Choice can provide an illusion of security, a false guarantee that quantity will result in something good. The reality is that more crap results in a bigger pile of crap—it doesn’t make it better.Successful brand design relies on understanding, strategy and hard work. Design services that offer unlimited logo designs and revisions also offer very limited understanding and strategic value.
Like rushing headlong into tattooing your lower back during a drunken stooper, fast tracking and penny pinching a logo will leave you with a painful and expensive reminder of a bad decision. Slowly, the full effect of your uninformed choices will come to light. The work might have been done by a relative, a “desktop publisher” or an online logo warehouse but the result will be the same—regret.
On a recent trip to San Francisco, the identity that connected most with me, was the logo for Muni. It’s a great example of how standing by a well designed logo rather than ‘keeping up with the times’ can sometimes provide a deep feeling of authenticity. The identity feels real, lived in and stylish to me—a reflection of San Francisco.
I discovered a new website this week offering customers unlimited logo designs for $20. What do their customers expect in return for the price of a movie ticket? Do they really believe they are getting a custom identity? Thinking $20 pays for enough of a graphic designers time to create anything worthwhile is like believing in miniature hippos.
The most common example of hidden imagery in a logo is likely FedEx and it’s arrow. For me however, it isn’t what first comes to mind. As a child I saw something in the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo that I can’t help continue to see to this day.
Logo design should not be approached with the goal of filling that blank spot on the top of your letterhead. It is not the time to recklessly do something trendy and cool. Most importantly, it is not about getting a task off your to-do list so you can move on to selling widgets to your customers.
The competition is being run by Adobe Creative Juices, a community ‘powered by Adobe’ aimed at a UK and Irish creative community. Graphic designers are being asked to design the new Creative Juices logo with the winning entry receiving an Adobe CS5 product. In return, they promise that the winning logo will be “seen everywhere.”
I am thrilled to have contributed the article The Role of Sketching in the Creative Process to Logo Nest 01. The newly released book is now shipping and I am giving away two copies of the limited edition run.
For the past year I have been very active on Twitter but have completely ignored Facebook. Having recently seen that People Use Facebook 44% And Twitter 29% For Social Sharing, I have decided to take the leap and start using the service. I will be posting more frequently on Facebook than I do on this site with unique content related to logo, branding, graphic design, and design ethics.
A logo is often the fastest way to build brand recognition. It is the easiest way to consistently apply a visual brand, and is usually the most powerful single visual or verbal brand asset companies possess—apart from their name.
Inevitably all graphic designers are asked (or told) to make the logo bigger by their client. Possibly out of a sense of pride? A need for their logo to be bigger than their competitors? Concern over an aging population, and their ability to see clearly? Whatever the reason, logos seem to be getting bigger and bigger.
Photographers grumbled, and now logo designers are whining as stock takes over, making them obsolete.This seems to be the sentiment of a comment left for my recent guest post on the Logo Design Love website. I agree in part. I have heard the grumbling and whining, and I do see a similarity between the increased use of stock photography and stock logos — change does not equal progress.
My creative process has radically changed over my twenty-plus years of designing logos. The greatest change is the shift away from visuals, and towards words for inspiration. Back in college, every graphic design project I completed had to be accompanied by the material that inspired it. As design students, we had to show how we got from point A to point B through the reference materials. We looked towards other designers work for inspiration, and rarely towards things like data, articles, or market analysis.
