Some random logo design tips for the designer and client

Easy on the number of fonts

More than two fonts in a a logo and you’re going to end up with a design that looks like a ransom note.

Keep it simple

While this isn’t as absolute as it used to be (modern day reproduction and hi-res monitors have helped) it’s still a good idea to keep you logo as simple as possible. Simple logos reproduce on the widest range of media and headaches increase exponentially the more complex your design is.

Do not copy

Pretty straightforward stuff. Don’t copy anyone else’s logo. Doing that, dear friends, is the polar opposite of what developing an original logo is supposed to be about. That goes for off-the-rack template logos and most of these so-called do-it-yourself logo makers that churn out the same icons for a multitude of different customers.

Golden mean

A logo that is too skinny and tall is going to cause all sorts of placement issues, especially on website headers. Take a look at the top 100 brand logos. Most are leaning towards horizontal, a golden mean aspect ratio (about the shape of a traditional business card – above) or a square layout. There’s a reason for that. See here for more on logos and aspect ratios.

Two colors is perfect

While it’s true that most printing these days have moved to CMYK (in order to gang run brochures, pamphlets and what have you) and it’s possible to utilize a full color palette in your logo, it’s still advisable to keep the number of colors down to two. This allows for color accuracy (using the Pantone Matching System and spot color swatches) as well as make your logo ready for instances where spot color reproduction is still the only option. Best of both worlds and all that.

Vector all the way

As part of your brand assets, one version of your logo needs to be in vector format. Here’s why.

Originality counts

We’ve already gone over copying as a bad idea for your logo. But what about inadvertent copying, where your logo is a visual doppelganger of a design that’s already out there. Or what if someone else designed your logo and you’re not sure of its heritage? It’s not a bullet-proof method, but Google image search can help suss out if there’s similar designs already floating about.

Avoid trailing gradients

If you insist in having gradients in your logo, try to make sure they don’t trail off into nothingness. That will only cause you grief down the road when you’re trying to add your logo to a colored background, and the white ‘nothingness’ becomes visible. Try and keep all your gradients inside their own shapes.

Ditch the bevels, glows and lens flares

Whenever people add bevels, glows and lens flares to their logo, it’s invariably because the design is missing ‘something’. More often than not, that missing part is effective design. If you feel your logo needs a bevel or a lens flare to make the cut, it’s probably time to start over.

Use paths as opposed to strokes

Strokes are when a designer uses a design software package (in this case Illustrator) to run an outline around a shape. The width of the stroke can be set in varying degrees and is cool for quick and dirty rendering. When it comes to final production of files, change those strokes to paths. They will scale more accurately, and there are instances (vinyl plotters for example) where the output device cannot assess the thickness of a stroke, but can cut around a path, likity-split.

A logo is not a brand

Granted, a logo is a pretty important PART of a brand but still only a part. A brand is built by everything your company does and produces. A logo is a symbol, a banner if you will, of those efforts. Think Apple. Their logo is but a symbol for products that people love to use. Apple’s brand is much more complex than a simplified graphic of an apple with a bite taken out of it.

Bored with it already?

At some point, perhaps even during the design phase itself, you’re going to get sick and tired of looking at your logo and want to change it. Here’s the rub – a logo isn’t supposed to be different and fresh every time you look at it. A logo is supposed to have longevity, not be some flash-in-the-pan design element.

Related posts:

1. Business card design tips
2. Designing a logo – basic tips & pointers
3. 10 logo design ‘Don’ts’

As a designer, whether or not you publish a design blog as part of your online marketing day-to-day is a decision that only you can make. A design blog has some very real advantages in promoting your budding practice, but some downfalls in the upkeep department.

A design blog can help you get some decent search engine placement pretty quickly, an advantage over a graphics rich site, which as a designer, you’re likely to have. While those lovely portfolio pieces may look nice on your logo gallery, they won’t accomplish much in the SEO department. Google, Yahoo and other search engines like ‘real’ content (text) and a blog is one method to develop lots and lots of text, manna for search engine spiders. Accordingly, maintaining a design blog can be a rewarding activity, both creatively and in terms in fairly rapid marketing (the point of this exercise).

The main investment – time

On the flip-side, a blog can be a royal pain in the ass to upkeep if your heart isn’t in it. Keeping a blog can be enormously time-consuming – either writing complete posts, writing parts of posts for later publication (I started this article back in October) or researching news feeds, graphic design forums and other blogs for information.

When I’m blogging full-tilt, I’d say I spend about 2-3 hours a day on this blog and that includes weekends. At other times it takes real effort to write even the simplest post. Sometimes I just get bored with my own blather. Often, I’m bereft of ideas and there isn’t any design news to write about or ‘pad’. If the weather’s good, my shiny red Yamaha is a lot more appealing than writing another article about the latest logo design news, or yet another rant, about yet another logo contest. Overall, maintaining a blog (at least one that’s going to help you market your design services) represents a sizable time investment and to be effective, requires consistent tending.

