Logo Design and Web Design A Combination to Effectively Win Minds and Hearts

So much has been said about the importance of a logo design in brand development, marketing and promotional strategy of a business. We have said many things and discuss many perspectives of it on this blog alone and so many wonderful blog posts on our logo design blog. There is no doubt that a logo design is not just a pretty picture to decorate the walls of your office or the premises of your business. A logo design is the identity and the image of your business and how it should be and it is perceived in the eyes of your customers.

A quality logo design alone is nothing in itself until it is applied properly and used cleverly for the benefit of the business or the brand it is representing. There are many ways and each day people are coming up with new innovative ideas to use their logo into different mediums and achieve the maximum brand exposure. However, for starters some places can be a good way to get started on your brand development.

In today's modern web savvy and technologically advanced society, people are spending a lot of their time on the web. Most smart businesses are aware of that and they are spending a lot of their resources to get maximum exposure on the web. They want to be every where from social web to social bookmarks, from blogs to news sites. The best place to start placing your logo design is your own business website.

Free Logo Design Websites - Why they are free?

There is an old saying that goes around like this "There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world". But yes there are many websites offering free logo design services. How free these websites really are?

Most such websites ask you to signup and create an account to create your logo design. Then they provide you with some online tools where you provide your business information like name and tag line. You get to pick your own colors, and fonts. In the end they show you a logo that you have created and send it to your email address.

This all sounds good so far so whats the catch? 

Once you open the image in your email or the image the website shows you to download you will notice that there is a water mark on this image advertising this website. You certainly don't want this watermark on your business logo and to remove this water mark you will be asked to signup for premium service of this website. Now this premium service would cost you exactly the amount that you can spend with a professional logo design company to get your own cheap but unique logo design.

Even if you decide not to go for the premium service and simply discard this logo and forget the whole thing, these websites wont let you forget it. Remember you have provided them with your email address. They will sell your email address to third parties to use it for sending you junk mail. They will also use your email address to send you their own marketing and affiliate offers.

Make The Web Easier - One Website At a Time

Every day there are thousands of new websites appearing on the web. If you are a small business you would notice that in your industry, in your region, there are new websites appearing every day. The growth of the web is magnificent, but is it useful as well?

Certainly, information and the abundance of it is very useful for human society as a whole. However, people publishing this information on the web, do they make it easier for the users to find it and use it the way they want?

Sadly, this is not true in most cases. A large number of websites are not very usable as far as usability standards are concerned. Even more websites follow any accessibility standards and very few follow the coding standards. Designers are forced by their clients to create websites that are more eye candy and less practical. The web design industry is growing because of the business brought to it by the small businesses and unfortunately these small businesses believe that if they are paying for the design they must get the most out of their money.

The purpose of design is not primarily to create eye candy. The purpose of design is to make things easier so that they can achieve the goals and fulfill their purpose. A web design is good if it helps a business grow, increases the sales, or brings more loyal customers. A web design that is extremely pretty but otherwise not very helpful is a bad web design.

LogoInn Design Showcase

Logoinn is a UK based logo design company, offering design services to all size of businesses. At logoinn we believe in quality and creativity. We strive to cross the barriers of standardization by setting our targets way ahead them. We offer a wide range of design solutions to choose from and with our 24/7 support option, and 100% money back guarantee, we offer complete client satisfaction.

Make Yourself Attractive on Social Media

Social Media is the new web, and small businesses all over the world are realizing the importance of social web in their marketing and promotional campaigns. Social Media Marketing is an easy and cost effective way to send your message to targeted audiences and communicate with your clients, customers and potential partners.

But it seems like that many small businesses are getting exhausted with their online social media campaigns and has started to believe that it is not as effective as some people claim that it is. Well the thing is that, if you look around you will find several small businesses in your own niche and industry doing great on social web. This means that social networking, social media marketing and the social web is still a very powerful and effective tool. It is specially useful for small businesses since they have a smaller customer base it is easy for them to socialize on the web.

The real problem is that most small businesses believe that social web is also like a website or a company newsletter, where they can simply add subscribers and then feed them their links and special offers on a daily basis. Many people regard this practice as spam and no wonder your contacts do not respond to your messages.

