Designing a logo

A logo says a lot about your organisation, and whether you’re designing or commissioning, there are many aspects to consider. Ben Pitt explains all

First impressions count, and a logo is often the first thing people see about a business, publication or community group. The best exude professionalism and give people a flavour of how the organisation should be perceived. The worst are ugly, confusing and, in some cases, illegible. If a logo looks amateurish, people will expect the same of the organisation it represents.

But where do you start? We can’t all be hotshot graphic designers. If you can find someone who is, you’ll still need to brief them carefully to ensure the design is not only high quality but also relevant to your organisation.

WORDS AND PICTURES

The first thing to think about is where the logo will appear. Will it be on business cards and headed paper, on a physical product, at the top of a newsletter or other publication, on a sports team T-shirt? This can help you begin to make design decisions.

The first such decision is what overall shape you want the logo to be. Business cards will accommodate pretty much any shape, as you can simply design the rest of the card around the logo. If you’re using the logo on headed paper, invoices and other printed documents, a wide rectangular shape may work best. Conversely, a logo on sports clothing probably wants to be round or square so it fits neatly on a relatively small area. Logos for software and apps are invariably square shaped so they fit into a square icon on the screen.

Next, think about whether your logo should incorporate the name or the organisation, a graphic of some kind, or both. This will be influenced by the preferred shape you’re aiming for, and also the length of the name of your organisation. If you’re designing a logo for a company with a concise name such as ‘Fred’, it won’t be too much of a challenge to include the full name. However, if the business is called ‘Frederic Worthington Biscuit Emporium’, you’re probably better off with an image-based logo, with the words optionally printed in clear type underneath.

Logos can be broken down into five categories. A wordmark is a text-only logo that simply spells out the organisation’s name. Examples include Google, Disney, Sony, Samsung, Lego and Coca-Cola. A letterform logo just uses the first letter or letters of the brand name to form a design. Examples include the golden arches of McDonald’s and the blue square with an ‘f’ for Facebook. Others include Adobe, PlayStation, Kodak, Rolls-Royce, Volkswagen and Electronic Arts. In some cases, the abbreviation becomes the brand name – these latter two companies are now more commonly known as VW and EA. In some cases, such as HP, LG and BP, the company has officially changed its name to an acronym to make both the name and its logo snappier and more memorable (although we still miss Lucky Goldstar). Letterform logos can work well because their simplicity makes them bold and compact.

Image-based logos are known simply as marks. Famous examples include Apple, Twitter, Android, Shell, WWF, Linux and Windows. These are all essentially pictures of things: an apple, bird, robot, shell, panda, penguin and window respectively. Abstract images form a separate category. Examples include Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Google Chrome, the Olympics and Nike’s swoosh. Image-based logos are great for giving a logo a clear personality and communicating what the organisation does. Pictorial images can be highly specific whereas more abstract designs can give an overall flavour without needing to be so literal. After all, the WWF panda looks cute and friendly, but if a car logo had a picture of a car it might look a bit tacky. Illustrative graphics also tie the logo – and the organisation – to a specific area. If you want to expand into other areas in future, it might help to go for something more abstract.

The downside of image-based logos is that they don’t tell people what the organisation is called. That’s why virtually every image-based logo will also have a version that incorporates some text. As the awareness of a brand grows, the text becomes unnecessary and the image can stand on its own to represent the organisation.

The final category is known as an emblem. This combines graphics and text as a single unified design, often taking the form of a badge. Well-known examples include Ford, Porsche, Starbucks and most sports teams. An emblem is helpful for communicating both your brand name and an evocative image. The downside is that it can get quite busy, and the text may be hard to read when printed small. If the text is integral to the design, it’s harder to create a simplified image-only version.

Each style of logo has its benefits and drawbacks, so it’s down to you to find the best fit for your organisation. Take a look at what other, similar organisations have done, and decide how well it works for them.

DRAWING UP A BRIEF

Regardless of whether you’re designing it yourself or commissioning someone else to, it’s a good idea to draw up a detailed brief that describes what you want. Designers like to be given room to explore different ideas, but what they don’t like is coming up with a great design, only to be told that it’s not what the client wanted. The key here is to set them on the right track and then give them room to experiment. If you’re doing the designing yourself, it’s useful to write down some clear objectives so you don’t get sidetracked during the design process.

• What’s the logo for? It may be obvious to you, but perhaps not to the designer. What is your organisation? Where are you based? Who is your target market?

• Where will the logo appear? Virtually every organisation has a website, but where else will your logo appear? It might be on stationery, brochures, clothing, posters, banners, physical products, promotional items such as pens and mugs, on a building. Most designers will be able to create a mockup of the logo as it would appear on a business card, T-shirt or product, so you can see it in situ before committing to the design.

• Style and shape Should the logo include the full name of the organisation, graphics or both? Do you want versions both with and without text? Should the logo be wide or square-shaped? Should the graphic be illustrative or abstract? If it’s illustrative, what image do you want? As mentioned above, sometimes it’s helpful to be explicit about what the organisation does, but in other situations you may prefer to go for something more abstract. You might want to try a few options, but if you’re clear about the style and shape your logo should be, make sure you communicate this.

• Colour There are few things more subjective than colour, so don’t assume the designer’s preferences will match your own. Then again, the logo isn’t there purely for your own amusement, so seek advice from others about which colour combinations fit the brand well.

