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Logos means ‘I say.’ 

Your logo represents you out there.
That’s all.

Some of these logos are older, some are new. Logos should however have a timeless quality, something that can build your reputation for decades. Like Nike’s swoosh. It’s a great lesson in simplicity and it says so much. However, since we can’t all be Nike, we might as well be us, since who else is going to do that? They’ll be bad copies at best.

In composing your logo, we would need to consider what you/your company stands for, your personality, what your industry is, and who your ideal clients are.

Typefaces have the power to convey far more than is at first apparent. Non-designers know this too. Everyone reacts to typefaces at a subconscious level. 

Then there are colours, shapes, emotional responses to these to consider, and what culture, age, education levels and income have to do with the impact of your logo.

LOGOS DON’T NORMALLY JUST LEAP TO MIND FROM THIN AIR.

It can happen, sure. But more often a promising idea is plucked from the ether as a little embryo or a fully-fledged thing of beauty. Then you grow it, form and subtract it down to something stunning and useful. The last thing is very important. Now it can go to work, telling clients about the brand at a glance. To see it is to love you. One hopes… and there it is, being a silent salesperson and ‘personality’ for the otherwise faceless firm it represents. So with all that riding on a logo, it’s something I take very seriously and I expect a lot of back-and-forths.

At the end of the day, the best advice I ever read was that unless you can draw the logo in the sand with your big toe, it’s not simple enough. That may be extreme, but you get a general idea. Simplicity is difficult.

Still, it’s useful to picture your logo embroidered on a pocket; emblazoned on the side of a building; sandblasted on a wineglass; and the acid test: reduced to a favicon. For mine, I resorted to using the S alone because it’s simple but distinctive enough to work as a device.

Devices can be something as complex as characters or shapes designed to go with logos, or the text can be distinctive enough to stand alone as a logo.

Every logo should be available as a vector design.

This means they can be stretched and reduced to any size, remaining pin-sharp all the while. Obviously, this can be very useful when you need to have banners or car signage done.

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