Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Designing a Professional Logo Design

A professional trademark is the one that is used for representing the image of a corporation. It is used for preparing the design and creating a graphic symbol for an enterprise in an impressive manner possible.

A marketer can make use of a variety of tools and techniques in order to create an impressive trademark. An organization can easily make use of these techniques to design a custom logo. This trademark should be customized according to a person's needs and requirements. A person can easily communicate the message of an enterprise or the nature of business through the designing of an attractive graphic symbol.

There are many marketers who hire logo design studio or services to get a professional logo design created for their symbol. A person can easily make a corporate image with the help of the professional services. These companies have a team of experts that can easily and smoothly design the product or service of an organization.

These experts conduct research first before deciding on any design or pattern of a corporate image. Once the research is conducted and the professionals get to know about the enterprise, its nature of business or philosophy, the design elements are suggested. A complete session or meeting is organized on your project for selecting the designs and patterns for creating a corporate logo. Then selection of designs and patterns are taken into account. The designs, layouts, lines, alignments, colors, shapes, symbols are organized and selected so that they best reflect or represent the image of an organization. Through these visual elements a marketer can also communicate the message of an enterprise to the target audiences. If these elements are selected and designed carefully, the team of experts can prepare a design that is best to look at and it is the most legible one.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Logo Design A Visual Image

Every business must have an outstanding logo for their organization simply because every business is actually unique in its own way and the same spirit should be exuded when it comes to possessing a logo design chicago of a business.

Every business begins with a goal to accomplish something distinctive to its expected audience and once the basic objective is actually understood it provides sufficient scope to present the same principle in a visual form.Each and every business offers a distinctive goal, a unique strategy that helps them to display the difference through the service or over the products.

A stroll around several businesses can inform us exactly how these kinds of logos are working. Occasionally many of us face a few logos which happens to be extremely well designed, they’ve been so properly designed that they precisely express the image belonging to the business in its right spirit. Indeed they offer the business in its right point of view. As soon as we come face to face towards the logos there is a impression of inviting sensation that envelops the intended audience mind.

As soon as we come face to face to the logos you will find there’s perception of welcoming sense that envelops the intended audience mind. And when this experience is generated within the mind of intended audience it must be understood the logo has to a great extent enthused the crowd. This kind of impact is for sure going to be useful for the business because the effect stays long in the minds of its audience.

Precisely what plays in the minds of the audience as soon as they notice a handful of well recognized and widely recognized logos like Nike and McDonald’s, there exists a sense of bonding that connotes in the minds of their customers. Logos that are good, fetches instant recognition for the business and this can lead to longer lasting bond with the organizations. Renowned logo design have helped bring business overwhelming acceptance, quick acknowledgement, a unique corporate identity.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

What You Must Know About Typeface Design

In the past few years, attitudes toward typeface design have changed significantly. The latest generations have grown up using computers, which now considerably influence all design decisions. The point of the matter is that typeface design is an ever-changing concept with new innovations being introduced regularly, and here are the top points to consider when it comes to cutting edge typography:

  1. History:

    Even if modern typeface designers are not all conscious of typeface history, topography as we know it today has still been developed and built on topography of the past. This wide history has given birth to much of the typeface design that we commonly use, meaning that it is important not to throw out the old with the new.

  2. Improve upon Design:

    Ideas in topography are just that: ideas. Typeface design needs to be critiqued, shaped, and developed to improve upon its original form. Even within a wider range of typeface design, it is important that users and designers are aware of how the typeface will look when printed, used online, or on different styles of paper.

  3. Learn Scale:

    One of the greatest skills that a typeface designer can possess is understanding how to scale shapes at a particular size where they will still look suitable when reproduced larger or smaller. Typeface designers have an eye for detail in that they can assess an entire page or paragraph of text to influence their overall design choices.

