My Logo Design Rules

It's a big moment in life when you are starting your first business and creating the logo, website, social media banners, and other marketing materials that will brand your company.

The logo is something you will have to live next to for the life of your business. You need to feel proud of it. It should be something you can't wait to show off. With all of that being said, take a step back and realize what brand or logos you see every day. Take a close look at them considering some of the points I am about to bring up.

A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes, not the other way around

Paul Rand

DETAIL:
Be careful of too much detail. Firstly, too much detail doesn't read from long distances. Try printing your logo out at about 5 inches wide, tape it to a wall and look at it from 10 feet away or more. What can you read from that distance? Try to remember that your logo is going to be seen from all sorts of distances and on all sorts of backgrounds and places.

What will it look like embroidered on a hat or a shirt? Will that little detail make sense at 3 or 4 inches or is it even possible to complete for some mediums?

COLOR:
Your logo has to work in black and white. Not different shades of grey. Black and white. There are plenty of mediums that you will print in or it will show in that just displays better and cleaner. Don't get too confused on this because 90% of the time it is going to be fine that your logo is displayed in color. I think 2-3 solid colors on a logo is best, BUT if you were to print it in all black all of those colors need to convert to black and show your logo in its recognized brand shape. If you print your logo in black (like a fax or photocopy) and details of your logo aren't showing, then fix it. This also applies to gradients. Brand logos usually use flat blocks of a darker color to show shading. Not an actual blend. Reproduction of blends in embroidery or screen printing don't always translate. Keep the integrity of your brand intact by not letting your logo show in all sorts of different forms.

The last thing to consider about color is the actual mix of colors. Most Fortune 500 brands stick with fairly primary solid colors because they always reproduce very close to the original color and they usually contrast with most environments they will be seen in. If you choose your beloved muted green color you could possibly run into a few issues in its future display.

VECTOR vs RASTER:
Vector refers to shape based objects, while raster is based on pixels. Vector objects scale to unlimited amounts without loss to quality. Raster files degrade with enlargement. If you get a logo created in Photoshop (a raster based program) and it looks great on your website and then take that same logo to enlarge to 3 feet wide for a banner the pixels can't cover the new size so it just starts creating filler pixels. When that happens you start to see stair-stepping pixels and blurry images. That's really not how you want people to view your company or logo.

CONCLUSION:
Don't let all of these things scare you off. Most people don't listen to designers when they mention any of the above rules I bring up here. All we can do is bring up the warnings we've seen over our years of making logos for people. I make the joke to my friends that I don't usually second guess a brain surgeon with his advice because there is too much risk. Comparing a designer's advice to a brain surgeon is probably a bit of a slippery slope, but I'm only using it for dramatic effect. Hire a designer that will help you become what you want to be and trust their advice. You are not only paying for the artistic skills, you're also paying for years of making logos and seeing them displayed in a variety of ways.