If you’re not ready to dedicate a least 3 – 6 hours a week in developing, writing and promoting your blog, it probably isn’t for you. A really nice blog will take longer. And that’s every week, often easier said than done. There have been times (recently for example) – too busy at the shop, summer, family responsibilities – when I haven’t posted on The Logo Factory studio blog for weeks on end. That’s never a good thing – defeats the entire purpose of having a design blog in the first place. When your last published date is weeks, or months ago, you’ll quickly lose any regular readers you’ve managed to attract, and a dated blog is certain to be viewed as a sign that your design business isn’t active, or even out of business (ironically, the opposite is probably true – you may be too busy with client work to actually get around to writing anything).

What to write about?

And then there’s the pressing question – what to write about. Writing new posts on a regular (if not daily) basis can be trying – especially when you’re limited to design as a subject, and particularly if you want to make your blog entertaining and informative to read, rather than an endless number of entries all extolling the advantages of your creative talents. Even if that is the real point. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use your blog as a press release delivery system. You should. But you’ll also need to surround these promotional pieces with interesting tid-bits, tips (like this post), design tutorials, examples of your artwork and news pieces you’ve managed to salvage from various sources on the web.

Fair use and copyright

If you’re going to use news pieces from other sites, design blogs and forums, don’t just quote a few paragraphs (ever mindful of ‘fair use copyright laws) with a link to the original. This is fine for news aggregators, but not so cool for a design-themed blog. Use the source material as a framework for your post. Tell readers what you think. Try to give them your perspective on the design-related piece you’ve found on Google News or the New York Times website. Visitors to your blog don’t want to read a re-hash of material from other sources – they can read the original for that. Instead, present your angle on design related items, turning them from ‘news’ into ‘views’. That will help you develop a loyal readership. It’s also a good idea to keep your comment section open. That encourages readers to feel like part of your blog community, and will result in return visits and in-bound links, the lifeblood of any website.

Linking to other blogs

In my backyard, many logo design companies seem to use blog posting as a search engine technique, rather than a way to communicate to either clients or to engage other designers in a themed discussion. Constant bleating about why they’re better, cheaper, faster sorta thing. Boring. Many of these firms are reluctant to link to other resources, blogs or websites, not wanting to promote other sites that they view as ‘competition’, or risk losing that logo sale by directing visitors outside their domain. While philosophically sound, this ‘trapped rats’ mentality certainly isn’t the soul of the internet (also, if a blog and website is decent, people will come back after visiting another linked page) and doesn’t help with being a part of the blog community. If you find something that’s interesting – even on a ‘competing’ blog or website, discuss it and link to it.

Length of articles

When it comes to the length of blog articles and posts, the schools of thought are varied. I tend to write one or two monster pieces – we’ll call them ‘authority’ posts – a week, buttressed by smaller, bite-size articles that readers can skim in a few minutes. Obtaining a balance between the two will depend on how much time you’re willing to invest, as well as your long-term online marketing goals. Site analytics tell me that smaller design posts receive more readers, longer ‘authority’ posts obtain more in-bound links. Authority pieces also set your design business as a source of ‘expert’ opinion, a very important distinction when it comes to marketing your services to clients. Competing against other design companies using price as a barometer has become a futile exercise, especially on the internet – something you’ve indicated an interest in by reading this far. There’s always someone who will design this or that cheaper. By laying claim to ‘expert status’, you have a ‘hook’ that lifts your design services above the crowd advertising $50 logos with unlimited revisions. Authority posts help you develop that status. Bite-size features add excitement. By balancing the two, you can turn your blog (and by extension your design business) into a ‘hub’ of activity. Clients like that sort of thing.

Ease of use

On the upside, a blog is relatively easy to update – much more so that a standard HTML site. It’s easier to link all the various bits and pieces together, and if you organize posts into various categories, you can quickly develop a respository of design based posts. From a search engine perspective, blogs weigh in on the plus side. Due to the ‘newsworthiness’ of most blogs, they tend to gend picked up by Google much faster than standard HTML pages with most blog software ‘pinging’ various directories, including Google, the minute you hit the ‘publish’ button. Published entries get added to the blog directory and main listings (SERPS) rather quickly – often within minutes. From my experience, the initial addition to the main listings is temporary, and you’ll find that many posts will disappear after a short while, only to return permanently a few days, or weeks, later. In order to keep your blog posts high in the directories, you’ll have to publish items fairly regularly, getting a ‘bump’ every time you do.

Offsite or onsite?

After weighing the pros and cons, you’ve decided to jump into the blog-publishing area. You’ve assembled design articles, instructional features and scoured the internet for the latest news. Probably time we spent some digital ink on the brass tacks – how to actually get your blog off the ground using the technology at hand. When it comes to how you should host your blog, there’s two main choices;

1) Onsite – hosting your blog on your server as part of YourDesignSite.com (usually in a sub-directory) or as a sub-domain (ie: Blog.YourDesignSite.com).

2) Offsite – using a hosted blog solution such as Blogger or WordPress.

Which it better? Hard to tell really – there are several schools of thought. Using an offsite solution is easy, fast and requires very little technical know-how. It’s also free. The offsite blog directories have huge search engine strength already established, and get indexed very quickly. If you already have your website up-and-running, linking to it from your blog on Blogger or WordPress will send page rank ‘home’ and you’ll have two sites waiting to be found in Google and Yahoo searches. Alas, free services like this are packed with other blogs and tons of spammers (who use the service to create splogs – keyword soaked jibberish designed to generate traffic to either Google Adsense accounts or to another web site) so it can be fairly difficult to rise above the noise.

