A logo is more than coming up with something fanciful. It has to be unique, pass across the right message, and catch the attention of the right audience. Your logo speaks about your business first before you get to speak. Your logo can do much more than you think it can. It can attract or repel a client.
Every designer is creative in their own way with awesome ideas exclusive to their minds, but no matter the level of creativity, there are some basic rules designers should abide by so as to get a perfect logo like Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola.
As a designer, you might want to go all out on the logo design, or as a client you want your designer to put everything you have in mind onto your design, but that is wrong. One of the first rules of logo designing is staying simple. Simple hardly goes wrong.
Seeing your design on your screen with a lot of colors can make you feel like you have created the best design. A very interesting test to show if you’ve done a good job is the “black and white test”. Try printing your logo design in black and white. If the logo appears unclear and unreadable, then sorry to break it to you, you need to go back to drawing that design because you don’t seem to be there yet.
Colors are good, they make everything bright, beautiful, sparkly, and all, but too many colors would not help you. If your logo design looks too busy, then you are getting it all wrong. Learn to use the right and simple colors. One way to know if you are going overboard with colors is to shrink the image on your computer. If it looks blurry, then you need to reduce the colors.
Putting images in the middle of the text or vice versa makes the logo look confusing. You have to make sure your logo is shareable that is why you need to separate the images from the text. If however, you are creating an emblem (a form of a logo), then you have to make sure the logo is readable and not choked-up.
Sometimes, we might tend to fall in love with a particular font and want to use it always because we feel it looks great on screen. Not every font looks good in every scenario, so you have to know the right font to use at the right time. Try not to use more than two different fonts if you must. To know if you selected the right font, look at it from a distance and see how it looks like from afar. If it looks good to you, then you are good to go.
Also, your logo needs to be legible no matter the size. If at small sizes they are not detailed, then you should revise.
You can also ask your friends’ opinions on the font.
Do you want to be a unique designer? Then do something unique and please do not use clip art. You might end up doing the same thing as someone else because there is nothing special about it, everyone can do a thing or two using clip art.
Most times, people do not read the extra words you put in the logo, and most times the extra words just make the logo look too busy anyway. Avoid unnecessary words. Wordiness and the marketing copy do not quite go as well as you might think so let the words be short and straightforward. Not everyone is interested in the other stories you might want to put on the logo, and it’s a logo remember?
This is an important part of any creative design process. You won’t find the right design immediately, so sketch away. Also, do not erase as you don’t know if you will come back for it. Sketch and have fun!!!
Logos are meant for brands, and brands are created to attract just the right audiences. You have to strive to create a logo that will appeal to the right audience. You can achieve this by researching.
At the end of the day, what matters the most is the uniqueness of your design. You might not end up following every rule in the book but always remember the basic rules.
If you have any rules not mentioned in this article, we would love to hear from you.