Will the logo always appear on a white background? If not, how will the colours work over a full-colour photo or a black background? Must the colours be integral to the design, or could you switch freely between black and white depending on the background colour?

Websites and printed materials can usually be in full colour, but certain other situations may require a more limited palette. When printing on plastic, metal or ceramic, you’ll get better results if there are just a few block colours in the design. An embroidered logo on clothing is only possible with a limited colour palette. Restricting the design to block colours is often a good idea regardless, as it can help to create a clean, punchy design that’s easy to see at small sizes. You can always experiment with full-colour versions once the basic design is complete. Take a look at how the Apple logo has been reinvented over the years.

Also consider whether you might need a single-colour or greyscale version of the design. We all have access to colour printers, but a single-colour version might be useful if you want to create a stencil, rubber stamp, embossed key ring or put the logo onto frosted glass. Again, a design that works well in one colour forces you to keep it simple.

• Emphasis If there’s more than one word in the brand name, consider whether some words are more important than others. The size, style and colour of text can put an emphasis on certain parts of the name, so make sure the design fits in with the way you want your organisation to be perceived.

• Keywords The logo should elicit an emotive response from the people who see it. What kind of reaction are you hoping to achieve? Try to come up with a few words that describe how you’d like your organisation to be perceived. You might go for trustworthy and elegant, edgy and fast-paced, warm and friendly, modern and precise. Try to find descriptive words that relate to the overall effect rather than specific design decisions.

• History Is this a new organisation and the first time a logo has been designed? If not, consider whether you want any continuity carried forwards from older logo designs. You might feel that the design needs a refresh rather than a complete overhaul, perhaps keeping the same colour scheme or overall shape. A quick Google Image search for ‘logo history’ shows how famous logos have evolved over the years.

These images show the design process for a logo for a community centre.
The brief was to create a sense of welcome and warmth, but without being too specific, as the building is used for a wide range of activities from parties and baby groups to adult support groups.
The bespoke typeface came first, and it was only later that the overlapping circles were introduced

SAY NO TO FONTS

Personally, I hate choosing fonts. My computer has 900 installed and most of them are completely unsuitable for any given task. Trawling through them inevitably results in bleary-eyed confusion.

Besides, there’s not much satisfaction from plucking a ready-made font for use in a logo. In the best logos, the typeface is intrinsic to the overall design, and it’s impossible to achieve something eye-catching, relevant and unique using an off-the-shelf font.

If you’re commissioning, you might give some examples of the kinds of fonts you prefer. Ultimately, though, asking for a bespoke typeface is more likely to yield more interesting results. Such a typeface forces the designer to think carefully about the shape of each letter and how it corresponds to the others.

START DESIGNING

If you’re doing the designing yourself, you could try using a bitmap editor such as Photoshop Elements, but for logo design you’re much better off using vector-based illustration software such as Adobe Illustrator or Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. These are much better equipped for drawing and editing sharp lines that scale up without becoming pixelated. They also include better tools for aligning and spacing objects neatly. Bezier curve editing lets you create smooth parabolic lines that would be virtually impossible to draw freehand.

If you’re up for creating a bespoke typeface, one option is to modify an existing font. All vector editors have an option to convert fonts into freely editable shapes. In Xara, select a text object and click the Arrange menu, Convert to Editable Shapes. You’ll then need to ungroup the object (Ctrl-U) to access the individual letters, whereupon you can double-click to move the vector nodes and bezier handles that define its shape. Another useful command is Arrange, Combine Shapes, Add Shapes, which joins multiple shapes together to form a single vector object.

It’s easy to make a mess of things with undirected experimentation, but start with a plan and the results can be rewarding. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could try designing a typeface from scratch, either using freehand strokes or using rectangles, triangles and circles as basic building blocks. It takes a lot of care to avoid untidy details when editing or creating typefaces, so it’s usually best to mock things up quickly to see if they work, and then go back and rebuild them carefully using the align tools to keep everything neat, if that’s what you’re after.

First impressions are what matter here, but it’s very difficult to get a first impression of something you designed yourself. Leave it for a week or more and come back with fresh eyes. When it’s time to settle on a design, invite everyone you know to give their opinion. If you like a design but no-one else does, remember that it’s other people’s opinion that counts.

EXPORT FORMATS

Whether you’re commissioning or designing, the final step is to make sure you have the files you need. In most cases you’ll just want a JPEG of the logo on a white background. Make sure you export or receive this at a high resolution of at least 1,000 pixels wide.

The logo won’t always appear on a white background, though, so it’s useful to have a version with a transparent background, too. The JPEG format doesn’t support transparent pixels, so you’ll need a copy of the logo in PNG or PSD (Photoshop) format. While you’re at it, also create or ask for a copy in CMYK colour. This is an alternative to RGB colour, and it’s required by professional printing services.

If you really care about the specific colours used in the logo, ask the designer to specify Pantone colours. This avoids the vagaries of monitors and printers to give a specific colour that any professional printer should be able to reproduce. If they mess it up, you’ll have much more leverage to make a complaint if you’ve specified Pantone colours.

It’s also worth generating or requesting a vector file of the logo. This records shapes as nodes and curves rather than pixels, so it can be scaled up as big as you want without becoming pixelated. PDF, EPS and AI (Illustrator) formats support vector shapes. These may not be the files you turn to when you need to use the logo, but they might be useful if you decide to redesign at a later date.

If you get the logo right, hopefully you won’t feel the need to go through this process again for many years.