Hosting your design blog as part of your main site requires a little bit of technical know-how including how to set up MYSQL databases (though many web hosts now include blog platform software as part of their regular services). Publishing an onsite blog promotes your site as an ‘entity’ and if graphically set-up like your main site, adds to your overall brand. In terms of SEO benefits, I’d say that a blog certainly helps, but when we first published our first post (back in 2005) The Logo Factory main site took a sizable ‘hit’ in logo design search engine placement before returning to normal a few months later. Granted, things have changed since then (and blogs have a since developed a new level of ‘respect’) so I’d expect such dramatic changes to be rare nowadays. Most blog software can be downloaded free-of-charge, is relatively easy to install and operate, and in my personal opinion is well worth the effort to install as part of your overall website, the method we employ here. We’ve always published The Logo Factor in a sub directory of our main site and it has to be fairly effective – you’re reading this, aren’t you?

Monetizing a blog

Making money directly from your blog – referred to as monetization – using Google Adsense (Adsense is when you feature Google keyword ads on your site, Adwords is when you place your ads somewhere else) is a personal decision. Some think that ad banners plastered all over the place cheapens the ‘image’ of an otherwise upscale effort. Others will be more pragmatic, figuring a few bucks here and there is worth the shelf space you ‘lease’ to big G. On the financial side, it might be worthwhile, but don’t expect to retire. I run Adsense on the actual post pages of The Factor (while keeping them off the front page) which nets us a couple of hundred dollars every few months. Not a terribly big deal, but as part of your bottom line, can be added into the overall income of your design business.

Having said that, you should also keep your expectations realistic. See the revenue as a way to pay for your hosting charges. Maybe your cell phone bill as well. Sure, there are people who claim they make thousands upon thousands on blog ad revenue. And perhaps they do. But they’re not in a niche market like design, where the keyword payouts are much, much, lower. The amount you’ll make depends entirely on the subject of the keywords – triggered by what Google views as the central theme of your blog, in this case, something to do with design. Design keywords don’t bid out as high as other subjects.

Other methods of ‘monetizing’ your blog include affiliate links – you receive a portion of a sale when a visitor clicks through to another site and they purchase something. You’ll probably want to feature links to design related products – books and software from Amazon for example. One excellent method is to write reviews of the latest graphic design books, or design software, and link the piece using your Amazon affiliate code (you can sign up here).

So there you have it. The ins-and-outs of publishing a blog as a way of promoting yourself, including online logo design services as we do around here. I’ve tried to broad-stroke the main stuff, but I’m sure other folks may have other opinions and/or advice (you’re welcome to comment if you do). At the end of the day, running a design-themed blog can be beneficial to your business, a decent way to get yourself ‘out there’ and a fairly rapid way of entering the online market.

Fun too.

Related posts:

1. The design of this blog is crap. Refocusing our brand & redesigning our blog
2. We’re all in this together. SEO and logo designers
3. Publish a blog? Here’s why websites that scrape content are a pain. Why you shouldn’t do it.

A comprehensive guide to the logo design process and designing quality logos.

Over the years, and after thousands of logo design projects under our belt, I’m often asked about our logo design work-flow. How our studio works and how we tackle such a wide-range of different projects. An interesting question to be sure, and not one that can be answered easily, or arbitrarily. After all, every logo is different (the entire point of the exercise) and every logo design process is unique to each project we get hired for. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been tackling this question, planning an interactive Flash presentation even, and in the planning stages came up with various flow charts that attempt to illustrate, as accurately as I can, the entire logo design process from start-to-finish. Occurred to me that the graphics looked almost like a subway map, or a road map, so figured it might be worth while writing a blog post that outlined some of the processes we use at the shop, as well as diagramming the work-flow of the various kind of projects we handle. Might be of some use to other designers, or clients, to see what options are available, as well as the various steps involved. I’ll warn you now, this post is pretty lengthy, and has some monster-sized graphics. If you’re cool with that, read on.

Selecting the right kind of logo

We’ve basically broken down the types of logos into three main categories (we actually use four but will ignore graphic for this exercise) – text or font based, iconic and illustrative. Which type of logo is appropriate for which project depends, to a large degree, on the market demographic and target audience. While a cartoon illustration design may be cool for some web site, it certainly wouldn’t be appropriate for a home builder selling million dollar homes. Usage plays a big part too, as various media applications have caveats and restrictions – if your logo is going to be applied fifteen feet tall in vinyl lettering to the side of your truck fleet, best to have a simple logo than a complex design full of blends and drop shadows. I’ve attempted to build these concepts into the first part of our road map – selecting the right kind of logo. While nothing is set-in-stone, or arbitrary, the grey boxes represent types of logos that may, or may not, be appropriate. White boxes represent logo types that certainly are.

Business (or product) name

Whether or not you use the full legal name of a company in any logo is usually a matter of choice. For example, our full name is The Logo Factory Incorporated (usually abbreviated to Inc) but we never use it, settling for the truncated version The Logo Factory. Some market segments may require that an LLC or a CO to be tacked on, and if that’s the case, best consult with your attorney. Using an acronym in a logo is not generally not a good idea unless A) you have an exceptionally long name or B) your company or product has a great deal of established traction in the marketplace. We tinkered with using the abbreviated form TLF to represent our company a few years ago, but spent more time explaining what the letters meant than it was worth.

