A logo is your figurehead. It is the lead singer of your band. It’s the headlights on your car. It’s the first thing that people associate with you. You’d better make it good. I’m going to talk about what to keep in mind when creating your logo, and what not to do.

Use of Color and Effects

Keep color and effects minimal. If you use a billion colors and layer effects it screams “amateur”. Those are the kinds of logos my designer friends and I sit in coffeehouses and laugh at as if they were something funny that happened to us that morning. Ever seen a logo that is yellow, green, pink, blue and puce complimented with a lens flare and a gradient? Excuse me while I throw up.

You should not use more than two or three colors. There are a few reasons for this. A simple design is easier to remember. You want your image to become part of the viewer’s brain, not overload them. My basic logo is only one color - black ink on white paper. That is about as simple as it gets. People constantly tell me that they saw the logo and came running over to my table. Even if they had just seen it someplace random online and didn’t know who I was, that image stuck with them and it looked cool enough that they wanted to know what the heck it was. Simple is better.

The other thing that is constantly overdone is effects. Effects are so played out that it really looks bad to use them. By “effects” I mean the Photoshop gradient, bevel and emboss, tiles and so forth. If you were taking my class and used this in your logo I would immediately fail you. You cannot professionally print or silkscreen these things, so just cut it out, already. I had a client who insisted on using a gradient in their design and then they wondered why every printer refused to work with them and why they were perceived as incompetent.

It may show up on your computer screen, but that does not necessarily translate well into print media or anywhere else in the real world. Period. Don’t use it!

Fonts

There are a lot of fonts that are used badly, but I just want to address one. Please do not use Comic Sans MS. That is the design equivalent of wearing granny bloomers underneath low rise jeans. This font has been so overused by people that nobody in the design world wants to see it anymore. If you would like more information on this, check out this site.

It is a good idea to look at other logos and how their fonts are used. For example, this book features examples of current logo and letterhead designs.

Logo Design Tools

There are programs on the market that claim to replace your entire design studio and make an automatic logo for you. Don’t bother wasting your money on these cheap programs. These programs were created for dumb executives who don’t know anything other than how to cut costs and where the “hair club for men” is located. These are usually the same people who have the stupidly misguided thought that clipart is all there is to drawing and design. Yeah, right.

I have never seen a good product come from one of these programs. Logo design is not the same as a McDonald’s. You get what you pay for. Live as a cheap-ass, die as a cheap-ass.

Logo design, much like any creative skill is not easy and will only come with practice. The best advice I can give early on is to keep it simple and look at what other people are doing. When you are done, ask yourself if this logo represents the personality of your work. Don’t be afraid to start from square one again. The best designs can happen after you screw the first one up.

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