Part 2 of New Business Series: 5 Logo Considerations

Creativity sometimes strikes when you combine a couple of ideas. For example, you may decide on creating a logo for a security company. For this business category you probably would want to convey trust, strength and reliability. This can be accomplished by choosing appropriate subject matter and using style, colors, weight, balance and shapes. The idea could be a bear with strong angular or masculine shapes and bold, dark colors combined with a sturdy font to finish it off.

Reproducibility.  It's extremely important that Logos are created with versatility in mind. As the main component of a company's corporate identity, the logo acts as the cornerstone of your visual brand. Logos may be printed on anything like small business cards and pens to extremely large billboards and signage. They need to work well using traditional print methods like offset lithography and screen printing for T-Shirts, as well as other things like rubber stamps, stickers and embroidered golf shirts. Of course, it must also look good on screen for use on websites and other media. The white spaces between shapes should be consistent and not too close together or they may fill in causing a loss in the definition of objects.

Gradients should be used selectively, creatively, and only when they enhance the design. (Define gradient) At one end, if tints are too light, they can disappear when printed and only show up as white. Conversely, dark tints can fill in to solids causing the logo to look muddy and unclear which can happen easily when printed in a newspaper. Also, gradients may not work with some reproduction processes.

It's easy to get carried away with design by adding tons of fun and interesting things but the bottom line is it has to reproduce really, really well. In the end, ask yourself, "Does this help or hinder my design?" If the logo communicates the intended message just as well (or better) without it, take it out.