Logo Design is the face of any brand. A brand must have an impressive logo design that would not only reflect the history of the brand but become a complete identity. A successful logo design is the one that automatically comes to mind when you think of a brand. Like the yellow, the arched ‘M’ of McDonald’s, or the curvy font of the Coca Cola or the purple color you associate with Cadbury. Every logo designer needs to polish up his or her skills when it comes to logo designing. Keeping this in mind, here 5 steps that can help you improve your logo designing skills.
- Conduct an Extensive Research
A good logo does not only have to look good, but it is meant to serve a more important purpose of defining a brand and the story behind it. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that a business logo must be designed in such a way that it reflects the main concept behind the brand. It is only possible by conducting a thorough and extensive research. If you are designing a log for a client, then you need to focus your research on the business the client owns and what it is about. The logo you design should represent your client’s brand expressly.
The best way to go ahead with this is to hold a detailed interview with the client and ask anything and everything about their business, vision, and what purpose would their brand or service serves. Ask accurate and better questions, such as who is the targeted audience and their mission statement. You can even ask your client why they need a new logo to know more about the story behind the logo design.
If you take a look at all the famous logo designs like Nike, Coca Cola, and the new Guinness Logo that represents the heritage of the company, all express the brand’s story to their audience.
- Prioritize Mobile-Friendly Design
When creating a business logo design, you need to prioritize the important aspects first. In the current scenario, the most popular medium of accessing anything online is a mobile phone. So, when you are designing a business logo, first and foremost, you should keep the mobile interface in mind. If you have been in sync with the current news and happenings in the logo designing world, you must be familiar with the change in the logos of many well-known brands. These logos have been abridged and flattened. From Facebook, Instagram, and Microsoft to eBay, Amazon, and many more have been following this similar trend of simplicity and minimalistic logo designs.
The reason why these tech-giants have gone for the minimalistic designs is because of the increasing number of the targeted audience using their mobile phones to access instead of desktop. When the logo is not designed to meet the mobile interface, the designer lose control over the resolution when viewed on mobile. At times, it appears as nothing more than a fuzzy spot as the pixels go haywire.
In short, if you want to keep up with futuristic trend of logo designing, then keeping it simple is the only way to approach it.
- Be Bold & Take Risk with Fonts
It doesn’t matter if you are a die-hard fan or not, but what comes to your mind when you think about Harry Potter as a logo designer? Of course, the logo with its distinctive Hocus Pocus™ font. Similarly, if you want to make your logo design stand out and make an impression that people with associate with the brand you are working for, then you must be bold and take some risks. Play with the fonts.
New fonts come up every day, and you can take your pick and use it in a way that it becomes the identity of your brand. It is not even necessary for you to spend a lot on the purchase of the fonts. With tools like Adobe Illustrator, you can experiment with a variety of Typekit fonts. Other services also allow you to play with fonts before you make a purchase. So, go ahead and take the risk – it may totally be worth it.
- Take Inspiration from the Maestros
Learn from the best. It is as simple as that. Although, it is quite tempting to go through the various logo design galleries for some inspiration, still it is not always a good choice. Usually these galleries are populated by the designs by amateurs and students and though some design may click really well with you, there is no guarantee that there may be any success story behind any of these logos.
Instead, learn from the maestros. Take inspiration from the very best in the field. When you study the big and popular brands, you will have a clear idea what the public demand is. A good way to deduce the popularity and success of any brand is its logo’s presence in the packaging, posters, commercials, and supermarkets. Whether it is the McDonald’s logo, Coca-Cola logo l, Mercedes Benz logo or Penguin books logo, you can definitely find a story and inspiration behind it.
- Familiarize Yourself with the Psychology of Colors
Human eye is always in search of aesthetics, something that feels pleasant to the eye. Colors play an essential role in human psychology, it evokes emotions, reactions and feelings. This psychology could be beneficial in establishing contents and designs in the field of logo designing. The use of colors in logo design has a magnetic effect on human eyes that entices them and enables them to form association with certain feelings and memories. The use of color is the major cause of brand association with certain colors such as Cadbury with purple, Mc Donald’s with yellow, and so on. Seasoned logo designers use colors to make the brands stand out from their competitors and rivals, to increase the traffic towards them.
However, the use of any color might sometimes make a logo look hideous; therefore, every product has its own resemblance with certain colors depending on their motto, their product, service, and many other factors. Each color has its own qualities; the blue represents calmness, whereas it is used in expressing the emanation of the emotion sadness. Basically, it is proven that the appropriate use of colors in design and representation of brands is essential for the attraction of customers and ad vertisement of appealing products. So, make effective use of the psychology of colors by understanding it essentially.