Great brands and Greater Companies have always been recognized by their Logos. This brings us to the essential question ….

So how do you set out to design a Logo?

Many designers-to-be want to know this. Ideally, logo designing should be your first step as designer, online or offline. Since, logo design keeps to and teaches the KISS principle, more so than other forms of design. Here are five simple steps, you will climb, while designing a logo.

Step 1: What is a Logo? And What does it represent?

Contrary to the thoughts of many designers, a Logo is certainly NOT a photograph, its not something that you can click using a camera, no matter how good a camera. Again, contrary to the thoughts of designers, a Logo is NOT stock clipart that you can download. A Logo is NOT your brand. A Logo does NOT tell your story. What a Logo is and means, is an Identity. It is something that will Identify your company or your brand and will later be related by your consumers or clients to your company or brand. For e.g. the Nike logo. Many people think that there is a story behind this logo, truth be told. There is no story behind it. It identifies Nike today, it represents Nike and when ever you see a tick like that, you think of? Nike! That’s right! A Logo is something that “demands” immediate recognition.

So, before you start designing, always remember, a Logo always will represent a businesses commercial bottomline, using fonts, shapes, colors and/or images. A Logo insignia on any product, produces a sense of trust. It inspires recognition and admiration for the business or company. Our job, here, then becomes designing something that will hold true to this.

Step 2: What makes a great Logo?

Knowing what you know about what a logo really is and what it is suppose to represent, its not time to know some basic set of laws and ideologies of Logo design.

• Easy to describe: A logo must be describable easily. You, your clients, companies, consumers; all should be able to describe it easily and effortlessly.
• Easy to remember: A logo must be easy to remember. The consumers should be able to photoimprint your logo. One look and they remember it, everybody remembers it.
• Easily Scalable: A logo must not conform to size. It can be scaled to any height:width ratio. At the same time, its height or width should not distort its recognition in any way.
• No Color, no Problem: A logo should be recognizable without color or with color. Color of the logo shouldn’t be a hinderence where recognition is concerned.

Step 3: Keep an open mind and learn from successful logos.

Did you know that the Nike Swoosh logo was designed by Caroline Davidson and it was designed for only $35!! In the year 1971. Think of it, it is still going strong, anywhere, anyone in the world who sees a swoosh like that instantly recognizes and connects with Nike as a brand and as a company. Yet, the logo is simple! There is nothing to it, but a tick! It can be recognized in any color, any size and is extremely easy to describe! All this for $35! What it represents is a wing of the greek victory goddess, Nike!

Complicated designs, misrepresentation that a designer would never be able to interpret is what makes for a bad one. Learn from these, and avoid mistakes that have been made while designing such bad logos. Have a look at the logo shown below formerly belonging to the Arlington Pediatric Center.

Step 4: Institute your own Logo design process.

Setting up and getting comfortable while designing and presenting a logo is the hardest step of all. You would have to see what design process suites you. Generally a logo design process constitutes of the following..

• A Design brief.
• Lots of research and actual thinking.
• Drawing and sketching it up.
• Conceptulizing and coming up with a prototype.
• Sending the concept and prototype to your client for review.
• Revisions and Finishing touches.
• And Delivery!

The sequence is pretty much sealed, but you can surely play around and see what suites you the best as a logo designer.

Step 5: Know the tools of your trade.

Know your tools, your software, your paper and what ever is that you use to design a logo. Most of the designing community uses Adobe Illustrator and I would suggest you start here. There are plenty of tutorials on using Adobe Illustrator. Following the logo design process as mentioned above, would require to roughly sketch the logo first and then may be start on it using a computer.

Logo Design Resources

Wiki logo@ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo
Get those logo ideas rolling@ http://logopond.com/
Adobe Illustrator@ http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/
Adobe Illustrator tutorials@ http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/tutorials/
Adobe Illustrator tutorials@ http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/illustratortutorials/Essential_Tutorials_for_Adobe_Illustrator.htm
Adobe Illustrator tutorials@ http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/tutorials/illustrator