  4. Use Tools:

    Typeface design is influenced and shaped by writing tools, including graffiti, handwritten signs, and public lettering. In these instances, the typeface designer must be constantly aware of his or her surroundings to garner everything they can from their environment to influence their design.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The significance of a Custom Logo Design for the Company

Logos are supposed to be the face of a company no matter whether it’s a small one or a multinational giant. Today, having a business logo is an absolute must even for those conservative brick and mortar businesses which have only recently branched out into online marketing. So if you want to have a marked presence in the market you need to get some custom logo designs made by a expert logo designer so you can choose the one that best meets your requirements. A logo design should bring out the lot that the company stands for and markets.

Before you choose a design firm to produce the logos for you, check you experience their portfolio of many a logo-design that they have made for their clients whether it is for businesses, association or community groups. Their custom logo design works will give you a fair thought of what they are talented of and where your logos will stand.

Since businesses which have a presence online are doing well, you may want to change your logo so that it is best for the web. Not all logos look good just as they are on websites. Before you get any custom logo design works for your company you must be able to answer definite inquiry that the design company may have for you.

A quality designer will ask you what exactly it is that you hope to Conway you massage through your logo design to the viewers. So you need to be able to tell them what your company does and what it symbolize. Good logo designs should be agreeable aesthetically, should be unforgettable so that your customers can keep in mind your products from the logo or spot them easily and of course they should be suitable to your country or region.

When you ask for design firm to offer you with some logo designs you can show them some other company's logos that you like. You can inform the designer if you favor a certain color or font. You can also provide illustrations of different layouts if you so wish. Or the designer will give you with the different kinds of options that you have. Also, you can go throughout their portfolio and see what demands to you so that they can work in that direction.

When you are in the process of getting your custom logo design completed, make sure you tell your designer how the logo will be used. Whether it will be displayed on a billboard or put up on a website. There are some design parameters to be followed regarding placements and use as well. Not many logo designs will survive the switch from print to web; so you need to express your obligation to the design company right at the beginning.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Rebranding Takes More Than Redesigning Your Logo

What many savvy marketers have realized is that a brand must often evolve to stay relevant in the market. In the same way, rebranding may benefit your company greatly to reintroduce your products and services to your existing demographic and new customer bases. However, there is more to rebranding than simply creating a new logo.

Here are some of the top mistakes to avoid when rebranding your company:

  1. Focusing too much on the logo. Rebranding is much more than creating a new logo, and it encompasses the customer’s experience and perception of the company as a whole. This means making changes online, in the retail atmosphere, and in customer service.
  2. Not having a plan. When you are rebranding your company, you absolutely must have a plan. This will help you to clearly navigate through all of the changes that need to be made in the presentation of the company, including whether or not you need to change your target demographic, budget, website, and marketing campaign.
  3. Not staying relevant. If you are focusing too much on the history of your company, your rebranding may not be a success. You must analyze your target market and have an eye open for any new demographic that could be interested in your product or service.
  4. Not understanding your customer base. When rebranding, you need to take a clear look at who is buying your products. This may mean having secret shoppers visit your website or call your customer service to find out how the customer is really treated. This can help you to make relevant changes from that objective point of view to reintroduce your company to the market.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

8 logo design ideas to get your creative juices flowing!

For all those who think only writers can experience a block, here’s some news for you; logo designers experience that period of complete blankness too. It’s when their mind is void of anything even remotely creative and they dread that they’ve lost that touch they used to have. With confidence running low and being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, even a little idea, a spark of inspiration can get you going. Here, we present to you 8 most basic ideas that’ll prevent you from becoming a nervous wreck next time you run short of your own ones:

1. Paper it all out

In this age of cutting-edge technology, the concept of jotting down ideas and thoughts on paper has become obsolete for many, though some people are still holding on to it. The best way to get your creative senses going, in my humble opinion, is to put it all out on paper. From random thoughts to doodles and rough sketches for the logo design, you can sort everything out in your notebook. So, be BFFs with your pen and paper for the entire duration of the logo design process.

2. Look out for inspirations

Even a miniscule amount of inspiration can do wonders for your logo design. Keep your eyes and mind open at all times, stay on the lookout for anything and everything as even a crumpled can of soda can generate a million ideas if you’re creative enough. Think ‘creative’. Go through the works of famous artists and designers but keep one thing in mind; don’t ever confuse INSPIRATION with PLAGIARISM.