Social web is a lot like the real social life. In order to get people's attention and build good relationships you are expected to respect other people and take interest in their activities as well. So please act like you are a real actual human being on your social networks and you will start noticing the difference.

Ohh and by the way, if you to decorate your social network profiles then perhaps you should consider getting yourself a custom logo design for social networks.

How Art helps Marketing

No matter what other people say, I believe that designing logo for a business is actually an art form. The creative process is a painful journey which results into joy of creation. Artists who cherish freedom might not enjoy what we do as logo designers. But we enjoy when we can create something that explains a carefully crafted idea to benefit an organization.

Attractive design and beautiful illustrations can do wonders for businesses. However even the best designs fail when they are used with inexperienced hands. Obtaining an artistic logo design is not enough, businesses need to know how they can market the artistic idea behind their logo design.

And when we are talking about art for business, let us not forget other graphic design feilds such as brochure design, banner design, poster design and so on. I would go as far as including web design in the category too. The combination of color, design and aesthetic sense or organized structures is what good web design is all about. But again good design is not good marketing.

Good marketing is when the businesses apply the designs created by the designers keeping in mind the style and message these designs communicate. We all have seen amazing designs displayed at bad places or used ineffectively. This is not just the waste of resources but also affects the brand itself.

Logo Design - How to review packages?

Most of the time as a small business you might find yourself confused with the terms used on the websites of these affordable logo design companies. If you do not know exactly what these terms mean please ask them or you might waste your money on buying something you didn’t even need.

Logo design services providers on the web have some terminologies that you need to be familiar with in order to buy the right package to meet your needs.

Number of Concepts
Different logo design companies provide different number of concepts with their packages and some even promise unlimited number of concepts. A concept is the main look, feel and structure of your logo design.

Number of Revisions

Some logo design companies provide you packages where you are offered unlimited revisions on a logo design. This means that you can send back a logo with your comments for a revision and the graphic designers at the company will try to improvise the logo. But please note that they will not provide you a new logo each time, instead they will stick to the one design and keep improving it.

Number of Designers
Freelancers usually work alone, but a logo design company usually has a team of graphic designers and some companies offer you different concepts from different designers to choose from. More designers mean that you will get to see two different outlooks on the logo.

Turnaround Time and Delivery Time:
There is difference between these two; since you might be needing revisions the turnaround time is when the logo design company sends you the first concepts or revisions for your feedback. Delivery time may vary depending on how much concepts and revisions you are going to get.

Even though your logo design company might offer you a 100% unique logo design, there is still a great chance that your logo might accidentally look similar to some other business or organization’s logo. What you need to know is that most logo design companies ask you to digitally sign an agreement where you agree that you will not demand for damages in case you get involved into trademark or copyright war.
Mostly this is just a precaution from your logo design company’s side. But, if it makes you uncomfortable then ask your logo design company to explain this further to you.

Web Design and your Logo

Using your visual brand identity on your website is just as important as anything else. Small businesses often ignore the fact that the consistency in design increases the comfort level, makes it more easier, memorable and reminding. I have often seen websites where logo at the top of the web pages does not meet the rest of the website's theme it looks alien and not at all memorable.

The question is whether you need to get your logo designed to meet your web design needs? - OR - you should have your web design styled to match your logo design?

Logo design is used every where from print to web, to brochure and on coffee mugs. While your web design is only used on the web. So your logo design should be made to fit all those mediums. It is the best strategy to hire the same company or web designer to do your logo that way it will be much easier for them to maintain consistency between designs.

On your website, your logo is not going to be only image. You would probably be using flickr, twitter, facebook buttons as well. I have seen countless websites ruining their sidebars with many colorful buttons for countless social networking websites. Don't do that please, instead select a few popular social networks where you have some influence and get your buttons chromed to meet the color scheme of your web design.

Adobe Illustrator Tips and Tutorials for Logo Design Artists

Adobe Illustrator is the most commonly used vector graphic tool. We use it to create custom logo design for our clients. We are seriously thinking about starting a blog focused on using the Adobe Illustrators with tips and tutorials to do different things. Meanwhile we thought it would be a great idea to compile a list of websites publishing Adobe Illustrator tips and tutorials for newbies.

Adobe.com Illustrator Help and Support - Official Adobe Illustrator Support site has many tutorials, tips and video tutorials.

