Attacking the Infamous Logo

This wholesale mlb jerseys might cheap jerseys China be cheap jerseys one wholesale jerseys China of Thats the On first CBA things you do when starting a business or the last, but what I know is tackling a logo for a new brand isn’t always an easy task. There really is a lot to consider. It’s important to consider that your logo isn’t just a visual representation of your brand, it’s possibly the most valuable commercial asset in your arsenal. I’m gonna walk you through a few steps it took to make my new logo for Caffeine.

1. Determine Company Name
2. Determine Brand Values/Direction
3. Determine a Feel
4. Brainstorm Ideas
5. Choose Similar Typefaces/Stroke Weights
6. Make It Iconic
   
7. Merge and Tweak
8. Color
9. Trim the Fat
10. Re-Tweak if Necessary

After the first few steps of determining the brand values and a feel of the client (which everyone should do before starting any design) it would be time to either break out the pencil and paper or sometimes I just doodle in Photoshop and come up with several mini concepts. After I’m completely confident with at least 3 mini concepts I move on to the production stage.

When I choose typefaces for a project I flip through my font management software (I use Extensis Suitcase Fusion) until I find a font close in relation to the idea I have and the sketches I’ve compiled. After finding a few fonts I want to play around with, I move to Adobe Illustrator to do a little tweaking.

For the Caffeine logo, I didn’t necessarily want an icon for the brand, but I wanted the logotype to be iconic and memorable in itself: similar to alot of very old, successful brands. (think Sears, Dell, etc.) I wanted the logo to be playful (curls), elegant (didot style type) and professional (spacing and ligatures) all at the came time. After modifying the basis, I went and modified the stroke weights and cleaned up the whole thing in FontLab Studio. The curves in Illustrator and FontLab work in completely different ways. After testing and applying the logo to various formats, I realized I needed a logo with thicker weights for smaller or knockout applications.

For color, I knew before I started it was going to be a brown, finding the right brown that would have contrast on light and dark backgrounds was the key. Sometimes if I can’t find a good color combination, I’ll use the Color Guide Palette in Illustrator. I’ll find a base color I like, then choose a set of matching colors Illustrator comes up within the aggregator. Another great resource for color, that now comes as an AIR palette in CS5, is Abobe‘s Kuler site. After I’ve chosen the palette for a logo or job, I usually shift the color to the nearest Pantone match.

If you’ve been working in the field, we both have seen our fair share of logos where designers have failed to trim the fat. In some cases I’ve seen that a logo is supposed to have a knockout, (where the bottom color is removed from the forefront color) and the designer has just used the underlying color in it’s place leaving the task for the next designer. Other times I’ve seen logo’s with so many points on a single path (most are completely useless) that it’s impossible to edit, use in certain programs, errors out in the press environment, or just makes computers completely unstable. The point is, we need to trim the fat for the next designer or following designs.

I know this wasn’t the most detailed brief, but this was a long post. In all my years of experience,  knowing the company’s brand values and direction is key to delivering a successful memorable design.