Essential Logo Design Tips from a Graphic Designer via @bekdavis

by Bek Davis | Featured Contributor

Designing a logo might seem like a daunting and intimidating graphic design project, but it is essential, effective, and can be simplified by keeping these tips in mind. They go through the design and research process, steps to keep in mind, and what kinds of details you want to include in your logo.

The Logo Designing Process

One thing to understand about designing a logo is developing a process that works for you. This is not necessarily what other designers will go through, but it is a good guideline. Some important steps in the logo designing process include getting information from the client about what they want to have in their logo, brainstorming and researching design ideas, sketching your preliminary ideas, then going through the prototyping stage. This is when you create different ideas for logos, sending them to your client to look them over. At this point, you are likely to add some last finishing touches to complete it.

Key Factors to Keep in Mind

When it comes time to get the creative juices flowing and researching possible designs for your logo, there are some key factors to keep in mind that every logo should follow. For example, it should be unique and not similar to other logos, it must describe what the business or personal brand is, it needs to be memorable even if simplistic, must be effective in versions without color added, and be able to work in different scales and sizes.

Important Steps to Start With

Starting the design of your logo is often the most difficult and challenging part. If you can separate the very first part of the process into individual steps, you will find it is much easier. Begin with the brief, where your client tells you what they want. From this very first step, you are taking notes and coming up with ideas. The researching step includes various other steps within it, such as looking up other logo design, finding out what their competitors do, and learning more about the business. You want to do this research before even designing the logo. By going step by step, the overall design process goes much more smoothly.

Choosing Your Fonts

Now for some details about the logo design, starting with the font. Be careful what fonts you choose, as they need to be scaled to different sizes. Some fonts look great in larger images, but when decreased in size, they aren’t even readable. Don’t get too creative and keep the fonts to no more than two. This is plenty to have a memorable and effective logo without looking too distracting.

Making it Visibly Appealing

What you want in a logo is something subtle and striking, while not being distracting to the viewer, but something they will remember. One good way to keep it visually appealing is by using a double entendre. This means it has multiple images (usually 2-3) that are tied together into one image. Consider it similar to a pun of images. It can express multiple meanings wrapped into a single concept.

It should also be noted that while new trends are constantly popping up in graphic design and logos, this doesn’t mean you should follow the trend. The client wants an original logo concept, not a recycled version of other logos.

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Bek Davis – Graphic Design + Branding Superstar – Nashville, TN

Meet Bek from Nashville, Tennessee! Bek has taken the idea of working from home and turned it into art form – literally!

As a trained chef, Bek was able to indulge her need to be creative while assembling unique and tempting new dishes for her clients. But, when her first child was born in 2000, she and her husband decided that it would be best for Bek to become a stay-at-home mom.

While she loved being home with her daughter, Bek quickly realized that she missed having that creative outlet. She also wanted a way to continue to contribute to her family’s income. The solution? Build a business! While her daughter slept, Bek taught herself website design. What began as a new adventure in creativity, grew into a leading stay-at-home mom based website design company. Today, Bek Davis Web & Graphic Designs has grown to include many other experts in web design, graphic design, business branding, and brand marketing.

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Bek Davis