Adobe Illustrator Exchange is a place where you can share your illustrator graphics with the community and see other's work for inspiration and learning.

DesktopPublishing.com's Adobe Illustrator Tips and Tutorials page. It contains links to many tutorials from across the web, making it a good starting point for someone who is already a little familiar with Illustrator.

Illustrator Tips, Instructions Information Inspiration is their motto.

Adobe Illustrator Tutorials. We really liked their Basics & Tools category which contains articles specifically for beginners.

Smashing Magazine: Illustrator Tutorials, Smashing magazine has some very good tutorials too.

Make Banner Design Effective Marketing Tool

Banner graphics are still the largest most popular format of online advertisement. But years ago advertisers and marketers came to a conclusion that the wide usage of common formats of online banner design has made the audiences banner blind. What does it mean? To simply put people have now decided to ignore the online banner advertisements.

Recently it was also discovered that banner designs can be the most annoying form of web advertisements after pop ups and pop-unders. However, many advertisers still report that the banners are still there most effective tool.

First of all not all banner designs are annoying. Each day we often come across various informative, suggestive, thought provoking, interesting and brilliant banner designs. They key that small businesses, advertisers and marketers need to understand that in order to be effective their banner design needs to be less annoying and more web friendly or I would say more audience friendly.

Lets first understand the anatomy of a horrible banner design; this design is noisy, offensive, unintelligent, dumb and very boring. This particular banner design has the ability to make me hate the websites that display it and make me use plugins to block all the advertisements. This is a banner design that disturbs me with its fast moving animations and shocking bright, eye teasing colors. This annoying banner design makes false promises and fraudulently invites me to click it by displaying deceptive images.

To make a banner design a really effective marketing tool we need to remove all the elements that make our banner design annoying and instead we should add elements that would make our banner design more clickable and likable.

Colors, using colors that do not hurt the eyes of the viewer is something that cannot be stressed more. Please stop using red font on a yellow background. It really hurts the eyes, looks ugly and ruins the design of any web page hosting and displaying this hideous banner design.

Animations, it is wonderful to know that an advertiser paid extra money to get an animated banner design. Even though most designers would tell you that faster animations make a banner less clickable. But businesses believe that the designers are avoiding extra work, hence they insist on more animation. Please note that a banner that animates too fast not only looks ugly but it also slowdowns a viewer’s machine. Use simple animations that are not too fast and not too distracting.

Fraudulent banners are the most offensive ones. These are the banner designs that pretend to look like an operating system menu and warning the user about some potential threat or an announcement that they have won something. There are even banners that offer people instant wealth, fame and glory. We all wish the world was that easier, and we all know that it is not. So please stop making a fool of yourself no one is actually going to click on such a banner with an intention of becoming a customer.

Inspiring Lives by Logo Design

As we have discussed earlier that a logo is not just an advertising gimmick, it speaks volumes about many things and has socio-cultural aspects as well.

In the United States Geoff Livingston, a prominent blogger/ web media guru has recently got a logo tattooed on his arm. Livingston announced that he if raised $5000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, he will get organization’s logo tattooed on his arm as a payback and to thank the contributors. Lance Armstrong Foundation is an organization that works for cancer patient's welfare and cancer research.

Livestrong Logo Tattoed / CC BY-SA 2.0

Just like you would expect from a web communication expert, Livingston used facebook and twitter to spread the word about the cause among his social networks, he also raised money during the SxSW event in Austin, Texas. Once he crossed the $5000 USD mark, Livingston got himself tattooed. With the help of his blogging, social networks and public speaking Mr. Livingston raised the amount. He then asked the readers of his blog to help him choose a logo design for the tattoo and based on reader suggestions he picked up Livestrong Halo as the logo.

Logo Design - Color Ideas

Colors are the foundation of a good logo design. How a graphic design artist picks up a color palette? Where to look for the ideas and why use a palette? Why not just allow the instinct to take over the artistic mind and create a fiasco?

There are certain limitations when you are working for clients. You are creating visual images of their businesses. These are like tiny portraits of their business, their values and how they want to be seen. So it needs to be well organized, presentable and meaningful. Choosing the right color palette is the beginning of the idea. 

