Hi again, this is a logo we recently design for the SEO Company ‘The Seo Specialist’. The design process took us in a variety of directions but I think we’re going to stick with this design, it’s a modern logo, would look great on clothing or stationary and ticks the all the right boxes. If you like it let us know in the comments box below

We went through a variety of stages bashing our heads against the wall, ive posted a few below for you to see how we got to the final logo, skipping the worst but remaining honest with some of the ‘not so good’ ideas :p

then we ended up here

dont forget to check out the up and coming seo website www.theseospecialist.co.uk

1. Design legibility regarding the font(s) used.

Good logo designs are the ones that stand out from the crowd, whatever the reason may be, there is something about them which makes them memorable. Remember to consider font legibility, design clarity, font typography, colour contrast and the use of symbolism.

Try not to use fonts that are difficult to read. Time and time again I come across clients who request ‘fancy fonts‘ which are only suitable for certain company names, and I try to advise them about legibility. I personally like fancy fonts‘ however, a severely swirly F, S, J, or K always seem to cause the reader problems as they can be misleading.

Clarity is key, apart form the printing issues I’m going to cover in no.2 below, avoid the heavy use of gradients, shadowing and glow effects. A nice logo clearly bounces off the page / screen it’s on and is eye catching to the viewer. With regards to white space usage ‘less is more’, less text, more white space.

Contrasting colours are a wise move in my book as they stand out to the reader, try not to squash words together to fit them in a box for example, this is a common mistake and many readers scanning a page of adverts will glide over your design as they tend to blend into a grey blur in a newspaper or generate adblock in online directories.

Regarding icons and symbolism to represent words, I love the clever techniques some designers use, the hidden arrow in the Fedex logo embedded in the white space between the e and x letters, the underlining yellow arrow in the amazon logo representing everything from a – z or simply using icons in replace of letters i.e a wheel instead of the letter ‘O’.

I’ll pop a link to a good list of these at the end of this post for you to check out.

Hot Tip : Ensure the spacing is correct between the preceding and consecutive letters to ensure the logo is read correctly and not broken into two words by the reader.

2. Logo design & corporate identity medium transferability.

This issue is very important, have you ever tried to print something and the shadow doesn’t look right on paper? Imagine what would happen if you tried to put the logo on a van using vinyl and create an identical match to the digital version.

Aside from full print vinyl wrapping such as the marketing on a Sky Tv van for example, the most common manner to transfer a logo from its digital format to a real world environment is vinyl graphics which are applied to windows and vehicles.

Vinyl are rolls of self-adhesive plastic film which are cut independently based on their colours then applied to the surface of the advertising medium. Shadow effects are very hard to replicate in these environments and will increase your long term costs considerably.

The same concept applies to bevelling (simple 3d effects), and gradients (the blending from one colour into another) as the vinyl rolls only come in solid colours.

A work around is digital printing but result vary. Some companies also have an online version of the logo as well as a print version for marketing and other mediums such as embroidery on clothing.

3. The use of white space on brochures

With regards to effective brochure design and flyer marketing materials, less is definitely more. A common mistake for brochure design layout is the use of inconsistent blocks of text which follow no visible page pattern. The pages simply blend together and are difficult to read which result in them being ineffective. One of the most eye catching brochures I have come across had a white front cover with nothing but one line of small text in the centre saying open me or you’re missing out. I opened it!

Always consider the gaps and spaces between text and images, make sure the same spacing applies throughout the page or it will look unprofessional and unaligned.

Try to use some clean photography, too many highly detailed graphics on the same page will guarantee they all fail to stand out.

4. Match your industry

Of course you want to be unique and stand out from your competition but don’t go overboard. If you are a florist I would advise against using the same font and colour scheme as a heavy death metal band.

Of course I hear you say, however, others may see something you don’t – ask for opinions, specifically ask ‘does it look like anything else you have seen before?’. Even if the answer is yes it’s not the end of the world unless it’s highly irrelevant or offensive.

5. Do you like Marmite !

In the defence of the designers, please remember that a logo is one of the most difficult things to get right for the client as they tend to be very personal and the chances of the client liking the first design are extremely hit and miss.

Try to help the designer, write a list of 5 words that represent you as a company, draw five shapes or symbols which in your eyes represent the brand, let them know your favourite colours.

To be fair most designers will ask you something along these lines anyway but it never hurts to be helpful.

In some cases you may have something in your head and struggle to get it out, try it on paper or find something online that looks similar and you will get there in the end.

Feel free to comment below and let me know if you found this article helpful. Don’t forget to spread the love and use the social networking tools below to share our blog with more users.

As promised here’s the link to the blog with a few cool logo designs on it, just Click here.

Here are a couple of designs im working on for new clients, the F could be tricky but all the other boxes are ticked, transferability, vinly accessibility, stationary and symbolism have been taken into consideration. What do you guys think ?