Inspirations: John Williams on Logo Design 1
John Williams has successfully convinced me on the guidelines to create a well-designed logo. He states, “Your logo reaches everyone who has any contact with you and is the first impression someone will have of your company. Because of its potential impact, your logo must offer a favorable impression of your business. Present yourself clearly and dynamically, and you’ll look like a pro, even if your is in your home’s basement.”
I find his words to be true. First impressions are extremely vital.
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5 Cardinal Rules of Logo Design
(from Entrepreneur.com)
Guidelines to create the best logo for your company.
1. Your logo should reflect your company in a unique and honest way.
What’s the overriding trait you want people to remember about your business? If it’s quick delivery, consider objects that connote speed, like wings or a clock. Consider an abstract symbol to convey a progressive approach–abstracts are a great choice for high-tech companies. Or maybe you simply want an object that represents the product or service you’re selling. Be clever, if you can, but not at the expense of being clear.
2. Avoid too much detail. [This one caught my interest]
Simple logos are recognized faster than complex ones. Strong lines and letters show up better than thin ones, and clean, simple logos reduce and enlarge much better than complicated ones.
But although your logo should be simple, it shouldn’t be simplistic. Good logos feature something unexpected or unique without being overdrawn. Look at the pros: McDonald’s, Nike, Prudential. Notice how their logos are simple yet compelling. Anyone who’s traveled by a McDonald’s with a hungry 4-year-old knows the power of a clean logo symbol.
3. Your logo should work well in black and white (one-color printing). [This, too]
If it doesn’t look good in black and white, it won’t look good it any color. Also keep in mind that printing costs for four-color logos are often greater than that for one- or two-color jobs).
4. Make sure your logo’s scalable.
It should be aesthetically pleasing in both small and large sizes, in a variety of mediums. A good rule of thumb is the “business card/billboard rule”: Your logo should look good on both.
5. Your logo should be artistically balanced.
The best way to explain this is that your logo should seem “balanced” to the eye–no one part should overpower the rest. Just as a painting would look odd if all the color and details were segregated in one corner, so do asymmetric logos. Color, line density and shape all affect a logo’s balance.
By understanding all those rules, generate a few concepts and based on those concepts, come up with several designs. Then decide and work on one final concept and design.
Last but not least (learned from this site), file types and formats should be prepared as follows:
- 1 x High res Tif for professional printing
- 1 x JPG in gray scale for trademark registration purposes
- 3 x JPG in RGB in 3 sizes (Normal, medium and small) for home/office printing or web use
- 1 x transparent PSD for professional web design use
- 1 x vector based .eps file (This is this fully editable master file) for professional printing and design work
He concluded that the best way to ensure logo longevity, in addition to the rules I’ve listed above, is to make sure you love your logo. Don’t ever settle for something half-baked. And the most important rule is to never, ever re-draw or alter your logo! If you want to animate it for your website, fine. But don’t change its essence. Reduce and enlarge it proportionally.
It opened my eyes the widest as compared to what I had learned in my academic years. This is probably a whole week’s lesson learned in a single article.