To pick colors you need to understand your clients business and their mission statement. Who they are? What their future plans are and what kind of people do business with them.

Now keeping this information in mind a Logo Design artist you should study colors. Colors not just represent the shades of light. Colors may represent wholesome ideas. Blue may represent calmness, water, sky, and peace. But, it can also represent firmness and strength. Red is supposed to represent love and passion but it can also be representing war and blood. 

Colors may also have different effects in different cultures. The effect of colors may also change in different scenarios, periods, age groups. Considering all this will help you choose your color ideas. Once you have a few colors you can add relevant colors to add contrast and shades. Too many colors might be disorienting so most artists stick to their limited color palette which simplifies the whole idea of their logo design in a coherent and meaningful manner. 

Bunnell, Florida: Flagler County Approves New Logo Design

I have decided to share logo design news with the readers of this blog. The purpose is to highlight how businesses and organizations across the globe and particularly in the United States are trying to achieve their marketing goals and how they are using logos to do that effectively.

Flagler County Old Logo	Flagler county New Logo

In Bunnell Florida, Flagler County has recently approved a new logo design for the county. In september last year the county announced a logo design competition and called for enteries. After recieving 113 entries out of which 72 were student entries, a committee of local marketing professionals hand picked the best three designs.

However, the winning logos are not going to be the official count logo. The county hired a professional graphic designer to do a logo design for the county by incorporating elements from the top choosen designs from the contest. The professional graphic designer then took suggestions from the comissioners and borrowed heavily from the winning logo design.

As you can see this logo is built specifically for the marketing purposes and attempts to highlight tourism industry by presenting an environment friendly image. Eco tourism is already big in Flagler county and the officials hope that by using the new logo on county stationary, vehicles and other marketing materials they could do more effective marketing.

PepsiCo Logo Design and World Domination

Remember Swastika, During the WWII Hitler’s ambitions to conquer to world and impose his ideologies on the world were often reflected by that sign. Later on, Hollywood took over the legacy of Hitler and continued to associate the swastika with Evil Geniuses.

In today’s corporate world the largest multinational corporations do not hesitate to show their ideologies about conquering the world and dominating entire global market. Well of course we cannot compare these corporations with the Nazi Hitler, but there is similarity between today’s multinationals and Nazi Germany, dreams of total world domination.

Here are some examples from PepsiCo’s logo’s representing planet earth and company’s global reach.

The New Pepsi 3D Logo Design

Pepsico Corporate Logo Design Global Expansion Products covering the Globe

Pepsico Corporate Globe Logo Again surrounded by Products

Logos That Speak Volumes

A quality logo is not just a pretty picture created with sophisticated graphics tools. It is an image that portrays an organization or a business. It can convey lots of information, facts, stories and promises to the viewer. It can become a part of the lives of people and it could become synonymous to trust and quality.

Toy Story 3 Logo © Disney . Pixar

These wonderful images represent stories of the business, stories of happenings around that business and stories of its customers. By the time, customers become acquainted by this image and it makes them feel comfortable, cared, and relaxed. This powerful visual representation acts like a spokesperson for an organization. It tells the purpose of the business, the values and practices this business follows, and the promises and assurances it makes.

Pilgrim's Promise Logo -Final Version
Originally uploaded by m23jeske

It bow downs to greet the viewers, politely invites them in to try the services or products, encourages them to ask questions, and tries to convince them. It inspires the creative sensitivities of the viewers, evokes emotions, and provokes thoughts.

There is so much that this tiny little image can do. Those who do not pay attention to own one are living in fool’s paradise.

Understanding Client's Logo Design Idea

As professional logo designers you would often come across clients who will demand that you do exactly what they have in their mind and most of the time you would find their ideas ridiculous. There are two things that you should consider in such situations. First of all you should take client’s idea seriously. Secondly, you need to learn how to be creative in strictly limited artistic freedom


Small businesses are very conscious about their existing clientele, particularly those who are in the business for some time and have decided to finally get brand logo. Their customers already know them and have their own perception of the brand. So when a client is forcing you to draw something in a particular way, you need to understand how they think they are perceived by their clients. Then you need to discuss this so that you could come up something that is closer to how your client thinks their business should look to potential and existing customers.

