Tips for New Logo Designers

[Alex*]

hi everyone i am starting to go into the logo / graphic design business but i need some tips and help so i was wondering whether any people could give me tips especially toon because i don't know how he posts his logo ideas very soon after the person has asked for one lol so can anyone help me and point me in the right direction to success

[Cwilk]

Logos can be very difficult because they actually brand a business. One thing to keep in mind that if a client thinks they like a logo you've done, recommend that they keep a copy of it in their pocket for a week and see if they still feel the same about it before deciding that 'it's the one.'

Also, in designing a logo, there's always the rules of not presenting more than 3 mock-ups.....my feelings are you should throw that rule out the window. Give the client about 7 to 10 logo designs.... all with different feels. Sometimes they don't know what they really want and you give yourself a better chance — as a new designer — if you give yourself a chance with the client by giving more options to them. They'll like you more for it.

Don't design in Photoshop.....use Illustrator for initial logo designs. Use different fonts with each sample and let the client play 'paper dolls'...for example...matching this font with this illustration or graphic. This gives the client the feeling that they are involved in choosing their logo more.

Have a rate scale of what to charge....type only logo = $100.00, type with symbol graphic = $150.00 and custom illustration type logo = $200.00 and up (you're a young designer, so don't ask for too much because you want to get your foot in the door)

I know I've got more information for you, but I've gotta run.... I'll try to be on more tomorrow.

[zumojuice]

Right. There is no real hard and fast technique, method or process in any area of design.Effectively Uni courses and others will teach what is a general process (research -concept-developement-final piece) and its up to each designer to work out how they best fit each in. Research can include a mood board, development can include experiements in a full on way - its all based on time.

Here is a general process to logo design (or indeed anything pretty much) - Once you get started, you develop shortcuts and what you do early one informs your later work. This is how toon can run out logos ona quick turn around. Hes gone through the process before so he has an idea what works, and what does not, but also where his strengths and weaknesses lie.

1 Research
Typically, the logo is the most visible element of a brand. Its the one that connects your consumer and it says alot about the company. If you want to see this, take a few logos and work out what you think they say to you. More often than not, these will be the same ideas they want to put with the brand.

Start by looking at your brief, question it, get your head around what its asking. Don't be afraid to question it and ask about it. If you don't understand what your client wants, how can you hope to provide it (unless by simple luck)? Take the luck out of it and work out what the company wants to say about its self.

Once you have this, it may be handy to produce a mood board.

2 _ Mood Board
There are numerous camps of thought on these. My uni tutors obsessed on them and how we were all doing them incorrectly despite thats how they showed us to do them. However, the mood board is a personal interpretion of the brief.

Ok lets say our company is this board 'GDF' - whats does the board want to say about its self? maybe its that its fun, its about design talk, its balanced, you can get your voice heard. Whatever it is, can be made into a mood board by collecting images that represent that to you. If the word was futuristic, I'd be collecting what said that to be. Its a tool to guide your own thoughts visually. Nothing more.

3 - Concepts
Now whether you have a mood board or not, you should have an idea of the brand, its target audience and whats it wants to say. So now you can scribble ideas. These can be as stupid or as original as you can do. No one but you see's thing. Work in pen or pencil, its up to you, but try not to erase anything. It does not need to be perfect at this stage, only ideas.

4 - Development
Now you can take your ideas and development them on you computer in illy. Some logo projects, you'll be able to jump to here and concept your thoughts in illy as well, but don't rush it. This stage is for drawing your elements up and playing around with placement and sizes. Very few logos are just slapped on text, they typeset the letters, working on the spacing, the arrangement. Sometimes, letters are altered in the font to make it fit better. Try to come up with 10 different logos here, all different. Sometimes it helps to restrict yourself on fonts per project but thats something else.

These 10 would then be shown to the client, so they can pikc and choose what they like and dislike. You can then take that away and build maybe 4 or 5 variations of the one/composite they like to present again.

Final

You can then tweek and present you final to client. Remember these rules or guidelines however.

a - your logo should have the same degree of readability at postage stamp size to that on a billboard. Your logo should therefore avoid thin fonts, or text of similar colours.

b - your logo should have guidelines to its use - this can be gone into more detail else where.

c - your logo should be able to look readable if its in greyscale at small sizes. Try photocopying it - if you can't read it, redesign it.

Thats about all i can think of right now. practice on current brands maybe?

[SugarSpunSister]

Thats a super-useful post Zumo, thankyou.

[Laura Lynne]

Don't mean to rub anyone up the wrong the way but the above post by mr juice is very helpful but does this need to be as detailed for everyone. Not trying to big anyone up here but I was looking at this logo post today...

http://www.graphic-design-forum.com/...ead.php?t=1480

and in 1 hour and 20 minutes mr toon had designed 3 eaqually different but very good logo designs. Now how much planning/modelling/font try outs etc can 1 person do in 1h 20 mins. Can some people just see the idea and get straight on with designing ideas. The only reason I ask is no client is necesarily going to love the one design you've spent 4 hours researching/planning/implementing etc. and after you've gone through the process you've got 1. Wouldn't 3-5 easqually different styles serve a client purpose better to see which direction they are wanting to take. Please take this in the best way possible it's just something that occured on me when I saw the timescale that went into the 3 designs for the comp which I think are all quite good

ps. kelly's and zumojuices's designs are also quite imopressive.

[zumojuice]

Arrr laura, your exactly right. I do hint (though obviously not enough) that this is a starting process, one that gets you into the mind set of the design work. Now Toon is a pro, he knows what sort of things work, has his creative cap glued to his head and has a fairly sound set of what goes. My post was designed to help those get there.

Fact is - the process is adapted per designer. For example, once you learn fonts and styles, you can instantly know what sort of type (be in serif, sans serif, slab, humanist, handwritten etc or more detailed) that the job will work best with.

I totally agree that the process does not need to be this detailed. But its a starting point to understand the thought processes that go into good logo design.

Thanks by the way.

[Toon]

Originally Posted by zumojuice

has his creative cap glued to his head

That's why my hair cut's so dodgy!

[zumojuice]

Originally Posted by Toon

That's why my hair cut's so dodgy!

its not a mullet is it?

[Keely Hope]

It's quite sad that in the day and age where time is everything people don't have the time to follow all the points the Zumojuice has pointed out. In an ideal world you should be able to follow that planning list, trouble is now someone could do it in half the time for half the price and you could loose out. We've lost a little quality for time and money nowadays.

[Cwilk]

I don't think that we don't have time or have lost quality just because logos are created much faster. Some people have been in the field a lot longer, so they can think faster since there is no learning curve. We don't have to think about the fact that a thin font doesn't work, we just know it doesn't. I design on a whim and can crank out at least 5 logos in an hour that are all very quality. Now if a client asks about custom illustration, that's a different story, but most logos don't use intricate illustration anymore.

I also know that most of us know what a font's name is by just looking at it because we've worked with fonts so much. Knowing this type of information is very valuable and can make designing a logo go much faster. Once again, no learning curve.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's second nature. If you know it, you don't need to keep thinking about it each time.