Okay, I felt like adding another post today. This’ll be a bit of a long one. One of my favorite projects is Branding Identity. The mark that is the signature for the company. When people see the Swoosh they think Nike. You see an apple with a bite taken out you think The Beatles, just kidding, you think Apple, Inc. and it’s wonderful technology (a plug with no compensation, but Stevie if you want you can always send me a nice little Mac Air). The point is that a logo is a simple clean encompassing mark that tells a story to the public.
As a graphic designer, you are as my degree states, a Visual Communicator. We tell a story with images. Whether it’s a billboard that tells you about St. Joseph’s Alive campaign (see previous post), or a funny commercial that is about hot dogs:
We tell stories. The logo is a story that might go into many applications, so it has to be flexible. My first rule, DO NOT USE EYE CANDY. That distracts from the story. Very few companies are willing to deal with the real cost of breaking this rule. Every color you add is going to create a problem if cost is a problem. Gradients can be a pain in most uses. This is the reason why most professional logos contain 1-2 Solid Colors.
Also, don’t run to the computer to start this. Talk to the client. What is it they want to say about their company? Do they want to deal with the cost/problems of dealing with different colors. Do they want to risk not always hitting their color match (some colors don’t do so well with CMYK so you will be always requesting 5-8 color prints.)
Here are some more questions:
Describe the business in one sentence.
What is the objective of the company/project/product?
What results are you looking for? What is your major demographic?
What action do you want your customers or potential customers to take?
Is this going to establish your company’s image, reposition it or leave it unchanged (more so for specialized project logos).
What specific features and benefits do you want addressed in this project?
What does the research say?
Describe briefly the look and feel you want this project to have (i.e., contemporary and friendly or conservative and business). Describe briefly the look and feel you want to avoid.
Are there any products, buildings, printed materials, web sites, etc. that we should see before we begin work on this project? Name your three major competitors. Have you done any formal market research? What have you found? What kind of materials are they using?
What are you using now? Will this project replace or be in addition to your current visual image?
Please describe your target audience. Who is typical, male/female, income range, median age, try to give details. Have you done any market research? What have you found?
What image does your audience now have of your company? Is that image accurate?
What do consider your company’s strengths?
What do you consider your company’s weaknesses?
How should this project contribute to your company’s near-term and long term goals?
You can add your own, and you will. Alright, now I bet you are thinking that it’s okay to fire up the old computer. But you are wrong. Now is the time to pull out the old sketchbook. And spend hours doing some sketches. Think of all those questions and what you want your icon to say. I fill up reams of ideas, here are some of the things I did for
3V07 Advertising:
3v07 Brand | Concept Sketches 
3v07 Brand | Concepts 
3v07 Brand | Concepts 
3v07 Brand | Concepts 
3v07 Brand | Concepts – Final 
3v07 Brand | Business Cards
we are not looking for That One, yet we are exploring the terrain. On that last one I tried to think of a cool shape that when placed near a cylinder mirror you’d see the 3v07. I knew it wouldn’t fly but it could spark a great idea.
I have pages and pages like this, but I hope you get an idea. Now you can sift thru the ideas and find 3 strong concepts. Present said concepts, clean it up and you have the logo.
BTW NEVER USE PHOTOSHOP FOR LOGOS!! Always use a vector program (i.e. Illustrator) to create VECTOR images. Never Use Raster Elements. Your client will curse it down the road, especially when using the logo on a media that won’t play nice, like a bill board.
to see some of my other logos check out my logopond.
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