What is important when designing a logo
Logo Design – The face of your company
Logo design is the visual centerpiece of a company. It gives your business an identity, sets your brand apart, and provides a foundation to build visual consistency and positive association. It provides recognition, communicates professionalism, and builds trust.
Custom Designs
When designing or commissioning the design of a logo, it’s important to create a unique, custom design that is distinctive. Likewise, you should avoid templates and online logo purchases including cheap resellers that are not transparent about (or they misrepresent) their sources or design process.
You might not be able to register to protect your ‘property’ if someone else already uses the same mark. Applications for trademarks that are too similar to existing registrations will be denied. Furthermore, if someone else already registered that design – you may technically be using it illegally.
Different Formats
A logo should be designed in certain vector-based programs (i.e. Adobe Illustrator) in order to be scaled and printed without losing quality. Vector files are considered the original files. While various platforms require different formats (i.e. ai, pdf, jpg, png) and resolutions, it’s critical that you ask for and save the originals and not just the commonly-exported formats.
Purchased Fonts
If text is included, fonts need to be purchased with a license for using a specific font. Note that font licenses can be for either personal or commercial use. The designer needs to use commercially licensed fonts.
Also, it is frequently overlooked that you will need a license for your own logo. Even though it’s created with your business in mind, the designer created it and has the rights to their creations unless rights are explicitly agreed to and transferred to your entity.
Functionality
There are a lot of best practices and rules that a competent designer should be aware of. Sometimes overlooked is that a logo must be functional in black and white and not just in color (there are still a variety of mediums where you may desire a two-tone output). Other best practices include avoiding excessive detail, too many colors, and mixing fonts.
In summary, professional designers conduct research, apply your brand’s voice, complete iterative sketches and creative experimentation, build vector-based designs, openly offer originals and the rights to designs, and they leverage licensed fonts and resources to design your logo.
Your logo is an important piece of your brand, and our brand strategists and designers at Aventive Studio can help you create a timeless logo that consumers will recognize and love.
The first step to creating a timeless logo is to identify your brand attributes. Download our free branding workbook here to learn how to identify the brand attributes of your business and express them through color psychology and visual designs: