More Strategies for Logo Design
Considering that in human cognition visual processing is the most
important channel for gathering new information, it is no wonder
companies spend thousands, if not millions of dollars for the right
logo. A logo is like a compressed story of your company ... backed by a
promise.
When designing your logo keep the following in mind: What do you want
your customers to expect and feel when they see your logo?
How Much Does a Logo Cost?
Mike Crawford, president and founder of Multi Media Communications (www.mccom.com),
strongly recommends outsourcing the design of your logo. "[You] are in
the business of creating a product or service, not in the business of
designing a logo," he says. Service companies on the web offer logo
design for $200 to $600 U.S. Outfits at the
upper-end of this price range will generally create several designs,
from which you can select the one you prefer. Although these services
can be quite helpful in a cash crunch, keep in mind how frequently you
will use the logo on letterhead, web sites, advertising, and product
packaging. If your logo design requires more research, expect to pay
$1,500 to $3,000 U.S. Design Strategies Inc., recently reported that it
charged $13,000 for a logo design created for a software company that
had involved extensive market research, 64 different file formats, and a
15-page usage manual that included instructions and standards for
company-wide implementation of the logo. On the other hand, a
multinational corporation merger might spend upwards of a million
dollars or more for a logo to represent the new company.
NOTE: Creating a company logo that is unique increases the likelihood of
gaining trademark protection. Assistance from a trademark lawyer is
invaluable when conducting a trademark search. Otherwise, your trademark
logo runs the risk of infringing upon another company logo or trademark
symbol.
Start by Looking in Your Fridge
To start thinking about an appropriate logo for your company, look at
some well known corporate logos. Open up your fridge and start examining
your yogurt, mustard, beer, and anything else hidden deep in back. What
makes some logos stand out more than others? Next, head down to your
local supermarket with a sketch pad or digital camera. Once again look
for those logos that stand out. After that, check out your yellow pages
for companies similar to the one you wish to start.
Using Clip Art
If you plan to operate a local consulting or contracting business, or
perhaps even a small corner cafe, establishing a strong corporate
identity may not be high on your list of the most important things to do
and spend startup funds on. Fortunately, a high quality solution can be
found by selecting the right typeface for your company name, and then
exploring high quality royalty free clip art. By experimenting with
multiple clip art images, and combining various parts of each image to
your design, you can create a unique logo. Consider the following design
for a fictional company, Lion Hill Lounge (this logo took about an hour
to create using MS Word and Photoshop).
Keep in mind that even a drastically altered clip art image may be
impossible to trademark. However, you might consider using your design
as is until your company gets well underway and then later, when cash
flow is stronger, replace it with something similar, yet completely
original. Some more tips when using clip art:
Cut out distracting lines.
Remember to
keep your images simple. In the above example, the "lion"
was simplified along with the "hill." If you
wish to show a complex image like a bowl filled with
salad, make sure you simplify it to the point that it
has as few lines as possible, but is still easily recognizable
as a salad bowl.
Experiment with typography.
The above
logo uses the "Architect" typeface. However
the "L" has been rotated slightly using MS
"Word Art." Larger dots were then added to
the letter i's. Typography manipulation is a strategy
also used successfully by big companies such as Dell
with its twisted "E" and Microsoft with its
chipped "O".
Keep the design usable.
Don't make your
logo too vertical. A high and narrow logo requires more
ad space to get a legible size for the logo. The eye
is also better at noticing wider items to some extent,
probably from generations of our ancestors staring at
the horizon and looking for animals to hunt.
Use Vector Graphics.
Vector graphics shrink
and expand without loss of detail (e.g., the .wmf format).
They also require less computer memory. A bitmap image
can easily take up 2 to 10 MB of memory and loses detail
when expanded.
Keep colors simple.
A B/W logo is much
easier and cheaper to print. If your logo does use color,
make sure it also looks good in B/W. If using color,
also try to stick to CMYK-colors that exist within the
wider RGB color range. Doing so will keep your onscreen
colors closer to the actual printed colors.
Author: Peter J. Patsula
Website Acquired: www.patsula.com
Date Written: 2004-02-23
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