3. Consult and discuss, throw around ideas, brainstorm

Who doesn’t want to hog the entire limelight alone? But when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, one-man glory is not something to remain bent upon. If, say, you have a couple of vague ideas and concepts for the logo design but you don’t seem to go anywhere further, involve friends, family, colleagues etc, show them your ideas, find out what they think about them. While your brain might be drained out, theirs could be full of fresh ideas.

4. Keep your target audience in mind

Demographics matter a lot. If you know who the people you’re targeting are, you can do an analysis of what works best with that audience. That analysis, in itself, will give you some idea of what your logo should be like.

5. Think out of the box

Try to think differently than your competitors. A quick overview of how others carry out the work of logo designing would help you distinguish your logo from theirs.

6. Associate your business with stuff around you

Think of ‘Association’ as a game; find out the goals and objectives of the company whose logo you’re designing, get to know what the business stands for and associate it all with things around you like colors, shapes, places etc. This technique almost always generates 100% results.

7. Maintain a futuristic approach

While designing a logo, try to incorporate futuristic elements as well so that the logo doesn’t require revamping after every few years, or worse, fades into oblivion. Keep your design flexible; portraying your current business position along with where you think you’ll stand after some years.

8. Make use of the slogan

The company’s slogan can provide you with ample amounts of inspiration and ideas for the logo design. If you have the slogan, you’ll be done with the logo in no time. ‘Association’, here, plays a key role.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Biggest Branding Mistakes You Can Make

Branding is not always as simple as it seems, and it is important to avoid detrimental mistakes that could negate the work that you have done in promoting your company.

Below are the top branding mistakes to avoid to ensure your success in the marketing of your business:

1. I don’t need a brand. If you think that you have a wonderful product that will promote itself, think again. Branding is highly necessary because customers want a company that they can trust with any type of product that they purchase.

2. Make a difference. If you don’t differentiate your brand and company from your competitors on the market, neither will potential customers. There are truly many competing companies within any niche market, so you must brand your company to set yourself apart.

3. Don’t lie. Customers want a company that they can trust, so if you get caught in a lie, that bad news will travel fast. This can result in negative reviews and press online, which will affect your branding for the worse.

4. Avoid a cheap website. Your website makes a serious impression on your customer base, so you want a professional and quality website to impress all of your visitors. If customers don’t like what they see when they enter your website, they will simply leave and go to your competitor’s site within a few seconds.

5. Understand your customer base. If you don’t understand the demographic that you are branding to, you may be missing the target altogether. You need to understand who your customers are, what they are looking for, and how you can deliver your product to them.

Future of a designer - a discussion

I would like to enter a discussion into something I feel rather strongly about, so if you have time, grab a coffee and drop your two pennyworth into the mix. I would be dearly interested to read fellow designers thoughts on this matter.
How about the changing role of what was once loosely considered a graphic design profession. It is well documented that Graphic design has undergone massive changes for such a young profession, however the role of a graphic designer was always considered a magical art, from the design of the page elements to the visual communication as a whole for the product. A number of things have radically changed this role in the last 20 years, changed it to such an extent that unless the designers feel they "get with the times" spending years learning new software, new media and how to implement their ideas in this new media, they will become extinct.
This is reflected in the myriad of ways design is now taught at universities and the fact that less emphasis is put on the design theory and is more of a technological nature for cross platform implementation.

With the exponential increase in cross media platforms I now believe that the role of the graphic design has become compartmentalized into a much larger system of work using various methods and software to apply visual communication to a campaign/product. In effect original perceived role of a graphic designer only hangs by a thread in the form of certain print media.

It is also my belief that the essence of what is considered "good design" is becoming a forgotten art due to the fact that there are so many disciplines to learn for a design workflow now that you cannot possibly be expert in all and therefore creativity within this new framework shall suffer as a result. This produces "the jacks of all trades". We've all seen them.

