Designing a logo is just as complex a task as building a website. Not only do you need to understand what goes into making a great logo, but you need the right tools to create it.
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The modern logo has to work harder than ever before. In the past, a company logo was perhaps intended simply for a shop sign and printed in local newspaper adverts. Today’s logos have to work with a growing plethora of smart devices with varying screen sizes and resolutions, displaying responsive websites.
Often logos end up suffering within responsive website design. Many have not been designed with responsive frameworks and variable sizes in mind, and are just resized to fit whatever available space has been provided for them or not.
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As logo and brand designers, our work starts long before the first concept sketches, and finishes long after the last perfectly placed pixel. Our work requires so much more than just creative ideas and technical skills — it compels us to be a marketer, strategist, psychologist, salesperson, showman and project manager at the same time. It’s difficult, but it’s also exciting and challenging!
The goal of my article is to help you rethink your (logo) design workflow. Some of these tips are mine, others are borrowed from world-famous designers. All these tips and tricks are tested and proven, and are tailored to improve your workflow for (re)branding projects.
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Galileo knew it. Every ancient culture that left traces of knowledge in their art knew it. Basic shapes compose the fundamental geometry of the universe. We can take credit for a lot of things, but human beings did not invent geometric shapes. We discovered them through the observation of nature. Understanding basic shapes and their functions have taught us to mark time and space in a variety of ways, inspiring mathematics, technology, language and ever-evolving civilization.
A handful of simple shapes have been used throughout time in the art of all cultures: the circle, intersecting lines, the triangle, the square and the spiral. Cultural anthropologist Angeles Arrien researched and documented commonalities in cultural art forms over several decades and found consistent geometric shapes embedded in all art. She called them the “five universal shapes.”
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There are only a handful of fundamental patterns that create all of the natural diversity around us. Nature’s patterns perform three basic tasks that get the work of the universe done by moving, storing and connecting energy.
Nature communicates within an interconnected and intricate system of checks and balances to weave patterns and processes together for perfect and purposeful outcomes. Nature is the ultimate economist when it comes to creating so much from so little. Everything gets used in this supremely elegant system. Nothing is wasted. And all of it happens in the moment. We covered Symbols, Metaphors And The Power Of Intuition in the first post of the series last week; this week let’s take a closer look into nature’s patterns.
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No designer creates wow work 100% of the time. There’s no question that creating good design takes significant exertion, but generating the wow factor in your work can also be fairly effortless. Many designers follow their intuition during the creative process and incorporate universal symbols and metaphors simply because it “feels right.” Intuition — accessible to all people and most especially useful to those engaged in creative pursuits — guides designers towards solutions that align with a universal knowing.
Adding a universal quality to a logo provides the broadest communicative reach, what almost all identities are intended to accomplish. The intellectual exercise of connecting the dots of “thinking” is not irrelevant in design, of course — particularly when it comes to branding — but by combining the intuitive immediacy of symbols and metaphors with strategic thinking, you integrate essential information that helps your logo stand out and be remembered.
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According to Brandweek, “brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed. This article shows you how, and why, to add “app”-like icons to your sites for several mobile and desktop browser displays, to clearly and elegantly identify your site with an icon that stands out from the crowd.
When I was a lad growing up in rural America, we only got four channels on television, all local affiliates of the four national networks (yes, four; you’re forgetting PBS, which I only watched when they did dinosaur specials). The ABC and CBS stations came in fairly clear if you adjusted the “rabbit ears” antennae just right, and wrapped tinfoil on ’em.
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What do you think about the HTML5 logo revealed by the W3C? This article wants to be a space for the web design community to offer comments on the new HTML5 logo, its stated purpose, and the further developments on the term “HTML5”.
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A website is never done. Everyone has worked on a project that changed so much after it launched that they no longer wanted it in their portfolio. One way to help those who take over your projects is to produce a style guide.
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This is the most exciting “Ask the Expert” interview that we’ve had so far on Design Informer. A few months back, I had the opportunity to speak with Milton Glaser thanks to one of his assistants, Scarlett Rigby. [Links checked January/17/2017]
I was able to ask Milton Glaser some questions about a few different topics such as art, design, education and more. If you’re not familiar with Milton Glaser, he is a world renowned graphic designer who is probably most famous for creating the I Love New York logo.
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