For every logo that is accepted by the client with warmth and open arms, there are just as many less fortunate logos who are outcast to exist with little purpose hidden away homeless in an old folder somewhere deep in a computer hard drive.

These logos were either not up to the job or just misunderstood. In any case they too deserve to live a prosperous life and be accepted by society in equality with their more fortunate brother and sisters.

Brandy Media has decided to take action and offer these forgotten souls a chance to fulfil their dreams of being published in the public domain.

To realise this dream a collection of limited edition posters and postcards will be designed and produced showing these logos in all their glory.

This project is currently active. Any updates will be posted on my blog.

Design is at the heart of all known things. For something to exist surely it must of been designed, whether it be by a conscious human desire or by natures constant evolution? Everything is here for a reason and has been created to serve a specific purpose.

The most common preconception of design is of graphical imagery that has been produced using either the traditional method of drawing/painting or the modern digital alternative of a computer. Design is much more than this.

Take a look around you and everything you can see has been designed in some form or another. The plant in the corner of the room has been designed by nature with certain characteristics so that it can serve its purpose. The mouse you are using to navigate this site has been designed by a human to allow the user to control the cursor on the screen.

Taking in this into account, ‘the origin of design’ must be the beginning of time, or before?

Recently I NOTICED that Google had changed the coloured box that highlights the sponsored link at the top of a search page.

I guess this is the desired affect that Google were looking for.

The old yellow has been changed for a light pink in what seems like an attempt to regain the users attention. My theory and perhaps that of Google is that people have got so used to the old yellow colour that they would automatically skip straight passed the sponsored links to the first organic result. By changing the colour the eye instantly picks up on the change and wants to see what is going on, thus getting the user interested in the link again.

To monitor the success of this test Google will no doubt be using their A/B testing software (Google Website Optimizer) to see the results.

It should symbolise your values, what sets you apart from your competition and give a lasting positive first impression.

Too often not enough emphasis is place upon good logo design. It becomes merely an after thought and something that is seen as a niggling necessity for start-ups that must be completed as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

This is a shame and misguided.

Any logo should be given due care and attention in bucket loads. After all this symbol or mark will be the single element that will consolidate your whole company as a reputable institution.

It will be this device that will adorn everything that your company produces. Be proud of it, take care of it and it will take care of you.

First impressions do count.

The next question being ‘what are this Saturday’s winning lotto numbers?’ No but seriously, although it is very difficult to define the definitive official guide to designing a ’successful logo’. There are certainly, however, a set of unofficial guidelines to which most good logo designers try to adhere to. These guidelines are by no means set in stone, nor are they the holy grail of logo design, but do offer a good concise outline and starting point for all aspiring logo designers to consider.

Next time you are designing a logo, ask yourself is it:

1. Communicating clearly

2. Unique

3. Describable/Memorable

4. Effective without colour

5. Scalable

If your answer is yes to all the above, then you are half way to designing a successful logo. These are just a few factors that play a major part in good logo design but of course there are many more. The following paragraphs will discuss these factors in more depth.

1. Communicating clearly

Picture by LarimdaME

Logos are not just supposed to be pretty images or fancy pieces of typography that are easy on the eye. Their primary purpose is to engage with the viewer; communicating clearly and effectively the core products, services or ideology behind any given business or individual. The first thing any designer should consider is, ‘what does the company do and how do they do it?’ Gathering as much information as possible at this stage is vital, as this research will form the initial part of the brainstorming stage.

2. Unique

Picture by William Neuheisel

Identifying your clients’ main competitors in their market sector is the next important step to research. Once they have been identified, notes should be taken on what these competitors have in terms of a logo and brand. Important details such as; form, colour, typography and subject matter should all be carefully recorded. This is not so you can plagiarise others’ hard work, quite the contrary. It is simply to formulate a way to set your clients brand apart from others within their industry, making it unique in some form. Not to say that you should take what you have found in your research and do the complete opposite with your logo design. The logos that already exist in any given industry, will no doubt, already have relevance to what they are representing. It is just about trying to find a balance between tailoring your logo design to be unique enough but still sit comfortably in its industry.

3. Describable/Memorable

Picture by Leo Reynolds

After the research stage, it’s time to start developing concepts and ideas for the look and feel of the logo. Once a select few ideas have been hand picked from the research stage, these ideas must then be put down on paper as initial sketches. Put your creative thinking cap on, the real designing starts here. The aim is to try and incorporate your research and knowledge into one solid entity, eventually creating a finished and polished logo design. To achieve as much recognition and exposure for your design, it is very important to try and make your logo memorable. To be memorable it will also have to be describable, otherwise how will someone remember it?

The key is to doodle, doodle and doodle some more. It’s so important as it is your opportunity as the designer to really explore a multitude of ideas very quickly. Keeping a clear and open mind as you begin to draw, don’t worry about how good the initial idea or drawing is, just keep going. These ideas can be developed later on.

4. Effective without colour

Picture by JoshSemans

Once your initial ideas are down on paper, several of the strongest solutions should be filtered out for development. It is a good idea at this point to start thinking about colour. Especially consider whether the logo will work as a single colour. This is very important in a logo design because when the logo is reproduced across varied media, it may not always be possible to be shown in full colour, if any colour at all. For example, if it is to be blind embossed on to a diary, then it must be as effective in single colour. Not to say that all logos you design must be one colour, that would make the logo design industry a very boring place. Just be aware of how the finished logo might be translated into single colour. A good technique to achieve this is to design your logo in black only, adding the colour at the end of the process.

