A logo design checklist allows you to prioritize and confirm that your brand design communicates exactly what you propose . Far too many businesses fail to require an edge enough thought into their logos, with consistently bad results.
Brand identity are some belongings you need to take seriously because it is the inspiration of a business’ relationship with its audience . Once this demographic gets to know a brand during a particular way, it’s hard to rework this impression within the marketplace. That’s why planning out what elements your client wants in their brand identity suite will set you up for fulfillment as your logo design shapes how the brand is viewed by the overall public .
Consider All the sorts of Logos
The best place to start out out as you conceive your client’s brand identity is that the various kinds of logos at your disposal. These are the directions during which you'll take your logo design concept:
Wordmarks – All-text logos that feature eye-catching and stylized typefaces; ideal for brand fresh companies to help build brand identity and recognition
Emblems – Logos that feature text inside the overall design (icon or badge); ideal for established brands, as these tend to be more visually complex
Brandmarks – Logos that feature no text, but only symbols or icons; good for brands that become more popular over time
Lettermarks – Initials-only logos that don’t use words, but, rather, abbreviations; well-suited for brands with long names that don’t transition well to a simple icon
Combination marks – More ambitious logos that include both symbols or icons and text; great for brands that need instant name recognition, but also visuals for a stronger impact
Create a Black-and-White Version of Your Logo
Let’s start with a curveball right off the bat: creative professionals and designers should definitely attend great lengths to include a monochrome version of their logo. this might grab you all of sudden since the costs of printing in color have come down considerably and black-and-white seems so old-fashioned.
Here’s why you shouldn’t write off a black-and-white version of your new logo:
They’re ideal for uses like textiles, 3D printing, embroidery, receipts, and laser engravings, which believe special machines that don’t have a color feature
You can fax and or copy a black-and-white logo without worrying about the color fading
In collaborations with other brands (like corporate sponsorships), logos could be presented in monochrome to prevent anyone within the partnership from standing out
The bottom line is that you’ll create how , much better impression on behalf of your client if you'll furnish them with a black-and-white version of the new design.
Give Consideration to Shape
Logos are naturally all about shapes. Whether it’s just one , specific shape that’s front and center, like Target’s circle motif, or shapes form the thought of the broader logo design, like McDonald’s “M” being formed by two arches, shape is that the building block of your new logo.
Shapes are so vital to your client’s brand identity that, albeit you’re using lettermarks or wordmarks, your fonts will still be heavily influenced by forms.
Develop the Concept
When we discuss brand identity, we mean what separates your client’s brand from the rest of the world within the crowded marketplace. The new logo must tell people what your brand’s values and personality are in clear-cut ways. Your logo must reflect your target audience's preferences, which you will have gleaned from market research that you simply simply performed at the very start of the tactic .
To help with the event of your client’s brand, ask yourself:
Is it serious or humorous?
Is it for a high-end or cheaper product or service?
It is meant to be trendy or classic?
Think About Your Color Palette
Getting the right color or combination of colors is crucial to new logo design. Your client’s audience is so visual that colors can communicate strong feelings to them almost better than mere words can. Again, consider famous logos like:
Google’s wordmark
NBC’s peacock
Firefox’s fox
Pepsi’s globe
All of these are purely supported vivid and lively colors. Google’s and NBC’s logos are multi-colored while Firefox’s features stark contrast between orange and blue. Pepsi’s logo features the classic tricolor of red, white, and blue.
This leads me to segue into subsequent point: understand the color wheel and color theory, so you'll pair and blend different colors for the simplest effects possible.
Be as Unique as you'll
Reject the boredom and complacency of the normal in your brand identity suite. Dare to be unique and push the design envelope. If you began to make your client’s new logo as unique as possible, you’ll already give your client the sting within the crowded marketplace. Logos that are unique are memorable and thus help greatly with marketing and branding.
To come up with a singular design, think outside the box and choose symbolic and abstract interpretations instead of literal representations. an ideal example is Apple. Though it’s a tech company, its logo has nothing to undertake to to with computers within the least .
Integrate Stunning Typography
A new logo are often strictly typography-based or a mix of fonts and symbols. If you're doing decide to add a typeface into its design, inform use a typeface that’s legible, readable, adapts well to different contexts, and showcases uniqueness.
Experiment with numerous fonts, which includes the load , spacing and height. Really allow yourself the freedom to determine which font goes best along side your vision and concept.
