This post is a response to increase interest on our Telegram ex Corp members community,
Let us start with design
Essence of design
Good design convey experience and can represent the core tenets of an organization and what that organization does. Professional logo designers will perform industry and client research, brainstorm ideas, and create sketches with their client while following principles of good logo design.
The aim of a Designer
When a designer first takes on a new logo project, he spends a lot of time trying to understand both the organization and its audience. We'll get to the process of learning what a logo needs to "say" later, but first, let's talk about what makes a great logo in the first place.
A great designer is able to capture an organization's mission and personality into a single, simple image, especially when they aren't a part of the organization themselves? Read on to find out.
Steps of making a great design
We will highlight 9 steps every PCM, Corps Members and Ex Corp members need to follow to start making great design. Let us note our focus here is on Logo design
Step 1 Start With Your Story
Step 2 Brainstorm Words That Describe Your Brand
Step 3 Sketch Ideas Based on These Words
Step 4 Test Your Top Sketches With Your Buyer Persona
Step 5 Refine Your Chosen Sketch
Step 6 Develop Your Logo's Layout on a Design Platform
Step 7 Pick Versatile Color Options
Step 8 Choose a Font
Step 9 Ensure Scalability
Making a memorable Logo design
Even though logos is often just small images, logos carry a whole lot of meaning -- and designing one comes with a whole lot of responsibility, too. Logos are usually the most recognizable representation of a company or organization. And with more information available to the average consumer today, logos also have to quickly and effectively communicate on behalf of their brand.
To tackle such a complex challenge, many brands choose to hire outside help. But for those of us who are brand new to the logo design process, working with freelancers to design a logo can be a challenge in itself.
This skills can help PCM with extra cash on campus, help CM with logo design for their CDS, and ex Corp members can be a professional in which they can be a freelancer or a chief design architect for an organisation
Principles of a great Logo design
This a principle you can start using to make your first Logo and design work. Most logo designers follow some iteration of these 5(five) principles of great logo design:
Simplicity: Is the design simple and clean enough to be flexible and easily recognizable? Is it not too busy, distracting, or confusing?
Memorability: Is it quickly recognizable? Will people only have to spend a second or two thinking about it to get it?
Timelessness: Will it still be a great logo in 10, 20, or even 50 years?
Versatility: Does it scale to different sizes without losing quality? Will it work across various media and within different contexts?
Appropriateness: Does it resonate with the desired audience?
Professional Graphic Designer believes these five principles are great for keeping designers from going too crazy when designing a new logo.
You have the tendency to be afraid or. excited about the prospect of designing stuff that looks cool and uses cool, new styles, But when you're designing a logo, you're ultimately solving for a problem. You're trying to convey something simply that gets across the core tenets of an organization and what that organization does. Keeping these five things in mind prevents you from getting carried away with the flash of what you're doing. It keeps you honest.
Casestudy of great Logo
We will only take a look at one to make this course short, there are several great iconic Logos out there you can look at, but let us talk a look at;
Evernote Casestudy
Evernote's logo is a great example of a logo that follows all five of these principles. It's an elephant, which is a reference to the well-known saying, "An elephant never forgets." The elephant's folded ear cleverly resembles the popular document icon.
Not only is the logo simple, memorable, and appropriate for its audience, its physical and digital attributes work perfectly across different media variations and usages. "There is not one application I have seen where the logo fails to fit perfectly, all the way from the 16px favicon, the browser extension icons in both colour and mono, the iOS icons, Macintosh dock icon, and so on," writes Graham Smith, a freelance designer of logos and brand identities. Plus, elephants will never go out of style.
But it took six weeks of concepting to come up with the simple elephant logo. Here are other initial ideas that were produced before the elephant was chosen.
Image Credit: Graham Smith
Once the elephant was chosen, it went through another series of iterations before the final design was chosen. The whole process took six weeks, and it's become one of the most compelling logos today.
The folks at both Evernote were able to come up with logos that keep the cornerstones of logo design top-of-mind. Now, let's delve a little more into the design process itself.
Process of making a great Logo
IF you diligently go through this course you will be able to make good quality design and especially logos like a Pro
The process might varies from designer to designer, some professional agrees to this process. Here's how them does it.
Step 1: Research the field/industry.
Before a designer like Tyler even thinks about putting pen to paper, he has to do his research. "Researching the field or industry helps designers get a sense of the environment the logo's going to live in," said Tyler. This is especially true for designers who haven't done prior work in that field or industry. "You need to know the trends and what's appropriate."
The appropriate look and feel of a real estate logo, for example, is going to be different than those of a restaurant or band logo. "You've got to see what's out there," he says. "Which conventions are worth keeping? From there, you can start thinking about how to differentiate the new logo will from the tons of pre-existing ones."
How different the new logo will be from the others depends on the context. In some cases, the logo shouldn't be radically different because you don't want to put people off. For example, in the health services industry, customers are looking for a certain level of comfort and familiarity; but in the concert industry, you might want to go with something more innovative and crazy. It varies wildly from field to field.
Step 2: Get to know the client.
Once the designer has a solid, objective understanding of the field or industry, it's time to get the best possible understand of what the client does and who their target audience is.
There are two parts of this step, says Tyler. First, there's the information you're trying to glean from them: what they do, what they think about themselves, and who they sell to. Then, there's the translation process. "If your client is a construction company but they talk a lot about how they're really family-based, the challenge is translating that ephemeral idea into something concrete. How do you capture the essence of that company?"
When this part of the process is done right, it involves a lot of back and forth, asking questions, and pushing the client to articulate and deeply explain their value proposition. For newer companies, these discussions can actually be really eye opening. "A lot of companies aren't aware of how they're different -- especially smaller companies. These logo design discussions can even help them think more about what differentiates themselves from their competitors."
Step 3: Sketch, present, and iterate on initial ideas.
"I usually try to present the client with between two and three possibilities," says Tyler. "Any more than that and you might find yourself doing revisions on all of your ideas, which sets you up with a lot more work and them up with a much higher bill."
For example, when Tyler designed the logo for Inbound Marketing Week 2015, here are the initial ideas and explorations he presented:
Step 4: Revise.
Sometimes, this step is only one little tweak. Other times, it's a series of longer revisions. Tyler says he usually specifies in the original contract how many revisions he's willing to do, which forces the client to be more thoughtful about each revision request. "Sometimes, clients ask you to start over from scratch," he says. "You can avoid this by doing your due diligence when creating the original contract."
Here is the final revision for Inbound Marketing Week's logo, along with secondary versions used on the website, lanyards, signs, and other various paraphernalia.
Step 5: Organize the final deliverable.
Once the logo's finished, Tyler will sort out with his client which file formats and other iterations they need that the logo might live on. For example a restaurant might need menus, signage, and t-shirts designed.
Designing a logo from scratch is a difficult creative process that takes a lot of research, knowledge of a business and its audience, and a deep consideration for the principles of logo design. But if you partner with the right designers and have a solid process in place, you should end up with something your company loves (and people can understand).
I hope this answers address the questions of how to design a logo, if u still find any difficulty, you can share on the life after NYSC platform https://t.me/afternysc
