Kokoro Graphix

Basic Principles Effective Logo Design

Last week at Cobb Toastmasters, I gave a speech about effective logo design. I think it’s important that everyone, not just designers, should be aware of these principles to optimize their brand and to recognize bad logo design.

The speech is in its original form.

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Fellow Toastmasters and guests,

I am here today to talk about the principles of logo design. As many of you know, I am a freelance graphic designer. I took graphic design classes in high school for about three years and I fell in love with it. I was one of the very few who took the elective seriously and even after I graduated, my teacher continued to use my work as examples in her class. I won’t claim that I’m any sort of logo design guru—in fact, a month ago, one of my logo designs was rejected and replaced. That was a turning point for me, though. I learned so much from that one mistake because the rejection really got to me: what did I do wrong? How could I have done better?

I learned that it just isn’t enough to make a logo LOOK good. A logo is like a signature or a mark: it has to be able to stand alone. It has to be easy to recognize even without the words, even without the colors. This is a challenge even to the best designers. Logos are one of the hardest things to design, but it’s important to know WHAT makes a logo work. By the end of this speech, you will be able to understand what a logo should convey, what makes a good logo, and what makes a bad logo.

Source.

First, it is important to understand WHAT is considered in the making of a logo. A logo needs to capture a company’s personality and a company’s culture. It encapsulates a company’s brand. Take Google, for instance. Google is known as a fun, flexible environment to work at and they convey that through their color scheme. What is your company’s atmosphere like? What is your company mission statement? What is the history behind your company? A designer must translate all of that into a single icon.

A logo, above all, must facilitate immediate recognition.

But how do we achieve this?

We have to simplify, simplify, simplify! Often, client who aren’t aware of good logo design will complain, “Oh, that’s so simple. I could do that. Why should I have to pay for this?”

The Nike emblem is deemed by designers as one of the most perfect logo designs—why? It’s simple. The “swoosh” captures movement, almost like a ball bouncing or the tip of a bat swinging or a basketball player making that sharp turn. It captures all of that imagery into one sign. In fact, it so perfectly captures the company brand that you can recognize it without the text.

It’s a mark that anyone can recognize. Isn’t that worth the investment?

Here’s a tidbit too: this logo only cost $35 when Nike commissioned it.

Designers also have to be wary of color and fonts as well. Going back to the Google logo, you’ll notice that the main aspect that makes it so recognizable is the color scheme. Other than that, the Google logo is rather mediocre. Red, yellow, and blue. Takes us back to grade school. Google isn’t difficult. Google is simple. Google is intuitive. The reason why it is so successful and popular is because the site is a plain white page with a logo and a search bar. That’s it and yet it’s so powerful. McDonald’s color scheme is red and yellow. Ketchup and mustard? Golden friends in a red basket. Home Depot: orange and white. Construction!

However, you have to be careful with color combination. I had a client who insisted that his logo be red and green. Red and green is a combo you have to be very careful about since it’s so closely tied to Christmas. Blue and yellow are fun, kiddish colors. Think Bob the Builder. Tweak those colors to gold or goldenrod and deep navy and you have the reputable Toastmasters logo. Colors can give us cues how to regard a company.

There are also logos that do not have a pictogram: logos can be distinct in their font. Sears, Sony, Kellogg’s, and Ford, for example. This is called a logotype. It’s a unique set and arrangement of typeface. This is a bit harder to master because unless you design a font specifically for your company, it’s unlikely you can find a totally unique font. Of course, there are ways around this: you can arrange the font in unique ways. There’s a whole branch dedicated to this, called typography. You can complement the font with another font. You can crop or edit the font to make it stand out. The rules are endless.

And rules can be broken if it works for your logo.

A lot of people try to do this on their own, but it takes more expertise to break the rules than to follow them. In the logo design community, we take note of different logo trends. Now, personally, following trends as a designer doesn’t make sense to me because you’re trying to make a unique logo. Why would you want to mimick another one? The Nike swoosh spawned all different kinds of swooshes. The only swoosh you remember is Nike’s.

Okay, so part of a logo’s success is also due to how it is being marketed. After all, do you think people recognized the Golden Arches when McDonald’s first came out? The usage and consistency of the logo is crucial, but its design should facilitate that.

A logo has to be scalable, recognizable even when tiny. It should translate well into black and white in case it needs to. For a logo to do these things, it must be simple and distinct. [Credit to David Airey]

Logo design is very much a challenge. It condenses the identity of a company, an idea, a concept into a single mark. Designers have to strip it down to its essentials. They have to be careful about colors. They have to make it unique. During the course of your day, look around. Observe the logos you see every day. What makes one stand out? What makes one vague and forgettable? Keep these principles in mind and you’ll understand what makes a bad logo and what makes a good logo.