Effective communication between a logo designer and the client is essential for a good logo design. However, since your clients are not graphic designers themselves, it would be difficult for them to convey their ideas to you. So you should approach them by asking them questions about what they want to be done. Specially a logo designer must understand they values of the business or brand, what are the targeted markets, how the business promotes itself and so on.

Logo Design - Art for Businesses

Logo Design by LogoInn: Beardsley IceCream and Snacks
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Starbucks Logo – A coffee logo with no steamy mug and beans

When it comes to logo design, many design artists and their clients fear to experiment. They do try to be unique but they don’t want to get carried away. Probably that’s the reason we don’t get to see restaurant logos with nothing culinary about them, or café / coffee house logos with no mugs in them.

A logo is such an image that quickly defines your business and creates an image of it, so may be most clients would think that coffee beans and a steamy mug would quickly remind people of their association with the coffee.

However, let me ask you who sells the most coffee in the world? Yes Starbucks is the largest chain of coffee houses and cafes in the world. They made $315 million USD in 2008 selling coffee and other goodies. Surprisingly, the world's most famous coffee giant does not have a steamy mug, coffee beans or even the color of coffee in their logo.

The Official Starbucks Logo Showing a Twin-Tailed Siren (Mermaid) Wearing Crown

The Starbucks coffee logo, shows an illustration of a two tailed mermaid wearing a crown. According to company spokesperson, the twin-tailed mermaid shows company’s heritage and their belonging to the North West Pacific coast [Starbucks is head quartered in Seattle].

Over the years the logo of Starbucks has changed to meet the company’s expansion plans and to be more acceptable in different parts of the United States. However, when Starbucks opened in Saudi Arabia, they completely altered their logo and replaced the Siren/mermaid with just the crown.  Still they did not add a steamy mug, coffee bean or any such stereotypical element into their logo. 

Starbucks had many chances to rebrand itself, but they did not. This makes an interesting study in brand identity and marketing strategy. The name Starbucks is synonymous to Coffee in the United States. 

The important thing that new businesses and logo designers should keep in mind is that when you are designing a logo you are not just offering people a product; you are offering them a name, a brand, a business, and a product to remember. It is not necessary that a coffee shop should have coffee beans in their logo, or a Restaurant should always have food in the logo, or a legal firm must always have the scale of justice in their logo. The point is not to mingle with your competitors but to stand out and shine. 

Freelance Logo Design - Not a smart choice

Why you should not hire a freelance logo designer to create your corporate logo design? Even though the reasons are quite obvious, but discussing these reasons might help us better understand our choices.

More people working means More Ideas and Concepts:
Even a smaller logo design company maintains a qualified staff with varying skills and experiences. This means that the client gets a variety of designs and concepts from more than one designer.

Reliability Factor:
When a freelancer is working on your logo there is no one to watch him or guide him except the client. Since the clients usually don’t have a degree in fine arts or design they often fail to communicate with the freelancer. Miscommunication may result into either dismissal of the job or a bad outcome. On the other hand, in a professional logo design company the designers are working under the direct supervision of the company and the client’s needs are communicated through the channels of customer support and sales departments. These departments usually have trained staff that is able to communicate with the clients effectively.

Bigger Projects and Expansion Plans:
Freelancers take much longer time if they are hired to do bigger projects. This time and the monetary resources can be saved by hiring professional companies with skills and staff to handle bigger projects in a timely fashion. Also freelancers have availability issues, for example you might need something to compliment your logo, for example a brochure design, and the freelance designer might be busy with other projects at that time.

Large Pool of Services:
A freelance logo designer may only offer you specialized services in the field of their expertise. However if you hire a professional logo design company they usually offer variety of services and packages to choose from.

In the end work with a professional design firm means better ideas and concepts, more creativity, more reliability and the timely completion of the project. This is how businesses should hire service providers that help them save time and resources and give the best possible outcome of the money spent.

The Share Icon Project - One Icon For All Sharing

There was once a time when blogs were called weblogs, diaries and online journals. They were the coolest thing happening on the web at that time. Then came Syndication feeds, which allowed the webloggers to share their content in new different ways. Then there came a variety of feeds, like RSS, RSS 2.0, Atom and so on. So the webloggers who were then already jumped onto Blogger and Wordpress blogging platforms started serving all flavors of these feeds. To display a link to these feeds they needed icon so everyone started using different icons for different feeds.