Market and target demographic

This is often over-looked by both designers and clients alike. Who is the logo being designed for? The designer? Nope. The client? Uh-uh. It should be designed for the customers of the client. In order to select the right type of logo route it’s critical to understand the demographics of the target audience. Take a look at the most successful competitor in your area, and see what they’re doing. Copying logos is never cool, but it will certainly give you an idea of the kind of logo approach to take. And with that, on to the logo design road maps.

I’ve set up the road maps like a typical flow chart, running from top to bottom. The dotted lines represent steps in the process that are iteration heavy, usually involving a back-and-forth between the designer and the client. Stuff that needs explaining, with examples from our logo design portfolio, are below each diagram. Keep in mind that nothing in these road maps is carved-in-stone, and there’s lots of overlap between the various logo types described. On the plus side, they’re not as complicated as they seem at first blush. Ready? Let’s have at it.

Text logo road map

The text logo road map is also included as part of both the iconic and illustrative maps.

Custom or ‘off-the-shelf’ fonts

Used to be that using a custom-built font for almost every logo was the way to go, but with the number of excellent fonts available these days, it’s almost counter-productive. That’s not to say you can’t customize portions of words made up from off-the-shelf, so that’s been added as an option in our text logo flow chart. The Logo Factory logo is a good example of this approach.

Serif fonts

According to Wikipedia “serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols.” Think of them as little tails and feet in the typeface. While serif fonts are considered to be more legible in print as body copy, there are some resolution issues when used electronically, especially in smaller sizes. On the other hand, serif fonts can represent stability and are often appropriate for conservative and traditional businesses.

Sans-Serif fonts

Sans serif comes from the French word ‘sans’ meaning, quite literally “without.” As in without the little tails and feet we just talked about. While serif fonts may have a leg-up in the print world, it could be argued that sans serif typefaces read more effectively in the electronic world. Accordingly, sans serif fonts are often appropriate for modern, web-based or trendy new businesses.

Italic fonts

Italic fonts are slanted, generally to the right, and are often used to emphasize portions of phrases. Italic letters can also represent speed or a sense of urgency. Keep in mind that there are some legibility issues with italic fonts, especially at small sizes, and particularly on the web. Italic logos also can present some issues when selecting a complimentary font for collateral marketing material.

Kerning

Whenever words are input into any design software package, the program ‘guesses’ how close the letters should be to each other. This is known as kerning. In the case of software it’s called ‘Auto’ Kerning. Problem is, these are only estimates and some software does it better than others, and accuracy often depends on the fonts you’re using. Off-the-rack kerning is often more accurate in ‘professional’ font sets than fonts available for download on ‘free font’ websites, but as kerning is almost always gauged visually, as opposed to driven by some formulaic algorithm, almost all font sets require a certain amount of ‘tweaking’ by hand. It often depends on the software too. Microsoft Word is the worst, Adobe Illustrator is better though not perfect. Also, a word that looks well-spaced on your monitor will look nasty when enlarged to billboard size. Some letter combinations – V & A for example – require tighter spacing than say, M & N. Setting up correctly spaced typography is critical – poorly spaced letters will register in the viewer’s minds eye as an amateur hour logo, even if they can’t quite put their finger on what’s wrong. I’ve seen text logos with kerning that you could drive a Mack Truck through. Hyper kerning of words can be cool (when words are stretched out, with a lot of space between letters) but keep this in mind – when used smallish, and because the individual letters are small to begin with , hyper kerned words are usually unreadable.

Taglines

A tagline is a little sentence, usually under the logo, that describes in several words the company, or the company’s core activity. Using a tagline (also known as a strapline) in a logo is not recommended from a design perspective (the lettering is often too small to be legible) but almost always demanded by clients eager to tell the world what it is their company does. That’s perfectly understandable, so it’s often beneficial to design a logo that can be featured with, and without a tagline. Once the company is established, we can drop it.

Colors

I’ve added the selection of colors well into the design process as that’s were it belongs. It’s often beneficial to design logos in black and white so that we’re not relying on colors to define bits and pieces of the design (a foolhardy notion if the logo is ever to be reproduced as black and white). There are three main color choices we can make here – one color, spot color or four color process. Choose wisely here, as the colors you select will determine the hassle, expense and compatibility of your logo for its entire shelf life.

Legals

The legals portion of all our road maps is two-fold. The first is whether or not to add a ‘TM’ or “®” to the logo. The difference between the TM and the R-in-a-circle comes down to a) a matter of taste (if you have in fact registered the trademark or b) if you haven’t registered the logo but are claiming a trademark (in which case you can only use the ‘TM’ addition). See here for more information on trademarking a logo. The second part of the legals section is the transfer of ownership of the logo from the designer to the client, so that the proper copyrighting and trademarking is possible.

File formats

Setting up logo files correctly is perhaps the most important step in the logo design process, yet it is often the area given the least attention with designers failing to edit their working files into versions that are ready for print, web and other uses. You’d be amazed at some of the crap setups I’ve seen in my day when designers ship their ‘working files’ rather than correctly formatted ones. Not going to re-hash everything here – for more information on logo file formats, see our technical tutorial area. See here for a file format quick reference guide.