Designers have been part of this problem for refusing to become involved with this new emerging process, mostly shunning it and criticizing its ethics and values in favors of their own insular and now gasping art. By not jumping on board and joining the "team", they have cut themselves off in their insular nature, more importantly they have allowed the new design to become a Frankenstein's monster. Spec work is an example of this. An Aberration in eye of the designer. "Do my logo for 10 dollars competition", winners will have a chance to show our logo in their portfolio. My goodness if we ever needed proof design is a dying art then this is it!

The graphic designers tradition role of visual communication is now only a concept that is spread across multimedia systems, the idea (the concept) is the initial phase of the process and no matter how much they want to see the design process through they simply cannot understand all of the phases involved to such an extent where control is warranted. In effect they will produce the blueprint but not necessarily control the outcome. This is how successful design businesses' will survive now, but beware the jack of all trades who considers himself a designer, this guy will produce media from start to finish for a pittance, without much thought and the implementation of "sparkly" 3d motion graphics for your product. Using templates and pre-produced body-parts they will construct a monster for the business that will probably end in a law suit. This is the type of design we are up against now, which is why we need to work closer together and be disciplined in what we do, we have more choices to make and we need to stick with our chosen area. Only then can we defeat jack and his minions.

How Do Colors and Symbols Influence Memorable Logo Design?

What does it take to make a memorable logo? Really, what design is necessary to make your company logo literally jump off of the page? Logos are what symbolize the overall brand of a company or product, making customers recognize the brand and become instantly attracted to it.

Some of the most famous logos use a combination of color and symbol to personify their brand.

As the perfect example, we are all familiar with the golden arches of McDonald’s. In essence, it is a bright yellow “M”, making it jump off of the page or print so that people immediately know what it is. You can see in this example that the McDonald’s logo depends largely upon its use of color for its success.

Compare this with other simple logos that do not include color or even wording, such as the Nike symbol. This is a pure symbol in itself in the form of a check mark, yet it gets the job done in creating recognition for this incredibly successful sports brand. Would the McDonald’s logo work in the same way if it was in black and white? Absolutely not.

Color is often the most significant portion of the logo design since it can create psychological responses in its viewers. As an example, red symbolizes energy and movement, while blue offers a state of wisdom and calm. Green can be used to represent luck, money, and nature, and yellow is often used to personify optimism, happiness, and laughter.

Nonetheless, many companies choose a symbol over color since a picture is worth a thousand words. In these cases, a combination of text and images can be used to represent a brand and what type of products or services that they offer. With these ideas in mind, you must ask yourself what you want your signature logo to convey, and whether it requires color, a symbol, or both.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Fashion Logos – what works best for them?

Logos have a language of their own. They allure you with their style and colors, their stylistic fonts twisting and twirling you around their finger, compelling you to give them a shot, to try them out. If not all, then at least some significant portion of a brand’s appeal and success lies in its logo design.Talking about logos of famous fashion houses, they say it all about the brand, the quality they deliver, the clothing line they focus more on, the audience they’re targeting and so on and so forth. Their logos speak a more sophisticated language as they can’t afford to be tacky or go overboard because their logo design defines the quality and kind of clothing, accessories they deal in. Have you ever wondered why you are more inclined towards certain clothing logos? Let me answer that for you.For most of the world famous fashion brands, logo designing is a balancing act; standing out while not being too loud, making use of bold, high-impact colors while maintaining dignity and elegance, choosing subtlety and intricacy over complex, overworked images and design.


The best example of a color balance is the Tommy Hilfiger logo. Though inspired by the red-blue-white combo of the US flag, they’ve given it a whole new identity while presenting a patriotic image at the same time. Then there’s the Givenchy logo; perfect example of a symmetric, sharp design, which in fact is the “G” of ‘Givenchy’ that’s been cleverly rotated to create their logo. It clearly represents the extreme fashion and daring designs this fashion house is famous for.