Atom Icon	XML Icon	RSS Icon

Some used XML icon, others used RSS icon, and some used the orange icon that we see everywhere today. Until one day it was decided by web giants that we should make this icon a standard And so came the RSS icon.

These days there is a variety of websites every offering buttons that you can add on your blogs or websites and allow your site's visitors to share your content with their social networks, bookmarks and email contacts. Some websites offer fancy buttons that expand over to accommodate the dozens of social sites. Each of these websites used their own style, design, logos and icons for sharing and it became confusing to figure out how to share quickly without leaving a webpage.

There was a definite need to have something that tells the visitors that if you click on this button or take your mouse over it you will be then showed a list of sharing options that you can choose from. The purpose was to avoid confusion and make it easier for web surfers to share the information.

ShareIcon  Project, offered the solution to the problem. Alex King creator of the Share This sharing service shared the ShareThis icon with the web community to freely use as the standard sharing icon.
The icon of Share this is shown below:

However, there is another project called Open Share Icons a project run by ShareaHolic. They also suggest that there should be a common icon for sharing and they offer their own icon for this purpose. However they oppose the idea of using the ShareThis icon for the purpose. Since ShareThis icon has copyright restrictions, they suggest that a more openly licensed icon should be used for the purpose.

OpenShareIcons recognizes Alex King's efforts but they present their case in these words:

The design of the Open Share Icon is inspired by Alex King's original Share Icon - . The original Share Icon, designed with community input, driven and popularized by Alex King was later sold to ShareThis/Nextumi, Inc.

Since being acquired, that icon has been subject to take down notices by ShareThis/Nextumi, Inc, and its original intended usage restricted in practice. We, as a community, felt these actions by ShareThis/Nextumi, Inc did not reflect the original spirit with which the original share icon was created, and hence felt the need for a new, truly open, free and more flexible community-driven alternative.

I personally go for openness when it comes to technology and ShareThis icon is definitely not open. So I personally recommend using the Open Share Icons.

Restaurant Logo Design

Restaurants are probably the most common of all small businesses. But unlike many other small businesses most restaurants close in the first four years of their business. Reasons vary, sometimes the tax environment is not good, sometimes it is the location, but most of the time it is the competition that eliminates these new businesses.

Diners tend to perform a little better than a full restaurant. Even these diners have to compete with the other already established restaurants for lunch crowd, and breakfast hours.

Marketing plays a very major role in the restaurant business. Effective use of online tools, better design, better services can help a new restaurant build a loyal customer base. Unfortunately after spending so much on the equipment, the dining furniture, decorations and lighting there is very little budget left for marketing. Bu thats the beauty of marketing online you don't need to have big budgets to target your market.

As mentioned in the previous posts an effective marketing campaign begins with a good logo design. In such difficult and competent marketing, every thing needs to be unique and so does your logo design. You will find many graphic designers who would want to do your logo design but the thing is that you can't just hire anyone. You need to be sure that the person you are hiring will bring up some ideas that would knock out the logos of your competitors. Not only a new restaurant needs a good and uniquely interesting logo design, you will also need refreshing new ways to present your restaurant online and you can't do that without a website.

Once you have got your logo design, you can move forward to getting a web design. Signing up for social networks like twitter and facebook, running an e-mail newsletter, or perhaps a blog. Advertising your website in your business card and brochures so that people can connect with you online where you can show them just how wonderful your restaurant is.

Calm and Soothing - Logos of Spas and Saloons

It really fascinates me how so many logo design artists come up with the same idea when designing a logo for a particular type of business. For example, when they are designing a logo for a law firm you would see that a great many of them will come up with the idea of incorporating the lady justice or her scale into the logo.

Some might argue that it is such a shame that these cheap logo design companies come up with stereotypical ideas. Well actually it is not that they are lazy, its just that they have professionals who do not care much about creating something a new instead they would just stick to the rule book of logo design that they have hidden in their desk drawer.

For example lets have a look at the logos of Spas and Saloons created by some logo design companies and the artists. Notice that almost all of them incorporate the same style element into their logos. These elements are elegance, femenine touch, colors, curves and lines that represent female body.