Related posts:

1. Ignore kerning and letter spacing at your own peril…
2. 10 logo design ‘Don’ts’
3. Intelligent Design Group

#1 – Do not use script type in all caps

If you insist on using a script font in your logo design, do not use all caps. Same goes for hand drawn fonts. On most script font sets, capital letters are designed as display fonts, that is they have nice decorative flourishes that aren’t designed to be beside another capital letter with similar features.

#2 – Do not start your logo in Photoshop

This is one of the most important ‘do nots’ and yet it the one that is most routinely ignored. Bitmap graphics are cool for photo images. Logos need to be in vector format. While later versions of Photoshop do handle some rudimentary vector functions, they’re not up to snuff when compared to Illustrator or other vector drawing software. Here’s a short video that explains this concept in more detail.

#3 – Do not use bitmap graphics as part of your logo

Using a bitmap graphic as part of any logo is going to end in heartache at some point down the road. Bitmap graphics don’t enlarge very well. the high-resolution versions create huge files, and you’re going to run into all sorts of issues when the logo is added to other artwork.

#4 – Do not use an auto-traced image as central graphic

While the Live Trace, bitmap to vector, function of Illustrator is actually marketed by Adobe as a way of making logos, it isn’t. The resultant vector setup is sketchy at best and when you convert live-traced images to bitmaps, the anti-alaising feature of the format creates weird outlines and unpredictable abstract and orphaned pixels. When it comes to printing auto-traced images, you can run into problems, as the files are created with shapes butting into each other rather than overlaying. It takes a little longer but trace your images by hand for predictable results.

#5 – Do not copy images you’ve found on the internet

Now that we’ve discussed the use of images in a logo, let’s talk about using photographs you’ve found on the internet for reference material. That’s very cool – saves you a trip to the library. But don’t just copy the photograph into vector art, slap some type on it and call it a day. There are copyright ramifications of using photographs in this way (a decent lawyer could argue that it’s a derivative work based on their client’s photograph) and in terms of originality, it’s a wash. If you managed to find the Gorilla image on the Internet using Google Image Search, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that other designers have too. Use photographs for reference, but draw original art using that reference.

#6 – Do not use special effects filters

Special effect filters – drop shadows, glows, lens flares, bevels – are wonderful. For use in everything BUT logos. Bottom line – special effect filters are usually thrown at a logo because it’s missing ‘something’. That something will be not be created by tossing a bevel at it. Here’s another thing to think about too – most special effect filters in Photoshop use the RGB palette to give them ‘sparkle’ and as a result, often look dull and listless when converted to CMYK. Even if your special effect filter can be employed in a vector program like Illustrator, use sparingly, if at all.

#7 – Do not mix CMYK and RGB color palettes

Later versions of Illustrator allow you to mix RGB and CMYK (and other color swatch libraries) in the same page. This is a cool feature, but you should be careful that you’re not mixing CMYK and RGB colors in the same piece of logo art. Keep in mind that while converting from CMYK ot RGB (or vice versa) is a snap, generally speaking, some color effects (blends for example) will NOT convert automatically from one palette to another. Always better to stay in one palette (CMYK if the logo is destined for print). Web formats are bitmap and it’s a breeze creating RGB bitmaps like .JPGs or .PNGs using basic export functions.

#8 – Do not use strokes to outline logo artwork

Using the stroke outline (where your design software places a thin line around a selected bit of your logo artwork) is a fast way to do things. It’s also not a good way to do things. There are certain output devices (digital vinyl plotters for example) that are ‘blind’ to strokes. Strokes can ‘gum up’ when your logo artwork is reproduced at very small sizes (and the output device rounds up the width of your stroke). Best to use the outline path function which is much more stable and predictable. See here for the proper way to put an outline around fonts.

#9 – Do not forget to outline your type faces

Speaking about fonts, do not forget to convert them to outline fonts before shipping any files to the client or to the printer. If you don’t outline your fonts, everyone down the road is going to have compatibility problems, unless they have the EXACT same font set as you used, and even then, spacing and kerning can be thrown out of whack platform to platform, software to software. Font licensing restrictions will often stop you from shipping a copy of your font set along with any logo artwork, and outlining them is a nifty way around that too.

#10 – Do not leave open vector shapes

While it’s important that your logo look nice on a monitor, it has to work ‘under the hood’. That means closing any vector shapes into proper polygons (open shapes can cause all sorts of output issues). Take a look at our bad designer, no donut feature for more on this.

Related posts:

1. 12 completely random logo design tips
2. The proper way to outline fonts
3. Bitmap to Vector conversion. Online Vector Tracing

So you’ve taken delivery of your new logo design and it’s a great representation of your company, product or service. Now what? How are you supposed to use your new company visual identity to create a brand and get it ‘out there’ into the wild?

That’s a very good question. Pretty important too, as you should keep this in mind – It’s only by continued and repeated use will your logo gain any marketing ‘traction’ and be connected to your company by already established clients and those that you want to be. Here’s some suggestions of how you can use your new logo. While some are free and can be accomplished by yourself quickly and effortlessly, others might require the services of an outside vendor and spending a little scratch. All of our suggestions will help get your new logo noticed in the quickest way possible.

Stick it in your e-mail

If you communicate a lot with clients electronically, you probably send a lot of e-mails each and every day. The ‘signature’ section at the bottom of those e-mails is a perfect place to start sending your new logo to those clients and prospective customers. Now, I’m not suggesting that you create a full-blown e-mail template (though you can if you like) as these can be unwieldy and more often than not, the people receiving your e-mail will have their ‘view images’ option turned off (I know I do on my e-mail client). A simple .JPG file, .GIF or .PNG of your logo is unobtrusive, doesn’t interfere with your message and won’t bother anyone while still building your new logo recognition.

Slap it on your website or blog

If you have a website or blog, as you get your hands on digital files, slap your logo into the header section. Won’t take long and is a real easy way to get your logo in front of a whole bunch of eyeballs. While you’re at it, stick it in the footer as well. You’ll probably want to make your logo nice and big, but there are some sizing issues you’ll need to be cognisant of, particularly when it comes to the aspect ratio and footprint of your spiffy new logo. Read our using a logo on websites & blogs help feature for a more detailed look at that. If, on the other hand, you don’t have a blog or a website, you should probably get one (we’re getting serious about marketing here).

Announce it to the world

If you do run a website or blog, there’s no better place to announce your new logo to the world (truth to tell, unless you’re running a huge corporation, your blog is the only place that your new logo will seem newsworthy). Publish a blog post. Tell a little about the evolution of the design. What it means. Why it’s the most important logo in the history of ever (here’s our rather lengthy tale of redesigning The Logo Factory logo). Once you’ve done that, go to your Twitter account and tell everyone about the blog post. You don’t have a Twitter account? Probably time to get one of those too. Ditto for Facebook. Speaking of which, if you do have Facebook and Twitter pages, time to add your new corporate identity to your profile. Read using a logo on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for more on that.

Plaster it on every scrap of paper at your office

If your business is in any way typical, you’ll use a lot of paper to shoot information around. Internal memos. Photocopies. FAX cover sheets. All of these have blank spaces crying out for a logo. Your new one. Nothing terribly dramatic or stressful. I’m talking about a small version of your logo printed at the top, or bottom, of your photocopy paper. A nice black and white bitmap of your logo (a linear setup) on a FAX cover sheet. You give out invoices? There too. Shipping memos? Uh-huh. Your logo should be featured on every slip of paper that leaves your office. Every. Single. One. And even those that don’t. Brand recognition means recognizing a brand. So, get yours recognized. By everyone who comes in contact with a piece of correspondence from your company.

Business cards, letterheads and envelopes wouldn’t hurt

Remember when we said that a new logo should be plastered on everything? You’d be amazed how many people undergo the expense of designing logos, only to forgo getting business cards and other stationery items that feature it. The rationale usually involves having cards left over from earlier days, when the company didn’t have a logo, or a design that wasn’t particularly inspiring. If you’re in that boat, toss the old ones out. They’ve served their purpose, and it’s time to get new ones. The cost of printing letterheads and business cards is nominal, relatively speaking, and well worth the expense (one of our printing partners has a 10% discount on first orders). If stationery design wasn’t included with your new logo workup, then it’s time to get it done. Business cards and letterheads are how most people will come to know your new logo. Envelopes aren’t too shabby either.

Trinkets and Gizmos

The term collateral design refers to everything else. Trinkets (often referred in the marketing industry as “premium incentives”) that feature your new logo are a great way to build brand awareness, though it’s going to incur a little expense. Think T-shirts, baseball caps, pens, coffee mugs, mousepads. Used to be that these cool little marketing items were off limits to the small and micro-business due to minimum orders (you’d have to order 100 coffee mugs to give three out to your pals, your wife/husband or your kids) and prohibitive initial setup charges. That’s no longer true. With services like Zazzle and Cafe Press, you can set up whatever ‘products’ you want, without any minimum restrictions and few, if any, setup costs. You can order one of each (for your own personal use) or you can order several for gifts and promotional giveaways. Another nice feature is that these platforms allow you to set up your own store so when your new logo is all the rage, you can sell stuff to fans. There are some design restrictions, and really professional collateral material might still need the attention of an old-school vendor (time to break out the local Yellow Pages), but online product sites will certainly suffice at the beginning, when your funds may be light and your market small. One caveat – if you’re going to sell merch with your logo on it, probably time to think about a trademark or at least copyright registration of your new mark.

Redo old brochures and advertising material

If your business is new, and your logo design is but part of an overall launch, you can safely ignore this one. You’ll need to start building an inventory of brochures, postcards, presentation folders and other marketing material with your new logo. Everything doesn’t have to be produced at once (though it’s not a bad idea, for consistency’s sake, to have it designed by the same designer or design company, in relatively short order) and you can produce material as needs arise, and budget allow. But what if your logo is a re-brand, a new version of your earlier corporate identity that had grown long in the tooth? Eventually, you’ll have to replace all those brochures and pamphlets that aren’t current with your new ‘look and feel’ too. How quickly, and how radically, you replace this material depends solely on your budget. And how different your new design is from its earlier incarnation. If you’ve only changed the visual aspect of your company logo, and the name remained the same. No issue. Replace your advertising material as stocks dwindle, or new needs arise. If you’ve changed your company name, it’s time to change everything. Right now (advice we need to follow. Like the proverbial “shoemaker’s kids,” most of the photos that accompany this article feature our old house logo. Working on the new stuff now).

