5 Basic Tips For Creating A Professional Logo

When we face the challenge of creating a professional logo, we need to be clear about some principles. This post gives 5 basic tips for creating a professional logo that we consider essential and basic.

Designing a professional logo is not just about creating a symbol or drawing that identifies your company, brand, or commercial product, but it is also a powerful communication tool for your brand that conveys your essence and values and connects you with your audience. target.

1. Make your logo memorable

Less is more. We hear this expression a lot, and it is a bit hackneyed, but it is still true. A logo must remain engraved in our memory.

Now ask yourself: how many logos do you see a day?

Take the test and try to count just in the space of 1-2 minutes how many logos you see around you, for example, on your desk: computer, keyboard, mouse, screen, speakers, telephone (landline or mobile), router, pencils, pens, the baseball bat you have stored in the closet, etc. Already?

What if you’re in the bathroom reading this post? In the service, you will find various toiletries (for hair, soaps, creams, mirrors, comfort paper as they call it in South America).

If you’re on the street, I won’t even tell you: cars, bikes, scooters, supermarkets, shops, restaurants, spaceships.

And now, to buy at the supermarket, are you able to count how many brands you may have seen in a short space of time in your trusted establishment? It is almost incalculable.

For the record, according to the book “Logo Design” by DAVID AIREY, an average American (for example, from Arkansas, I made this up) sees an average of 16,000 logos, advertisements, or labels per day.

And it is that we do not realize, but the amount of visual information that we register in a day is beastly.

And there are two key questions:

How long do you see those logos?

Which ones do you remember the most?

The mind is selective, and we are already very used to visual pollution, so we can perhaps remember a few unless you have a Rain Man-style photographic memory.

Well, you probably remember the ones that really caught your attention (because of their color, shape, seemed modern, old-fashioned, conveyed a quick association of ideas, or even because of their ugliness, which can also happen).

And now another question: Which of those logos could you reproduce if you now had a pencil and paper at hand?

That’s what we mean by memorability. May your brand remain engraved in memory, be remembered, and even better: that it can be easily reproduced.

2. Your logo must transmit messages

It is not about creating a logo that is too figurative or that all your branding is based on the design of the logo, but there are many ways to transmit one or several messages, thanks to the color, the typography, the lines, the thickness, the ways and these can suggest us:

• Luxury
• Elegance
• Freshness
• Abandon
• Overcoming
• Sympathy
• Energy
• Closeness

They can also transmit disorder, chaos, and even epileptic seizures (if they are badly done).

You have done well if you manage to make your professional logo convey a message. If in addition that message is understood quickly better than better. And even more, if, in addition to transmitting that first message or association to us when seeing it in more detail, it transmits other things to us, it already becomes excellent.

Also, read Questions To Ask When Designing A Logo

3. Your logo must be versatile

This is a condition that your logo design must meet today.

Why? Well simple. In how many printed or digital media do we see a logo today?

It is no longer just about printing it on paper, on a poster, or in an envelope. Today we have social networks, websites, apps, digital clocks, 75″-100″ screens, or 6″ vertical or horizontal mobile devices.

So it is possible that you need more than one version of your logo.

Do you know what a responsive logo is?

Surely you have heard this term more related to web design.

A responsive website adapts to the format and device in which it is displayed (to explain it quickly). also, if you want more information, here is a complete post.

“Logos must be like water in order to adapt to the container that contains them.”

Your professional logo must have at least the following versions:

Black and white color version

Color version/corporate colors

Positive version (on white background)

Negative version (on black or colored background)

Version for horizontal format

Version for vertical format.

Because applying a logo with a very horizontal design, for example, in the profile image of social networks (square or round in general), can be complicated. It can be cut or not read well due to its size adjusted to the format.

That is why it is good to have a vertical version, or even use if you have one, the representative graphic symbol of the brand (in our case, the “k”)

4.- Try to make your logo last

There really are brands that have stood the test of time very well and have endured maintaining their essence. There can always be some revision or restyling. These logos preserve an identity recognized by all.

“Our advice for this is: run away from trends.”

Trends are cool, but they don’t last forever. Try to avoid fonts or techniques that are in fashion because they will become obsolete in a short time.

It is about trying to make the design timeless, and this is difficult. But to give an example, there are very old typefaces such as Futura, which was created in 1927, and today it continues to represent modernity and is widely used (besides, you can always modify them: extend, for example, its kerning, use a combination of different weights, colors, etc.) The same happens with others such as Helvetica (of which there are many thicknesses and versions, and with which very diverse designs can be made), and today it is still more than valid.

It is better to follow some traditions than to get carried away by fashions. The same happens with certain elements, shapes, or colors that end up being redundant and, at the same time, obsolete due to their extensive use.

So, although it is difficult and we are not fortune tellers to know if our logo will last a short or long time, let’s try by all means not to become obsolete. Again the rule of less is more. The cleanliness in the design, color, originality and a good design base will help you make your logo design last.

5. A logo must be legible

We do not want to freak out too much and complicate the design so that it cannot be easily read. It sounds like bullshit, but there are many examples. So the last piece of advice is: to take care of readability.

We also have to take into account the distance at which we can see it or the design, which is very small in some formats, or difficult to read at a long distance.

You can make modifications to the fonts to generate the effect you want, include elements within them, change their kerning (greater or smaller) or line spacing, but then check if the brand is still read correctly and effortlessly with these changes.

Also, be careful with the use of color or very fine typography weights because they could play tricks on you in reduced sizes.

For this, there is the rule of the minimum legible scale that your logo must have, and that must always appear in a corporate manual. The better the logo reads in a small format, the better, the more understandable it will be, and the more versatile, as we discussed earlier.

To conclude

These have been the 5 tips or basic principles to create a professional logo. There is much more, and really creating a professional logo is not an easy task. There are many aspects to consider and techniques to achieve a design that meets these conditions.

If you want to know a little more about the process or want to start creating a professional logo, we recommend that you start here. If you like this type of content, we can continue talking about it. So let us know in the comments or on Social Networks,