Why do factors make a logo design unique? Every business owner asks themselves that when implementing a branding plan.
Although the solution to the query is not quite straightforward, it is also possible. A set of fundamental design ideas, some piqued curiosity, and a desire to learn are all you need.
This blog will cover the many logo design principles as well as the steps required to create a fantastic logo. We’ve organized everything into a categorized and simple-to-follow guide.
Conduct Market Research and Consider the Company’s Value Proposition
It’s crucial to lay the foundation for your brand’s identity before designing a logo for your business.
Create a mission, vision, and value statement, and then brainstorm your brand concept and story. Next, create an outline for your brand identity and a list of your company’s essential principles.
Make a mood board or brain map using phrases related to your brand to begin imagining what a logo might resemble. Next, list potential visualizations, such as icon concepts, shapes, and letterforms.
Look into the people that make up your target market; find out who they are, what they do, and what their aspirations and inspirations are. To learn more about your users, you can also develop user personas.
It’s essential to visualize the brand’s value proposition when designing a logo. Finding the brand’s distinctive quality and all of its visual marketing interactions entails doing this.
The basis for all of this labor is the logo, which also gives your logo its distinctiveness and specialty. Find your approach to represent your business and avoid emulating other logos or going along with the latest fad.
Being distinctive gives your brand endurance and ageless appeal, one of its main benefits. The logo will always be pertinent to your brand and the market you are trying to reach.
A market analysis of competing brands in your niche and sector was one of the research methods used in the preceding point.
Find the areas where other firms’ pain points, messaging, and visualization fall short. Discover the right connection with your brand by tapping into those areas. To identify the distinctive element of your brand, create another train of thought.
Let’s now examine nine logo design principles that can assist you in developing a magnificent, applicable, and memorable logo that will elevate your business in terms of branding.
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Simplicity is Key
Designing a logo should be kept simple. A confusing and difficult-to-understand logo diminishes your brand value.
Keeping a logo simple is harder than it seems. If you make it too plain, it will be easily forgotten. On the other hand, your logo loses its appeal when you overdo the design.
So how can you tell when something is right? You experience it when you see it. You might need help to accomplish this and will need the assistance of others for feedback. Please give them a few choices and then note their responses.
The requirement for your logo to be used on several visual channels is another, more pragmatic justification for keeping it simple.
When the logo is shown on a small screen or printed material, it will only be clear if there is more detail in the design. It could be challenging to read over colors and background print if the font is complicated.
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Pertinent and Unforgettable
Everyone who interacts with your brand’s touchpoints sees your logo in the center of all visual assets. However, your brand won’t appear to be significant or powerful if no one can tell how your logo corresponds with your brand name or narrative. Therefore, remember that you should consider your target market and branding approach to avoid alienating the former.
Knowing the channel of communication between your brand and the target market can help you make your logo relevant.
Your choice of colors, typefaces, and shapes demonstrate your logo design’s relevance to your business.
- Which fonts fit your brand’s aesthetic?
- Do the colors reflect the mood you want to project?
- Does the overall shape convey an important message about your business?
When determining the relevancy of your logo, you must ask yourself these questions.
A memorable logo aids in building brand value and brand loyalty. Your brand sticks in the mind of your target market when they can distinguish your logo from the millions of others they see every day. Make sure it’s a good memory, though.
One of the most recognizable logos in history is that of Coca-Cola. Everyone in the globe, from the lowest social strata to the highest, can recognize the Coca-Cola logo. The McDonald’s Golden Arches and the three stripes of Adidas are both examples of this.
Use classic fonts and non-trendy colors to create a logo that people will remember. Avoid having your logo appear like a plain word in a great font by using visual tricks. The uniqueness element, as we discussed earlier, is another important component of memorability.
Use eye-catching images that are pertinent to your brand name and are written in a timeless font.
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Select Appropriate Colors
Here’s a tip straight from the graphic designers themselves: The first draughts of logos created for clients are always created in black and white. Brand colors are added at the very last step. Why? Because choosing colors at the beginning can distract you and make it difficult for you to design a balanced and distinctive brand. Try and implement the same principle for your logo design.
Add colors once you have a logo that encompasses the fundamental ideas. Think about the psychological, cultural, and emotional implications of each color when choosing it for your brand and logo. Every hue elicits different cultural interpretations, emotional reactions, and good and negative implications.
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Select the right typeface
Finding the perfect font for your brand and logo can take some time, so it is advised to take your time with the process. Test the versatility of several looks that fit the personality of your brand. Some typefaces seem better when the weight is stronger or if the spacing between the letters is wider.
Think about how the message and emotional aspects of your brand are impacted by font psychology. Your logo will stand out and appear more trustworthy and strong if the typeface is well-chosen. Consider more than just the words in your business name and consider the emotional impact of the logo.
Gap updated its logo in 2010 and unveiled a new, more contemporary design with a blue square. Because of how poorly the new logo was received, they moved back to their recognizable, extended serif mark.
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Add Structure and Shapes Cautiously
Shapes are the foundation of design concepts for a valid reason. Simple shapes and structures like circles can be creatively changed into a wide variety of other objects. To create a logo or complete a wordmark, use shapes. If you allow simple shapes to shine, they can imply much more.
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Decide on the ideal icon
In addition to geometry, icons can be used as a visual component in logos. A visual depiction of something is what is meant by the term “icon.”
Although an icon theoretically can be a shape or a collection of shapes, the distinction between an icon and a shape in terms of logos is that an icon can be used in place of the business name. It’s not an icon if it doesn’t make sense on its own.
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Utilize Negative or Air Space
Negative space is one of the best, if not the most superior, design strategies for creating a logo that checks all the right boxes.
Of course, it must be done properly and make sense of the tale, just like any other visual production. Negative space is used by many of the most recognizable logos in the world, including FedEx, NBC, and Adobe, to mention a few.
Choose two solid shapes, icons, or a letter to make a negative space logo. To create the illusion of negative space inside the larger element, use the smaller image.
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Three-Dimensional (3D) Logo Designs
The 3D trend has been expanding across all facets of design, although conventional logos have always been a thing. A 3D logo is not that difficult to create and has additional benefits over a flat one.
From a basic angular design in the symbol to a full-scale depth effect on every word, there are many levels of 3D logos.
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Versatility and scalability
One of the five fundamental concepts of logo design is scalability. This idea applies to the employment of a logo on a variety of brand traits, including embroidered uniform shirts and large-scale billboards.
A logo must also consider a few additional things to be scalable. For instance, it must be straightforward and use pleasing colors and fonts. On a broad scale, a thin typeface might appear alright, but when shrunk to its tiniest size, it becomes nearly impossible to read.
A color palette with too many similar hues will mix when it is tiny and may even appear cluttered when it is huge. Please print out your logo in several sizes, from one inch to perhaps even a foot in width, to determine whether it is scalable.
Wrap-Up – Create the Ideal Logo For Your Brand
The nine elements discussed above all combine to create brands with more enduring logos.
If everything seems overwhelming and difficult, don’t worry. Instead of attempting to traverse the complex world of graphic design alone, you can always seek assistance from a freelance graphic designer or logo experts to create a logo for your firm. Professional logo designers in USA are already aware of how a logo’s elements might improve a company’s narrative.
