How to Design a Logo : 10 Pro Tips
One of the biggest design illusion is that it is easy to make a logo. To begin with, a logo is much more than just some color, fancy fonts, and graphics put together. A logo is an essential part of a brand’s visual identity.
Creating a logo required Creative thinking, Creative input, and Planning. Simply you don’t just sit down and create a logo while watching your Netflix show.
So how do you make a worth logo?
1. Get Inspired
Inspiration comes from anywhere and anytime. When creating a logo, the obvious source of inspiration is certain websites like Behance, Dribble, Pinterest. also observe your surrounding. Anything that makes you inspired or happy is the root of an awesome idea.
2. Learn anything and everything about logos
An effective logo is unique, sensible, and delivers its intended message. A well-designed logo is a form of brand identity. However complex or time-consuming the design process gets, the end product must always be simple to understand, memorable, flexible, and appropriate.
3. Make your own Creative process
Every Designer has his/her own creative process and it’s never the same. However, a majority of them following a general branding process, That contains the following :
Design Brief
Taking brief information from the client and making sure you get all the information you need.
Research
Get information about the industry, as well as the client’s history and competition in the market.
Inspiration & Idea
Checking out design inspiration related to what the client needs, as well as looking at the current design trends.
Sketching
Sketching and developing the logo with the given brief and the research that you’ve made.
Presentation
Choosing some design options to show the client like mockups, as well as getting feedback and doing some changes until the design is complete.
- This is a basic process of branding but you don’t have to stick with it, You can build your own creative process. These are the only steps of the creative process.
4. Create a mind map or mood boards
These kinds of tools help you to filter the ideas in your head and mix up various images and logo design concepts. Work with keywords and word alternatives to build up a variety of inspiration using different sources. Place them in one giant mood board to see how they work together.
Personally, I use milanote and Indesign for creating mood boards and mindmap. It’s the easiest way to gather your all idea and inspiration into one board and it helps you to generate more idea and you came up with a new idea.
5. Use pen and paper
Even with the sketching programs available online, sketching using pen and paper is still the best way to express your ideas. Sketching out ideas enables you to experiment freely with shapes and lines.
It doesn’t really matter if your sketching skills are poor. As long as they deliver your ideas correctly, you’re on the right track.
6. Construct Vector
Right after sketching your ideas, proceed to the more technical aspect of design. The best way to save you time when you eventually edit your design into vectors. In this process, Illustrator is your best friend as it can rescale your design without sacrificing its quality.
There are some other vector programs available which cheaper than an illustrator, like affinity designer, Corel Draw.
7. Decide your font carefully
Typography is certainly a key element to an effective logo. There are two main options for this: create a customized typeface or use a pre-set one. If you create your own typeface, avoid making it too trendy. Instead, keep it simple, readable, and classy.
Stay away from Comic sans
Avoid the urge to make your logo better by using comic sans and fancy typefaces. The majority of fonts are overtly fancy and excessively weak. If you’re aiming for a professional and unique look, avoid these fonts at all.
Use a maximum of two fonts
Naturally, there will be exceptions to this rule. But, as a common principle, using just two fonts is smart if you want your design to be separate, sharp, and clean.
8. White space is Beautiful
Most brands require an exclusion zone, which is the area surrounding the logo that isn’t meant to be filled by any other element. This space serves as a protection to the strength of the logo. When designing, think about how the exclusion zone should be used.
White space gives life to your logo.
9. Think of tones along with colors
An effective logo works in black and white and in color. If your logo uses color to express a message, consider the best way to show its meaning when the color is taken off. At times, this requires to change the contrast between the various elements of the design so they still express the same message.
Understand the importance of the color scheme
Colors make up the life of any visual art. Quite often, designers ignore the value of the crafty usage of colors. This is probably caused by the misunderstanding that a ‘clean’ design only involves white.
Pro Tip: Use only 2–3 color in logo design that help your logo to stand out from other’s design
10. Practice all the time
If there’s only one thing you remember from this article, make it this rule. Practice makes Perfect. Your first design is too horrible but doesn’t panic, everyone passes from them. After some design, you will see an improvement in your work.