This is the logo os some Real Spa Thalasso. Notice the colors and the curves. 

This is the logo of Maiden spa, instead of using the shades that i mentioned they used black and white but a figure of female body and elegance element is still there.

Now have a look at a non typical logo of a Spa.

This is the logo of a Girl's Gotta Spa Inc. Visit their website 

This logo design is different and creative. It uses a combination of different colors prominently pink, even though it does use a female figure but the femenine curves of the body are replaced with a fun looking portrayal of a comic character. The typeface is not so deadly elegant but a fun elegant. Now even though it does use the similar style elements but it is not an stereotypical logo design of a spa and people would definitely notice it and love it.

The Myth of Web 2.0 Logo Design

I was just reading some blogs and there someone mentioned a term Logos in Web 2.0 style. I did not understand the term so I searched further and found out that there are designers working on logo designs following the popular web 2.0 style trends.

First of all who describes what is web 2.0 style trend. I know that larger fonts and bright colors are the web 2.0 style. But when we design logos we need to make sure that these logos work on all media whether it is print or the web.

To debunk the myth of this style trend just think of a lemon green business logo with extra large Arial typeface. Such a logo would fade away from print and the type would look really ugly. So perhaps the web 2.0 style is just a myth after all it has web 2.0 in it so how it could be applied to all sort of graphic design trends.

Perhaps these colors and style could be followed if the client specifically need a logo for a web design project alone. However, as a professional it would be our obligation to inform them that such a logo won’t look good in print or television and you might need to create different versions for different media.

Logo Design - what is the right price?

The price you pay for your professional logo design depends on what you want to do with your business and brand identity. If you are an established medium sized corporation you might afford to hire a team of famous designers or sign deal with some marketing or advertising agency. If you are a small business with big ambitions you might want to try some expansive free lance designer.

We believe that to succeed in the wild, small businesses need to make smart decisions.  Smart decisions are those decisions which help you reduce the cost and achieve the highest possible solution to the issue at hand.
The smart decision in that case would be hiring a professional logo design company that offers these things:

1. Affordable Prices
2. Unique Designs
3. Customer Satisfaction
4. Great Support

You can easily compare the prices among different design companies. However, it might be a little difficult for you to find out which one of these companies do the most unique designs and have the most talented teams. Because you see in this case the quality of logos is a subjective term. Some might think that one design company is better than the other and other experts would disagree. So you will have to trust your instinct on this matter.  For other items in the list you can read the reviews customer testimonials and information provided on the company’s website.

Whatever you do one thing you should never forget that your logo design is very important for your business.

Logo Design Quality Checklist

As a professional logo designer or as an small business working on a Logo Design you need to understand that a logo could last for more than a century with out any changes. So if you are creating something that could stay around for many years, wouldn't it be wise if you spend more time on maintaining a high quality standard? Below is a small checklist that you should keep in your mind working on the new logo design. 

1. ColorsWhen we talk about design, colors are probably the most important thing. Colors effect human mind in many ways. Seeing a nicely colored shape could make us like the shape, adore it, notice it, and remember it. A shape with a color that is just not right could make us dislike the shape, avoid it, ignore it and forget it. So when you check your Logo’s Design for quality make sure you pay special attention to color details.
2. Font
Fonts are called Type or Typeface in the logo design terminology. Fonts are used to represent the text in your logo design. A unique font gets quickly noticed by the consumer’s mind. But before you select a unique font randomly you need to check that it matches the other design elements in your logo design.

3. Idea
Your Logo Design is intelligent and represents the ideology of your business. The idea of your logo should be creative, neutral, attractive, non controversial, interesting and memorable. People love logos that give them something to think about.


4. Style
Style is how your logo gathers all the design elements and put them on the canvas. For example if the style of your logo is Modernism you wouldn’t want to include Victorian typeface to the design. Or if your style is nature then you wouldn’t want to include concrete structures to it.

MSU - Logo Design Controversy

We have previously discussed just how important a logo design is for brand identity. Recently there had been a debate among the fans of Michigan State University’s Basket ball team over the newly proposed changes to the team’s official logo. While the university officials consider this design change very important for their brand identity campaign, the fans however are not very supportive of the idea.

