically. This way, you will be able to identify problems with kerning and tracking, as well as errors when drawing the vectors or when creating a symmetry.
7) Logos with history but not historians
It is a great success to create a story, a meaning around the brand. Nike’s, for example, is based on the depiction of warships of the Greek goddess Νίκη (Nike), who represented victory (next time Troy is on TV, look at the ships’ bow spurs). ). That a sportswear brand has the “symbol of victory” as its logo is the most successful, don’t you think?
A logo with a story to tell is great, but a logo that tells it all is a real mistake. We usually say that a mark from a veterinarian does not have to bark or have a tail. In the world of branding, less is more. Try to say the most with the least.
The ideal is to build a brand that is the basis of all company communication. It must be powerful, creative, readable, and applicable.
8) Use professional design programs
We are tired of saying it: Photoshop is not the program to design a logo. In fact, if a designer submits the mark in .psd, he means that you have surely chosen wrong.
There are a good number of programs on the market designed to work with vectors more efficiently than Photoshop or similar software. Illustrator, CorelDraw, DesignEvo, Canva, or Affinity Designe. There are many options when designing but always bear in mind that the result is a vector.
9) Let your logo grow
If we talk about logos, yes, size matters. A logo has to be scalable, for which you must generate the vector file. Otherwise, the logo would pixelate as its surface is scaled, as happens with photographs.
We also have to take into account the minimum size of the application to, for example, silk-screen the brand on a pen, use it as a favicon on a website, etc.
The most effective way to make that logo design look perfect is to print it in different sizes on the same sheet of paper, to assess the minimum size to which the full brand can be applied, and include this information in the brand manual.
10) Typography, what will be mine
The world of typography would require a separate article (or book!). To summarize a lot, your client will ask you to design a custom one for him, and you will usually tell him that it is a bad idea in terms of time and costs.
There are many fonts that you can choose by the type of business and brand image that your client wants to give, so if you don’t know where to choose, Google can solve your life. By putting “best free fonts” in the search engine, you will surely find dozens of articles that will give you interesting examples. Of course, do not forget the “free” if you want to optimize costs.
