Friday, March 2, 2018

design principles - What should be taken into consideration when designing a logo?


This is my first try designing a logo. Firstly, I do not like the geometry, it seems like it's out of shape a little bit. Also, whenever I try to scale, everything just collapses. Can anybody inspect my logo and give advice on how should I design it properly?


enter image description here




Answer



Universal/Cross-media useage



  • Every logo has to work in black/white only.

  • A logo needs often to be "cut". Logos attached to t-shirts, caps, cars & signs, so you need clean outlines for foil cutting. Which means: Keep it simple and your lines clean. No one can cut the lines you see in the pathview below. enter image description here

  • Your logo has to work even on low resolution devices and else. Avoid too much detail.

  • Never ever use hair lines (below .75mm). You can't cut them, hardly print them and they won't be visible from enough distance. enter image description here


Care about printing limits




  • Avoid gradients. Those can really get ugly with high compression or no-high-profile printers:


can really get ugly with high compression or no-high-profile printers enter image description here



  • CMYK spectrum is smaller than the RGB spectrum. Avoid starting in RGB. Converting is not recommended.


Before conversion


Before conversion


After conversion


After conversion




  • Never ever leave 'overprinting' in your files. If you got a black flat and a light red above, then you'll see that your images red flat darkens above the black flat.


enter image description here



  • Go with a save color chart (for eg. Pantone, RAL, etc.)

  • Get a real color chart that you can compare - Normally your print shop should have the big ones.


enter image description here


Img taken from here.



Care about data sharing



  • Transform text to outlines - I haven't got your font and so will do others. Which means: The font will fall back by the system to some installed.

  • Or: Pack your font (incl. licensing readme) with your distribution package.


Typo



  • Typo is not about beauty - It shall represent the image of the company. If it's cheap, go with a bold condesed font. If it's luxury, go with a thin font with wide spacing. And so on...

  • Ad Slab Serif: (Imho) Only use for transportation stuff. Check the logo of Renault or Ferrari for examples. Hard to use somewhere else (aside from old italian cowboy movies).

  • If you can't read it from distance: Choose some other font.



Choose the right tools



  • Always use vetors & path tools.


enter image description here



  • If you're doing your logo in a pixle program (eg. Adobe Photoshop), then you're doing it wrong. Even if you're using the pen tool, then you're still doing it wrong. To quote a colleague of mine:

    It's like trying to cut a 2m wood sculpture with a pocket knife.





  • My personal recommendation: Stay away from Adobe Flash vectors and Correl Draw.

  • Save as a low profile (old) version. You will be often in the situation where you need stuff quick (eg. 100 buisness cards), so you have to go to a local digital printing shop. Those shops got cheaper printers (and often older) printers that often not able to print everything that's supported by the newest AI version. If you can't do it with an Ai8 or old EPS file: you're doing it wrong.




OPs original image in pathview:


enter image description here


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