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The Making and (Un)Making of Logos:Secrets of a Logo Designer I

May 26, 2009 By Clare Ultimo

Part 1 Why your logo is important:
Don’t let me try to convince you that the creation of your logo is important, but here are some simple reasons why you might want to create something well made and distinctive to represent your company:
1. The logo is your visual shorthand:
You need one fast way to tell your audience/customers that your company is for real. Logos are a great way, actually, to do this…if they look professional, unique, handsome, trustworthy…your company sends out those messages to the world. Hopefully, your company IS professional, unique and trustworthy, but that part is your problem.
2. The logo is the seed of all things “visually corporate”:
Creating a logo begins to create a visual style for your company, a style you will use on everything that says who you are. Is it financial-looking, serious and conservative, playful and wild, minimalist, modern, “period” influenced etc. etc. Your logo is the start of all things visually corporate. A smart designer helps you figure out how to apply the visual concepts represented in your logo to your site, your marketing kit, your letterhead, signage…everything a business needs to do business! No, that stuff won’t look exactly like your logo, but at the logo stage, you plant the seeds of your “identity”, which will matter in the long run.
3. The logo must be able to be useful – everywhere.
People begin to know who you are because they keep seeing your logo all over the place: repetition, repetition, repetition. And the trick is see it the SAME way over a countless variety of media…That’s why from the beginning, you should be using someone who knows what they’re doing. Here’s a story to illustrate what NOT to do:
Corporate client A had the nephew of the president create a logo on his laptop after school one day. (Hey, it was free and they were “entertainment” corporate after all!) Same company feels like they need additional identity, marketing and sales materials so they hire us to do it. (Nephew is not big on deadlines or reading too much). But the nephew’s logo has lots of tiny things on it, uses a zillion colors and a photograph in it…yes, a complex halftone in the middle. We have to use the logo at a third of the size it was created for the work the client needs us to do, but once it is made that small, you can no longer see anything in it but a lot of boxy shapes. We have to redraw it entirely, clean up the photograph, etc. so that the logo can be seen clearly at ANY size. Client has to pay extra money to do it and the whole thing requires more time than planned. He said “I never realised, etc”. THIS COULD BE YOU!!! Lesson: Don’t have your nephew make your logo, even if they say they “know Photoshop” and you get it for free.

Filed Under: Design and Commerce

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