Informative Guidelines to Designing the Perfect Logo

Designing logos is not just about illustrating what you want or when you want for your business, it requires some guidelines and a lot of critical thinking to be able to come up with “the one.” Aside from just designing a unique and eye-catching symbol to represent your company, there are also a lot of other factors that you should consider before you can start making your logo. To name a few, a logo should be relevant to the company that it represents, it should be understandable, and it should also stand the test of time.

On this page, we will be discussing some very informative and important guidelines that every graphic designer should consider, and you may even refer to our steps to making your own logo design. We will be also be mentioning a few examples to support each guideline that we will be writing down to make it even easier for you to understand. Now, are you ready to learn the basic guidelines to designing a perfect logo for your business? Then go ahead and start scrolling down.

The Simplicity of the Design

The logos shown above are examples of simple and minimalistic logo designs.

A logo doesn’t necessarily to be too fancy to be noticeable by the public; in fact, most people would easily notice those designs that are simple and uncomplicated. Why is that? An overly creative logo design usually confuses the onlooker where to focus on the design, which may result in not getting the attention needed or may be easily forgettable.

On the other hand, when a logo is simple and easily understandable, even though it is a flat logo design as shown on the samples above, a person can right away see the overall of the design and can process it within their mind for better chances of remembering it. Once again, a logo design doesn’t have to be all fancy and extravagant, a straightforward and understandable logo that speaks about your company is what’s important.

Uniqueness of the Design

The four logos above are some of the many unique and creative logo designs from famous businesses.

Whoever said that a simple logo cannot be unique at the same time? That is totally false! While there may be chances that a simple logo design may end up looking somewhat similar to another one, but if one would only be creative enough and think outside the box, they would be able to find a way to work around that problem. If you take a look at widely recognized business logo designs from famous companies, you would see that though they are simple-looking, they also carry the personality of the company and the nature of their business.

The Use of Color

Two examples of logo designs that still work well even without the presence of color.

When going through the initial stage of designing the logo for your business, you would need to consider on what colors to apply to the logo. You don’t just randomly add colors according to what you want or what you think may look good. The color scheme of a logo design has to have a purpose or an underlying reason behind its use. There are multiple factors contributing to the choice of colors in a logo, and one of which is the motif or theme of the company.

Some companies have a distinct color scheme for all of their advertising mediums, product packaging, and promotional tools that people can right away associate these set of colors to that company. So if your business can come up with its own set of colors to help represent your brand, then use that same color scheme on your logo design to make it uniform.

Another thing to consider when using colors is the use of color psychology. Each color has its own meaning and even represents a specific emotion, which is why there are people and business who choose their colors carefully to be able to deliver the emotion they want toward their workers and their prospects. When the general public sees a logo that makes use of color psychology, they may already get the idea behind what the company is about what it wants to convey to its clients.

Lastly, the reliance of colors and whether or not it may still be understandable with the lack of it. You may use various colors on your design that may help in making it look attractive, but when printed in black-and-white or grayscale, the logo may end up unattractive or incomprehensible, which defeats the purpose of the logo. Therefore, when making a logo design, you must really make sure that it can still stand without the presence of color.

The Use of Typography

The logos shown above are examples of logo designs that make effective use of its typography.

The typography or typeface on a logo may be considered an optional feature, especially if you choose to go with the symbol or icon type of logo design. A logo doesn’t have to show the name of the company if the design itself can stand alone and can be used by itself to represent the company, but if you must add some sort of text on to the logo design, then try to make sure to use the appropriate typeface.

This means that the font used should also work as it is to give prospects an idea on the nature of the business. For example, wedding planning businesses are expected to use a script typeface on their logo if ever they decide on incorporating it on their design. Another example is with law firms, wherein the most appropriate typeface to use are either the serif ones or those without it. But regardless of the type of business you are managing, it is best to stay away from Comic Sans since this font is informal and can never be taken seriously by people. For additional information regarding logos, you may want to read about the five elements of logo designs.

Its Versatility Across Different Formats

Does your logo look good when printed or large or small materials? How about on digital media? A logo may look good on the computer screen but not on paper, or it may look good on paper but not when printed on packaging labels. When designing a logo, make sure that it is versatile enough and can be appreciated when seen on different mediums. The reason behind this is that when a logo design is versatile, people can easily recognize it on products without having to look for the company’s name written on the packaging label.

To be able to achieve this, the best option is to use the vector format, since this is the easiest to edit and can produce the best quality images even after resizing. Unlike raster images that make use of pixel blocks that become blurry when stretched out, vectors use codes and pathways that easily adapt when rescaled. Another advantage with vectors is that one image is composed of multiple elements that you can individualize when editing. This means that it allows you to edit only specific elements of the design without having to alter the others. You may want to check out our list of some websites for creating free logo designs.

Giving It a Test Run

Have your logo design displayed in the public and check if it is able to gather the needed recognition.

Once you have made your logo, it doesn’t always mean that it’s the final design and may likely need changes depending on the reaction from other people. When you are making a logo design, you should already have alternative designs ready or you should keep your chances open that your design may not always be approved by the majority.

What you should do when you have a logo designed already is to show it to your coworkers and ask for their feedback whether they want some features to be changed or removed, or they want to add some more to the design. Once this design has already been agreed by the body, it still doesn’t end there, you still need to have the logo displayed in public and see to it if it will gain the recognition that it deserves.

Patience

This is in relation to the previous guideline, wherein when you have already come up with a design, you will then need to have it displayed for the public to see and check whether or not it gets noticed. During this phase, you will really need to have patience because the outcome will depend on external factors that are beyond your control. If things don’t go well with the logo design that you have already come up, then you may need to go back to the drawing phase and come up with a new and better logo design for your company.

Indeed, designing a company logo will take a lot of time and will really require patience from you. If you want an effective logo design that will easily get recognized and will stand the test of time, then you should never rush in to making it and you should always ask for assistance and opinion from other people.

Getting a Professional Graphic Artist

Ask help from professional graphic artists, they know better about logo designs.

When all else fails or just to be able to make the most for your company’s design, get a professional graphic artist. You can have ask the graphic artist do the logo in behalf of you and simply provide them with the details for the design or the nature behind your business. If you think that hiring a graphic artist to make a professional logo may be too costly for your budget, you can have them as your adviser, do the logo yourself, and just ask for their feedback.

So what did you think of the guidelines that we have mentioned above? Were you able to learn a thing or two? We sincerely hope you did since we have gone through multiple sources to see if they would say the same thing regarding what and what not to do when designing logos. Indeed, designing logos is never easy, especially with the competing companies whose logos are more well-known, you would really need to take your logo design up a notch to be able to stand out a little bit more and gain the recognition that you require. But if you only follow the guidelines that we shared to you, then you really don’t have to worry that much anymore, you can even refer to our list of logo design strategies of 2017 for additional ideas. So, if you’re all set, you can now start designing your own logo!