Now that you’ve kickstarted the design process, it’s time to start designing your logo. The actual design process can be a little overwhelming but luckily we have some tips that should help you along the way. These tips should be considered before, during, and after the brand design process.
Tips to Consider in Your Logo Design Process:
Consider Having an Image/Shape in Your Logo
Keep in mind you’re building a logo not just to appease yourself or your company. Ultimately, your logo should be designed with the tastes and personalities of your customers and target audience. You may have several different groups of stakeholders that need to respond to your brand. For example, some people see the words in a logo before the image and others only remember the image. Your goal is to try to appeal to many audiences in whatever way they may remember you the best. Some ideas to consider could be:
A large company name accompanied by a small logo in the lettering
A picture/image as the background and the company name in the front
Stacking it with a company name, a tagline, and an image
Having the image/shape as the main part of your logo and your company name within it
Imagine Your Logo in Every Scenario Possible
When creating a logo, people often forget just how frequently that logo will be used. That’s where the problem of scaling generally comes in. When you have a one-design logo, it’s hard to utilize it in different layouts and in different media. For instance, your wide horizontal logo design may be gorgeous, but will that ever fit in that little circle for your social profiles? Will it look appropriate on branded apparel, on a building sign, on a mug? Your logos need to be scalable for email headers, social profiles, square formats, rectangular formats, and even different marketing materials such as pens, cups, or bags. Some different ways to change up your logo could be:
A stacked version (usually a square scale)
A wide and horizontal version
A minimized version (maybe initials and your logo image)
A version with a tagline and a version without
Consider Your Color Options Carefully
This goes back to the previous blog where we discussed choosing your brand colors before logo design. Colors play a huge role in how an audience perceives your brand. Did you know that certain colors can make your audience feel specific emotions? Color psychology is a real thing that can influence the way your audience feels. Consider what emotions you want your audience to feel and then incorporate the perspective colors into your logo. Even if your brand colors are black and white, you can still use accent colors to help bring some boldness and variety to it! Some color options to consider are:
Main color: A bold color set to grab attention, pick this first.
Complementary color: Contrasts and compliments the bold color
Accent color: Helps to pair the bold and complementary color
Light color: Used for background and supporting elements
Dark color: Used for paragraph text and background
Use Different Shapes as Enhancements
There are so many different shapes to use and you would be surprised what some of these can do to enhance your logo. Think about a triangle: you may not necessarily be able to use the whole triangle in your logo, but maybe the tip could make a cool element. Lines, squares, dots, and more could add a little something extra to your logo. If you can incorporate geometric shapes to be a bigger part of your logo, do it! If not, don’t be scared to try and use them gently around your logo design.
Prioritize Empty Space
Empty space is an element of design that is used in a lot of different things such as web design and even graphic design. Empty space is an important element to consider especially when it comes to your logo design. This goes back to making your logo scalable. Your logo may be easy to read on your phone, but if you blow it up on a giant poster, will it still be easy to read? Empty space can help ease that by making your design have a “clean” look. Empty space will also allow easier comprehension whether it’s small or large and will especially come in handy for t-shirt printing!
Designing a logo that’s appropriate for your business can be a frustrating part of kickstarting a new brand, but it’s exciting to unveil when it’s done! Whether you are starting from scratch or just simply revamping your old logo, these tips are great to consider during your design process. If you need some professional help designing your logo, 30|90 Marketing is here to help! Reach out to us to see how we can help build your logo today.