Design Diary: Logos and Branding

October 2011
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Although I’ve never taken official classes in design, I have done quite a lot of research on aesthetics in design (part of the job for being creative executive), and here are some of my findings on logo research.

Logos. What are they? I define them simply as graphic identities or representations. It is the look and feel of a company. The best logos are usually…

So if I were designing a logo, where should I start?

The consensus for the design process of a logo is to start by getting a design brief from the person/ firm requesting the logo. Some helpful questions to ask:

text-based?

black and white?

representative colours?

modern or traditional?

flat or 3D?

motto and ideals?

target demographic?

do’s and don’ts

With recent trends in logo designs, clean lines are more effective. So, vectorization of logos is crucial, especially since it also makes the logo infinitely scalable. Also to keep in mind are aspect ratios (golden ratio, rule of thirds) that draw attention to important features of the logo. Shape and placement on various medium should also be considered in addition to different colour schemes which can contribute to the feel of a company, suggesting easy customization (for instance Google’s occasional logo revamping). And perhaps the most important of all, great fonts.

The link provided for the font list is to an external blog by Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, one of my favourite design blogs. She comments that “the choice of a unique and beautiful typeface…manages to fulfill three basic tasks. Support the corporate identity, enrich the visual appearance and is compatible with the overall design.” There is a reason why companies pay hundreds of dollars for the right to use a certain font or make their own — a text-based logo is clean, powerful, affective, identifiable and memorable in itself.