After the article on Color Theory, we are in the necessity to discuss logo. Many companies are not aware of the meaning of their logo. When founding their company, managing directors come up with the idea that they need a word and figurative mark to be recognized in advertising and as a company. As a result, they usually design a logo themselves or commission a friend or relative to do it. If you are the managing director of a small or medium-sized electrical workshop, you will usually get something like painted sockets, light bulbs, neon tubes, cables, lightning, antennas or cable rollers, which are surrounded in some way with your name lettering. This is written in a font that exists in every word processor.
Such logos are made by amateurs at a low price and with even less effort. The commonly used programs are often included in the software of ordinary office suites and the competence to design such a logo is replaced by the joy and self-praise of the work. But if every owner of an electrical workshop designs his logo in this way, Comic Sans for his name lettering and clipart for a light bulb, a neon tube or a cable roller, it loses its uniqueness very quickly. On top of that, the purpose of the logo is missed: such a logo does not create an identity for your company and does not set it apart from the competition. Undoubtedly, other companies in your industry will have designed their logo in the same way, which will soon exhaust the supply of fonts and clipart that Office brings, not only due to a lack of creativity. You might as well have done without a logo.
This article of this series shows you how to design logos that come very close to the quality of big brands. I will also briefly introduce the software you will need – but only when it is used. Before that, the computer remains switched off and a pencil, felt-tip pen and paper are used!
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How Much Does a Logo Cost?
Today, agencies rarely develop just one logo. In most cases, they also develop design and usage instructions for websites, print products and so-called motion graphics, computer-generated logos and image elements. As a corporate design guideline, these regulations are the result of long research on the identity of a company and discussions between artists in an agency.
The price of a logo usually depends on the market value of the brand to be represented by that logo. A new logo for the Coca-Cola Company as a global corporation would undoubtedly be priceless today. But a small or medium-sized company gets a good logo from a professional agency at a reasonable price. Online marketplaces for logo design, on which tenders for individually created logos can be placed, often let the client determine his budget. Of course, this only works as long as the price is not set too low and is considered how much work such a project contains.
In addition to these marketplaces for individual logo designs, there are also off-the-shelf logos on the Internet. These are templates with different pictograms. When purchasing such a logo, you oblige the designer to send you a customized version of this logo. He may then not resell the logo. Even though this is a cheap way to get a brand, experience shows that an off-the-shelf logo is replaced much more often than a logo designed especially for you.
The reason is that a logo does not create an identity by itself. It is the communication that is conveyed with this logo that gives the brand its own life. If a designer designs a logo just for you, they will usually explain to you after creation what that logo communicates so that you understand the logo. Once you understand the logo, you use it almost by yourself to the right extent for communication – the brand takes on its own life through your actions. Customers who use your services are confronted with this logo. Depending on which identity you want to convey to your company with this logo, your customers will also associate this logo with this identity you have created. If quality awareness is expressed in the choice of logo, then viewers are also aware of the quality of your services through this logo.
For this reason, each logo justifies its price.
What Not to Do Around a Logo Designing?
If you want to design a good logo, you better do it without some things.
- Do not use graphics programs such as GIMP, Paint, or Photoshop. You can find out which graphics programs you use when the time comes.
- Do not use Office programs such as OpenOffice Draw or PowerPoint.
- Do not use clip art or small-scale graphics. A logo must be easy to recognize.
- Do not copy or be inspired! The logo should be free of the rights of third parties, otherwise, there may be serious difficulties for you! Don’t think no one would know. Your website is on the Internet; anyone who enters your Internet address will find out. Furthermore, there are search engines that can search for similar images compared to an original! So, keep your hands off other people’s logos and be more creative!
Before you even start designing logos, you should memorize these rules so that you don’t get the wrong idea.
What Needs to Take Place Before Designing
In which market should the brand be placed? A logo does not always have to express the industry, but it should express the advantages of a classic company or a product in this area. For example, a logo for food should also communicate freshness, taste, tradition or energy.
In a session of brainstorming, you let all the ideas flow together again and write down key points and words that come to mind about the brand. You can also incorporate the ideas of the surveyed customers. We use pen and paper and leave the computer switched off.
You should perhaps not just write the ideas on many pieces of paper, but perhaps also record them in a mind map. That is, they write down a term, draw a circle around that term, and write down a second term in the context of the first term. Then draw a line between the first and second terms. You can continue this with any ramifications. But be careful not to leave the subject area.
Mark terms that inspired you to come up with an idea. Whenever you have a detailed idea, write it down immediately! Do not wait and do not rely on your memory! Write down your ideas directly!
A triangle is perceived as pointed or hard. It can be used to easily display roofs, mountains or the like. For example, 3 to 4 triangles are sufficient to represent a small group of mountains. With circles, you can symbolize something self-contained. Squares or rectangles can be used to represent something neutral. A square or rectangle always appears closed, compact or stable. Here one can perhaps take companies from the construction industry as an example. Often a square with a lettering of the company is taken. With lines, you have different possibilities. You can underline something, frame it slightly or separate elements from each other.