Some timeless typography rules to recollect of are:
Make Your Brand Identity Relevant
There’s something to be said about using abstract or non-literal icons for your new logo. Nonetheless, there’s a fine balancing act between being unique and selecting a word or icon that’s so off-the-mark that your audience features a tough time understanding your logo choice.
Solve this potential problem by aiming for relevance. Relevant logos are:
Intentional
Clear about your message
Targeted
For instance, don’t just choose any color for your new logo. Pick one that has great meaning for your client’s brand and ties into its backstory.
Use logic instead of Personal Taste
One of the foremost important temptations to hit graphic designers in their work is to insert their own taste into their clients' projects. If you've a favorite font or color, as an example , you'll be wanting to use it during a project when that’s not the only decision for the brand identity of the brand .
A good rule of thumb is to dispassionately evaluate specific design considerations. Use your designer hat and not your heart to exercise judgment on logo work.
Craft a Memorable Logo Design
Just because you’ve made your new logo unique, simple, or relevant doesn’t necessarily make it memorable. However, you'd wish to also aim for memorability because that tends to remain within the minds of the overall public easily.
Remember that your design will likely be seen by your client’s audience for just a few of seconds or less—whether that’s on social media, during a print ad, an ad , or anywhere else. you'd wish to form this precious time count.
Aim for Timelessness
Creating a successful brand identity is all about balance. you would like to strive for a replacement logo concept that's contemporary or modern, but avoids being just a fad. In other words, you'd like an aesthetic that’s not “in” for just the moment—and then will look outdated during a couple of years’ time.
Get around this problem by thinking of recent , which we’ll define as epitomizing all the essential elements of today without getting too trapped within the tiny details. By not obsessing over the smaller details, you'll aim for the larger picture and capture the broader concepts which can carry your new logo into the long run with ease.
Preserve a Balanced Composition
Balance often means incorporating proportional and symmetrical qualities into your design. the foremost visually pleasing logos tend to believe these qualities. They use equal weight on all sides of their horizontal and vertical planes. As a result, their symbols are easy on the eyes, which ends up in greater accessibility.
That’s to not say that asymmetry could also be a deal-breaker in new logo design, but it’s generally harder to successfully incorporate it into a logo.
Vectorize Your New Logo
Vectorize could also be a technical term that refers to the logo designer using vector based softwares making your logo adaptable for a whole host of varied uses. Essentially, a vector-based graphic means you'll easily scale it to any size that you simply simply want without it losing its quality.
Keep the New Logo as Simple as Possible
Minimalism is that the principle of less is more. Whenever you'll , deal with fewer elements in your aesthetic instead of making it one cluttered mess. The goal of the brand is to talk your client’s visual and brand identity, which may be overshadowed with a logo that’s too busy and boasts too many elements.
Let’s believe variety of the world’s most famous logos and therefore the way their respective brand identities are represented:
Disney
Apple
Nike
Mercedes
Are you noticing a specific pattern here? They’re all enormously simple!
Disney showcases the famous castle with the “Disney” wordmark underneath it. Apple is that the long-lasting apple outline with a bite taken out of it, Nike has its memorable swoosh insignia, Twitter features the silhouette of a bird, and Mercedes has its telltale three-point star.
Utilize Negative Space or Whitespace Well
Negative space is that the space in and around the focus of your logo design. as an example , if your icon could also be a wordmark, the white space would be the tracking between the letters. Memorable emblem design is marked by the use of space. Closely related to minimalism, negative space in your new logo means your creation won’t be exceptionally busy or cluttered.
Negative space also gives your logo much-needed borders or framing, directing the eyes of the overall public to the more standout features of your design. As a result, the audience can appreciate the precise design elements within your emblem all the upper .
Respect Design Hierarchy
Design hierarchy relates to how the audience of your client’s brand takes within the visual information of your new logo, supported numerous factors. Some elements during a logo should command their attention more urgently which should be told about the logo designers; these elements are naturally above within the hierarchy and thus more important.
For example, if one element in your logo is bigger than another, the larger one will garner attention first, so your job because the creative professional is to form a choice if that larger elements is suitably greater in importance than the other elements around it. this is often applicable to other factors, too, like colors, typography and reading patterns.
You Have Everything you'd wish to start out
Now that you’ve checked off of those items from your list, you’re ready for the logo designer to provide you with your emblem that would present that new logo to your client as a neighborhood of their business’ brand identity. Creating a replacement visual identity for any brand is both an exciting task and great responsibility.
While it's like there are numerous to-dos to ascertain off on your new logo checklist, it’ll all be worthwhile once your finished design forms a core a neighborhood of your client’s brand identity.