TIME TO GET MORE TECHNICAL

LOGO DESIGN – STAGE 2

If the logo is to include some typographic elements, look into different typeface which could relate well to the company. Don’t get bogged down with the same old system fonts… look for new ones, and don’t worry if they don’t have the sorts of serifs or ligatures you are looking for – get something close and play around with the finer details later, in fact – this makes for a much more interesting and unique logo, so we would recommend it!

You should be developing any icons or motifs alongside the type in parallel – not separately – this will help tighten up the style and interaction between the two. For any of this Illustration and typography work, you should be working in a vector based package like Adobe Illustrator. Feel free to work in Adobe Photoshop – all be it on your own head!! These packages use bitmap – so you will not be able to resize it larger at a later date. For example if you later decided to embark on signage design and needed to blow the logo up from 10 cm to 2 metres you’ll end up with a logo that looks like Lego!! Plus your computer will run slower and will take longer, costing you time!!!

ONE COLOUR

Design in one colour like 100% black to start with – this way you wont get bogged down with a range colour ideas – at the moment you really should only be concentrating on the core forms with the shape, composition and flow of the logo design. Remember that whilst some logos may look great with shadows and gradients – it is important to note that these may not translate properly when scaled up or added to a branded pen for example (will look like a black blob!).

Add colour to show how it COULD be applied at a later stage, but also to show how it would break down to one colour (black) too. When adding the colour, try and make all your initial design concepts using a consistent colour palette so that the client don’t get swayed by the “pretty pink square that sits next to it”, for example!