For more on using your new logo, see our logo design help section.

Related posts:

1. Building a Brand – Some pointers
2. The design of this blog is crap. Refocusing our brand & redesigning our blog
3. Brand development – China style.

Reference guide for printing (and setup) of spot color and four color process logo printing

Always seems to be some confusion abut the difference between spot color and four color process logos. Here’s a visual explanation of both. For more information, see our logo design help section in main site. You can also watch our logo file formats explained video if you’re in a hurry.

Related posts:

1. Logo color formats and palettes
2. Vectors & Pixels. Types of logo reproduction
3. Why you shouldn’t use Staples for business printing

A quick reference guide for different methods of reproducing logos on the web and in print. Select the right file type for each application for the best results.

Part of an ongoing series of logo design technical turtorials, this article takes a look at the various pixel and vector based file formats, when to use which, and more importantly, when not to. While there are exceptions to almost every rule, the following will give you a decent overview of the correct applications when using your new logo. Keep in mind that some formats can be created from others – see our handy logo format conversion guide for more details.

If you’re working with a full color logo, you’ll need CMYK printing to use it on any color material and a vector based format for best results. If you need to enlarge your logo it will not be a concern as vector based images boast unlimited resolution. While it’s technically possible to print four spot colors, most printers will simply run any job with this logo as a CMYK project.

Preferred for:

Traditional printing – business cards, letterheads, brochures and color advertising.

Can be used for:

Digital plotter (signs and vinyl press-ons), file conversion (to bitmap images), scaling, silk screen, inclusion in Flash logo animation.

Not suitable for:

Web, Black & White reproduction.

Having a logo that’s only available as a bitmap graphic isn’t a great scenario. You’ll still need 4 color process printing for any traditional stationery, business cards or letterheads, but you’ll require a resolution that is sufficient for the medium being used (at least 266 dots per inch for print, as opposed to 72 dpi for web). This renders most web files (.GIF. .PNG, .JPG) useless. Scaling of your logo is also an issue, as any enlargement past the default size and/or resolution will cause the image to degrade. You’ll also need to insure that your image is in the correct color palette (RGB for screen, CMYK for print).

Preferred for:

Website and blog usage (RGB) 4 color process printing (with enough resolution).

Can be used for:

Internal low resolution printing & addition to documents created by office software. Online stores (Cafe Press for example) can use this file (with adequate resolution). As they ‘gang run’ your printing, many online discount printers will require this 4 color format of your logo for use in business card and/or letterhead printing.

Not suitable for:

Black & white reproduction, enlargement and/or large images, format conversion or Flash logo animation.

The most common (and versatile) type of logo and format. Can be printed using economical spot color reproduction, while the logo can be enlarged due to the unlimited resolution properties of the vector file type. This is the type of format and logo combination that is recommended by most design professionals.

Preferred for:

Spot color printing (letterheads, business cards). Scaling (enlargement)

Can be used for:

Digital plotter (signage), file conversion (to pixel based images and 4 color process), enlargement, two color silk screen (mugs, pens and other premium incentives)..

Not suitable for:

Web use, black & white gray scale & linear logo reproduction, use in four color process printing, Flash animation (needs conversion to RGB).

We can’t really call this a ‘spot color’ logo as it requires many shades of black and red to print (see enlargement). And even though this company logo only features two colors visually, it still requires 4 color process reproduction to print. Enlargement, like all pixel based images is an issue. You’ll also need to insure that your image is in the correct color palette (RGB for screen, CMYK for print).

Preferred for:

Website and blog usage (RGB) 4 color process printing (with enough resolution).

Can be used for:

Internal low resolution printing & addition to office software docs. Suppliers of marketing incentives that allow you to upload files to their server (Cafe Press for example) can use this file (with adequate resolution). As they ‘gang run’ your printing, many online discount printers will require this 4 color format of your logo for use in business card and/or letterhead printing.

Not suitable for:

Black & white reproduction, enlargement and/or large images, format conversion.

Tomorrow, we’ll do the same exercise for Black and white (grayscale/halftone) and linear one color logos.

While this logo appears to have multiple shades of silver or gray, all the tones are actually made up of small dots of black. As the logo is vector based black and white, we can enlarge it without any fear of image degradation. When the logo is printed (using one color reproduction) the tones will appear smooth (as long as the resolution is high enough).

Preferred for:

Traditional black and white printing, newspaper advertising, flyers.

Can be used for:

Enlargement.

Not suitable for:

Web. Addition to color marketing material.

While we can’t enlarge this version of your logo, it can be printed adequately as a pixel based black and white version (as long as the resolution of the image allows). Converting a 72 dpi web based image will not be sufficient for any type of printing, including typical office desktop models.

Preferred for:

Traditional black and white printing (if high enough resolution), inclusion in office software and internal documents.

Can be used for:

Black and white photocopies.

Not suitable for:

Web. Addition to color marketing material. Low resolution black and white reproduction (FAX and Checks), high resolution black and white reproduction (unless image resolution is adequate), enlargement or format conversion.