5. Scalable

Picture by FeatheredTar

Scalability should be considered throughout the design process but will need to be put into use once you have a solid idea to work up to a finished product. Once you have your final logo idea it will then need to be recreated digitally using some kind of design software. Adobe Illustrator is the design industries standard product of choice used by the majority of logo designers, allowing for infinite scalability as it uses vector graphics. Adobe Photoshop may also be used for certain jobs, however, lacks the same scalability found in Illustrator as the graphics are created using raster. As well as considering being able to infinitely enlarge your logo, you should also consider the smallest you would like your logo to be displayed. This is vital as displaying your logo too small could possibly lose some of the finer details visible at increased size.

Summary

In summary, if your logo design conforms to the mentioned points, then you hopefully should have something that is heading in the right direction.

Practice makes perfect.

With over 2 billion downloads already, Apple’s App Store for the Iphone and Ipod Touch is certainly very popular.

A search through Apple’s Itunes App Store either via your home computer or Iphone will bring up literally thousands of applications (Apps) that are available for instant download. From games like the increasingly popular ‘Rolando’ to major social networking apps like Facebook. The vast range of products that are presented to the consumer are constantly growing in both size and diversity.

To highly over simplify the nature of the App Store, there are basically two types of apps: free and paid.

The saying goes, ‘you don’t get anything for free’. This has become a somewhat dated quote as of late. As Apple’s App Store now allows the capability to download a wide variety of FREE full functional and useful ‘mini programmes’. These come under many categories: games, utilities, music, sports and news to name but a few. Currently I believe there to be 20 categories to search from.

Some Free Apps I have found to be of great use (or worthy novelty value)

The Big Boys
Facebook
Ebay
Flickr
Sky Sports Score centre
Rightmove
Howcast
Tv Guide

Small is Beautiful
Twitterrific
Ifooty
Sound Box
Joey Susbilla’s Feed Reader

Early art lessons in primary school evoke memories of endless supplies of Poster Paint and PVC Glue, most of which ended up on my freshly washed shirt. Another fond memory of my early ‘design’ education was learning the colours of the rainbow, which to a 5 year-old child are all the colours they will ever need.

To help our small, but bright, developing minds remember all 7 colours in order, some clever clogs came up with the very memorable mnemonic ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’. A catchy saying that remains with me today, all-be-it relatively useless when it comes to designing for print and the web.

It was not until I began studying for my BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design that I was introduced to the two design industry standard colour systems: ‘CMYK’ for print and ‘RGB’ for web.

Print
Traditionally print is produced either using lithography or digital means to mix various amounts of 4 inks, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK for short) to achieve the desired colour.

Web
Colour that is produced on screen has some similarities to that of print, in that various colours are combined together to form the desired hue. It is different however that it is produced from only three base colours: Red, Green and Blue (RGB for short) and instead of ink it is light that is mixed together.

Advanced Colour System: Pantone
Through-out my time at university whilst undertaking my Bachelor of Arts Degree it became apparent that when designing for print, especially in the logo and branding world, it was good practice to choose colours based on the Pantone system. Pantone colours are pre-mixed inks that are chosen from a swatch booklet and because they do not need to be mixed on the press allow for better consistency and more reliable results. Medium to large size businesses usually opt for the pantone colour spectrum as it allows them to produce printed items with their corporate colours accurately.

The name Ed Hardy is today very much associated with the t-shirts, pumps and baseball caps from the high-end fashion clothing range designed by French designer Christian Audigier.

The range is based on some of Hardy’s original collection of tattoo designs and can be found for purchase in just about every fashion capital of the world, from New York to Bangkok, from LA to Sao Paulo and a hundred places in between. This prestigious range certainly does not come cheap, consequently it was first seen on the rich and famous including Britney Spears, David Beckham, Peter Andre, Kanye West and also Madonna to name just a few. Since Christian Audigier signed the licence agreement to produce the range in 2004, these striking garments have slowly surfaced amongst mainstream consumers.

It is perhaps these consumers who are generally unaware of the origins of the Ed Hardy brand, and what’s more, even know who Ed Hardy is. Don ‘Ed Hardy’ was born and raised in Southern California in 1945. Through his hard work and instantly recognisable style, Hardy was soon seen as a pioneer in the field of tattooing. His style was and still is today eclectic with many influences including Japanese, surf, Cholo and American Hotrod. His passion for the art of tattooing led to much more than just inking up a persons skin with his latest design. Hardy was one of the first tattooists to take his work to the masses in the form of tattoo-as-art pieces within a gallery environment. Hardy went on to successfully curate numerous exhibitions for both gallery’s and private viewings. He was affectionately known as ‘the godfather of modern tattoo’.

Hardy no longer undertakes any tattoo work at his San Francisco based studio ‘Tattoo City’, but does still play an active part in mentoring the current artists. Since the 1960’s he has mostly concentrated on his other passions painting and drawing.

Lurking amongst the endless mounds of rubbish we consumers throw into landfills, there are actually a few hidden gems to be found. No I don’t mean something you should have taken to The Antique Road Show with your granny on a Sunday afternoon. I am talking about those tiny little logos that adorn many items of packaging whose purpose are to try and encourage us all to dispose of our unwanted wrappers responsibly.

To the untrained passive eye, these little golden nuggets of logo design can be overlooked, and perhaps naively mistaken as all being the same. On closer inspection of various examples of everyday packaging, it becomes apparent that the designers accountable for creating the artwork have had a little fun when adding the ‘bin it’ logo.

I have shown in this post just a small example of these interesting little graphics, but please free to email Brandy Media with any examples that you come across. The more unusual the better. If I receive a decent response I will re-post this article with the new logos.

Thanks in advance.