And finally, who said that a logo cannot just be composed of text? Take a good look at bold letters of GAP. It’s not only clean, clear cut and simple but has the added advantage of never going out of date.
In short, a logo that’s edgy and seductive to fashion lovers of all ages and walks of life is the one that’ll survive the competitive world of fashion; rest of them will eventually have to bite the dust!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

8 logo design ideas to get your creative juices flowing!

For all those who think only writers can experience a block, here’s some news for you; logo designers experience that period of complete blankness too. It’s when their mind is void of anything even remotely creative and they dread that they’ve lost that touch they used to have. With confidence running low and being on the verge of a nervous breakdown, even a little idea, a spark of inspiration can get you going. Here, we present to you 8 most basic ideas that’ll prevent you from becoming a nervous wreck next time you run short of your own ones:

1. Paper it all out

In this age of cutting-edge technology, the concept of jotting down ideas and thoughts on paper has become obsolete for many, though some people are still holding on to it. The best way to get your creative senses going, in my humble opinion, is to put it all out on paper. From random thoughts to doodles and rough sketches for the logo design, you can sort everything out in your notebook. So, be BFFs with your pen and paper for the entire duration of the logo design process.

2. Look out for inspirations

Even a miniscule amount of inspiration can do wonders for your logo design. Keep your eyes and mind open at all times, stay on the lookout for anything and everything as even a crumpled can of soda can generate a million ideas if you’re creative enough. Think ‘creative’. Go through the works of famous artists and designers but keep one thing in mind; don’t ever confuse INSPIRATION with PLAGIARISM.

3. Consult and discuss, throw around ideas, brainstorm

Who doesn’t want to hog the entire limelight alone? But when you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, one-man glory is not something to remain bent upon. If, say, you have a couple of vague ideas and concepts for the logo design but you don’t seem to go anywhere further, involve friends, family, colleagues etc, show them your ideas, find out what they think about them. While your brain might be drained out, theirs could be full of fresh ideas.

4. Keep your target audience in mind

Demographics matter a lot. If you know who the people you’re targeting are, you can do an analysis of what works best with that audience. That analysis, in itself, will give you some idea of what your logo should be like.

5. Think out of the box

Try to think differently than your competitors. A quick overview of how others carry out the work of logo designing would help you distinguish your logo from theirs.

6. Associate your business with stuff around you

Think of ‘Association’ as a game; find out the goals and objectives of the company whose logo you’re designing, get to know what the business stands for and associate it all with things around you like colors, shapes, places etc. This technique almost always generates 100% results.

7. Maintain a futuristic approach

While designing a logo, try to incorporate futuristic elements as well so that the logo doesn’t require revamping after every few years, or worse, fades into oblivion. Keep your design flexible; portraying your current business position along with where you think you’ll stand after some years.

8. Make use of the slogan

The company’s slogan can provide you with ample amounts of inspiration and ideas for the logo design. If you have the slogan, you’ll be done with the logo in no time. ‘Association’, here, plays a key role.

Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts…

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Biggest Branding Mistakes You Can Make

Branding is not always as simple as it seems, and it is important to avoid detrimental mistakes that could negate the work that you have done in promoting your company.

Below are the top branding mistakes to avoid to ensure your success in the marketing of your business:

1. I don’t need a brand. If you think that you have a wonderful product that will promote itself, think again. Branding is highly necessary because customers want a company that they can trust with any type of product that they purchase.

2. Make a difference. If you don’t differentiate your brand and company from your competitors on the market, neither will potential customers. There are truly many competing companies within any niche market, so you must brand your company to set yourself apart.

3. Don’t lie. Customers want a company that they can trust, so if you get caught in a lie, that bad news will travel fast. This can result in negative reviews and press online, which will affect your branding for the worse.

4. Avoid a cheap website. Your website makes a serious impression on your customer base, so you want a professional and quality website to impress all of your visitors. If customers don’t like what they see when they enter your website, they will simply leave and go to your competitor’s site within a few seconds.

5. Understand your customer base. If you don’t understand the demographic that you are branding to, you may be missing the target altogether. You need to understand who your customers are, what they are looking for, and how you can deliver your product to them.