Fans, students and alumni have protested heavily against the move. Many of them claim that the proposed design changes would change the image of their team. This whole case shows just how strongly people feel about the brands they love even if it is

 their favorite sports team.
While talking to Lansing State Journal Judy Przytulski said:

“This proposed redesign is almost a slap in the face, I feel like it's messing with tradition, and just feels wrong. I don't think I could ever look at the new logo and feel the same level of attachment.”

What we can learn from this controversy that after a while people get associated with a particular brand and the logo is how they perceive their favorite brand’s identity. This association becomes so strong that sometimes changing a logo could affect the custome

r loyalty. Though sometimes a logo could easily be changed for example Pepsi Cola has changed th

eir logo many times while on the other hand their rival company Coca Cola has never changed their logo since more than a century now. Does this mean that people who prefer Pepsi over Coke do not care about their favorite product’s brand identity?

A logo re-design could be profitable or disastrous. You need to know when it is time to go for a redesign and when to revert back if the re-design affects business adversely. We look again at the example of Pepsi, even though they do change their logo often but the changes they make to their logo are sometimes not very noticeable. Instead of building an altogether new logo they basically improvise and 

modernize their existing logo and apparently their customers like that.

Logo Design Begins with Color Palette

Colors are the foundation of a good logo design. How a graphic design artist picks up a color palette? Where to look for the ideas and why use a palette? Why not just allow the instinct to take over the artistic mind and create a fiasco?

 

There are certain limitations when you are working for clients. You are creating visual images of their businesses. These are like tiny portraits of their business, their values and how they want to be seen. So it needs to be well organized, presentable and meaningful. Choosing the right color palette is the beginning of the idea. 

To pick colors you need to understand your clients business and their mission statement. Who they are? What their future plans are and what kind of people do business with them.

 

Now keeping this information in mind a Logo Design artist you should study colors. Colors not just represent the shades of light. Colors may represent wholesome ideas. Blue may represent calmness, water, sky, and peace. But, it can also represent firmness and strength. Red is supposed to represent love and passion but it can also be representing war and blood. 

Colors may also have different effects in different cultures. The effect of colors may also change in different scenarios, periods, age groups. Considering all this will help you choose your color ideas. Once you have a few colors you can add relevant colors to add contrast and shades. Too many colors might be disorienting so most artists stick to their limited color palette which simplifies the whole idea of their logo design in a coherent and meaningful manner. 

Life of a Fantastic Logo Design

This logo design of the world's most famous soft drink is around since more than a century now. It hasn't died, and even though the company had tried new logo designs in the past but none of them worked as good as this one. The reasons are strong consumer association with the brand identity.

This logo design shows us that if you create a fantastic logo design and run it with an extremely resourceful marketing campaign then your logo design would stick to the subconscious of the consumers. This logo would become not only the identity of the product but it could also become a pop culture icon.

The logo designs like that of Coca Cola are not very common though. Most businesses keep changing their logos by the time to meet their needs. For example expansion of business interests and areas would need a new re-branding campaign which begins with the redesign of the logo. It is not necessary to change the design completely, in fact such a practice could be devastating. However little improvements in an already established brand could bring great changes.

Most small businesses usually do not understand or can not afford re-branding their identity. First of all small business owners usually can not afford aggressive business expansions, which leads them to believe that they do not need aggressive branding and marketing either. However, research has proved that small businesses can do much better and can even get to a point where they could actually launch aggressive business moves by spending wisely on their brand identity and effective marketing. Effective marketing begins with a brand identity by building graphic images that become an icon of your business.

These graphic images or logos can be designed by yourself at home or you can always hire a professional logo designer to do the job. You can even find logo design companies that would do not only your logo but would also provide you with stationary design, templates, web design, brochures and other marketing tools. In the upcoming posts we will discuss these tools and how they can be used for effective marketing.

About Logo Design Blog

Hello and welcome to the Logo Design blog. Logo design blog is a place to share tips and tricks of designing corporate logos. The main topics of the blog are design practices, logo design, brand design, marketing and corporate logos. We hope you enjoy your stay here and don't forget to subscribe and share.

We will be sharing best practises in the graphic design, software reviews, interviews with expert logo designers, best logo designs, and better branding practices. We hope that you will help us improve by leaving your comments and sharing your own logo designs with us.