Logo Design Tips?

Logos are actually the visual summary of the product or business you are doing. Business owners and non experienced or overly enthusiastic artists can go astray in their efforts to design perfect logo. There are too many examples of logo designs that look uninspiring, irrelevant .overtly abstract or seem to be nothing more than art. Many of the logos are designed without keeping in mind its future usage, application or even cost impact upon a business. So how you should  create a logo that makes business sense? Consider following  few  guidelines -

Remember that your logo is a very important business tool. Your logo design concept should begin with a commitment to portray your business image as professional and competent. Remember your  logo design is not a piece of artwork! Avoid giving a very generic look to your logo keeping in mind that you might change your business tomorrow and use the same logo. Your logo should define your company and saving few dollars on your logo is not a wise thing. Always try to hire a brand manager so at least he can give your logo a very good concept .Once concept stage is done you can then hire any good designer to complete your work. . A logo designer should take into account how and where the logo will be used now and in future. A logo design has a cost impact on your business from the day that it is introduced. There is lot more to cover as homework then to designing a logo than simply hiring an online artist or online art shop to assemble different shapes and colors – it is a  very big business decision.

Logo using vector graphics or pixels software.

The advantage of doing your logo in vector graphics is that you can stretch a vector image to any size which you may wish for. Vector graphics can be resized and maintain design integrity. There is no loss in clarity, sharpness or definition of a vector graphic and the file also remains  constant. A common software  for creating vector graphics is Adobe Illustrator. Photoshop, which works in pixels, is better software for working with photos and texture style areas. You can always create your original image in any software which you like but have it redone in a vector graphics format before you print or reproduce your logo. After all, a logo is all about sharp image.

Avoid complicated designs. A logo that is too tricky hinders rapid visual identification. The viewer will get distracted and start reading the logo and will start to think how this logo is related to this business. It will basically  require to “study" the image in order to mentally process that image and relate it  to a given company.  Another reason why to avoid complicated logo designs is that they do not reduce well. Don't forget when this same logo is printed on a big billboard when your company grows may look awesome but this same logo when it is reduced in size and printed on a business card will look as a blob of ink. Always keep your logo simple and straight forward.

Always limit your logo to a certain number of colors I would suggest it should be a maximum of three colors. Ideally try using one or two colors but never more than three. There are two reasons for this color restriction. First one is that  your printing costs for printing stationary items like business cards, letterhead, envelops, labels, etc. will  increase for every additional color that you require. Your logo design which you think is a  cheap logo design could  save you big bucks and  give your business a winning edge. Reason number two, your visual impact or even identification could be diminished or completely lost in some mediums. Consider a logo that has overlaid images of different colors – looks nice, right? What about when you fax your proposal or letter and your logo is now in a black and white realm? Does the black and white (grayscale) version still provide distinction? An example of lost-in-translation logo is a peacock used to promote color and via fax it ends up looking like a turkey. A final note on color selection is to carefully consider cultural and marketplace standards. For example, a medical company red may be lesser choice due to the mental correlation of red to blood whereas green might infer safety or a positive status.

Consistency and control in font usage. Do not use over two font styles, as it may be distracting and confusing. Try to use a standard font such as Times New Roman, Arial, etc. as it makes commercial reproduction of your image easier. Any font style should be sans serif and typically non-script to improve clarity in small format reproduction. An exception is a logo/name where the logo is the script font such as the trade name of a popular soft drink in a uniquely shaped bottle.

Check logo Trademark and Registration Rights.

When you have designed your new logo there are sleek chances that it might be similar to any other logo in the market and might be violating any copyright issues. While a new logo runs a low statistical chance of violating any logo trademark or registration rights of any existing logo .It is always best to look around if you can find a similar logo before you plan to publish it is not a bad idea to make some effort to confirm this before you publish your new logo. And after you have settled on a final logo design you should take the effort to register or trademark your own logo. If you need an example of why then consider the yellow pages “Walking Fingers" logo. The design was never trademarked, registered and has no copyrights protection – it could have been, but wasn’t – a huge loss of value for the original creators