Logos means, ‘I say.’

Logos means, ‘I say.’

Here are logos new and old, shy and bold.

Your logo should ideally have a timeless quality, to build your name and 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 can that? They’ll only be bad copies.

In composing your logo, we’d need to reflect 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 than most people think. Non-designers react to typefaces at a subconscious level too.Then there are colours, shapes, emotional responses these bring up, also how culture, age, education levels and income change the impact of your logo.

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

But also:

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

It can happen, sure. But usually a promising idea is plucked from the ether as a little embryo rather than a fully-fledged thing of beauty. Then you grow it, form it, consult back and forth 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 make an initial good impression. Which makes people open to meeting you and hearing more about what you do, which leads to a long and fruitful working relationship, and eventually they love you. (One hopes… unless you really mess up.) 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 to take very seriously and I always 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.

Here’s the first logo in the world, for a company that ruled the waves back in the day: the Dutch East India Company.

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

Logo vectorised by Golradir – Based on Image:Voc logo.gif., Public Domain

Here are logos new and old, shy and bold.

Logos should have a timeless quality, something that can build your name and 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 only be bad copies.

In composing your logo, we’d need to reflect 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 react to typefaces at a subconscious level too.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.

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

But also:

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

It can happen, sure. But usually a promising idea is plucked from the ether as a little embryo rather than a fully-fledged thing of beauty. Then you grow it, form it, consult back and forth 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 make an initial good impression. Which makes people open to meeting you and hearing more about what you do, which leads to a long and fruitful working relationship, and eventually they love you. (One hopes… unless you really mess up.) 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 to take very seriously and I always 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.

Here’s the first logo in the world, for a company that ruled the waves back in the day: the Dutch East India Company.

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

Logo vectorised by Golradir – Based on Image:Voc logo.gif., Public Domain

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