This logo ONLY features 100% shades of black. It can be enlarged and the edges of the solid areas will remain sharp and clean. When it is printed (regardless of the resolution) this image will appear crisp and recognizable. You can safely use this image on low resolution reproduction (FAX and Checks, etc) and your logo will appear as well as can be expected.

Preferred for:

Traditional black and white printing (if high enough resolution), inclusion in office software and internal documents. Low resolution black and white printing, one color printing, etching, one color silk-screening (mugs, pens, T-shirts, etc). Vinyl plotter.

Can be used for:

Black and white photocopies. Black and white printing (with adequate resolution).

Not suitable for:

Web. Addition to color marketing material. Enlargement or format conversion.

Even though this logo appears to be made up of black solids, because it is Pixel based, the image requires hundreds of shades of gray in order to preview correctly. This is known as ‘aliasing’ and is typical of all electronic images. Once again, we cannot enlarge this image without loss of quality and ‘crispness’ and even when printed as a one color BW, the edges of this image may appear soft or ‘fuzzy’ (above right).

Preferred for:

Traditional black and white printing (if high enough resolution), inclusion in office software and internal documents. Low resolution black and white printing and one color printing.

Can be used for:

Black and white photocopies. Black and white printing (with adequate resolution).

Not suitable for:

Web. Addition to color marketing material. Enlargement or format conversion.

For more on file formats and their various uses, see our logo design help and technical tutorial areas.

Related posts:

1. Spot color & 4 color logos explained visually
2. Logo format conversion guide
3. Logo color formats and palettes

Related posts:

1. Bitmap to Vector conversion. Online Vector Tracing
2. Vectors & Pixels. Types of logo reproduction
3. Spot color & 4 color logos explained visually

A short tutorial on the proper way to place an outline around type using Adobe Illustrator and the Pathfinder tool

As designers, we often take things for granted, at least in terms of what other designers do, and don’t know. Accordingly, we sometimes don’t write tutorials or help features on what we consider ‘basic’ stuff’ – little tricks and techniques that we assume others just know. And that includes how to place a simple outline around type, a favorite technique of many when it comes to logo design (above).

Which brings me to one of my pet peeves -improperly formatted files. When working on Flash logo animations for clients, I sometimes have to work with logos that we didn’t design, with digital assets supplied to us.

The whys for this are easy to understand. The designers simply types in the word, turns it into an vector-based outlined font (2) and then creates an outline using the Offset Path Tool (3). All pretty and all, but technically a nightmare, especially for any harried designer who tries to create a Flash animation later on. What’s the issue? Well, first of all, rather than 2 objects (the type and its outline) we have 8 objects (each individual letter and its outline). That’s not good. Secondly, the letters are on individual planes, so we have all sorts of messy ‘overlaps’ (blue circles below).

Creating outlines – the proper way

First, turn any font into a vector based object by using the ‘Create Outlines‘ function in Illustrator (Type > Create Outlines). Here’s the important part. You want that word to be one object (not a whole bunch of letters) so we’re going to use the Pathfinder tool to merge the letters into one vector shape (make sure your kerning is right before doing this). Simply select all the letters, open the Pathfinder menu and click on the ‘Add to shape area button’ (7 below). After that, click on the ‘Expand‘ button, and viola, your font is now considered by Illustrator to be one shape, as opposed to a series of individual letters.

Now run the ‘Create Offset Path‘ function, this time on our newly merged font work. The result? In Preview mode, it looks just the same. In wireframe mode, it’s another story entirely (8 below)

Now, that’s a lot nicer than something that looks like this (files from a real job) doncha think?

Related posts:

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2. How to draw a perfect cog in under 20 seconds
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In this second half of a two-part tutorial, we’ll take a look at creating Flash logo animations of various complexity specifically for HD video intros. We’ll also show you how to reverse engineer-completed Flash files.

As we mentioned yesterday, the most important part of this exercise is to start your Flash animation with video in mind. The first aspect is the frame speed of your Flash document. Set that at thirty frames a second (30 FPS) so that the Flash animation will be compatible with QuickTime later on. The other is overall image size, either 1980px x 1020px or 1280px × 720 px (the recommended size for YouTube). Ironically, the first two examples we’ll take a look at were originally created for Flash presentation only, and reverse-engineered into HD video after the projects were completed. That requires a little more in prep-work that we’ll cover at the end of this post. As with part one, this tutorial assumes that you have a working knowledge of Flash and understand the basic concepts of tweening, symbols, movie clips and creating .SWF file.

Flash animations with vector objects

Flash animations that contain vector based objects (only) are the simplest to work with. Take this animation for CRW Promotions – a recent logo animation project at The Logo Factory. The logo design is relatively simple, contains vector shapes and I was able to break it down into 5 basic elements.

The ‘circles’ in the microphone were built using one Flash symbol (1) and the other elements (2 – 5) were set up as individual symbols, placed on their own layers in Flash and ‘tweened’ to create whatever movement we wanted.

As this movie was to be used on websites, we were concerned with file size, and by minimizing the number of symbols, and keeping everything vector based, the .SWF file is under 16K. This animation is a textbook example of a logo lick. Once the animation is completed, you can simply output the movie for HD video as outlined here.

Related posts:

1. Turning Flash logo animations into HD video intros
2. HD video logo animations using Flash
3. Logo Design Workshop Video