5 Principles of Effective Logo Design

• Khurram Alvi
• 19th April 2011
• Graphic Design
• Leave a Comment
• Publishing Policy

To have an Effective Logo Design, your logo must be practical, graphic, distinctive, appropriate, must be simple in its form, and it should carry your intended message. The following five cornerstone principles for creating an effective logo must be adhered to in order to fulfill the attributes mentioned below:

1. Simple
2. Memorable
3. Timeless
4. Versatile
5. Appropriate

Simplicity is the Key!

The image below is indeed a simple black and white one, yet it represents a multi billion dollar company. This is one of the best examples of using a simple approach to convey a massive message. This approach allows a logo to be recognized quite readily. Effective logos are those that can hold something unique, and are not “overdrawn”.

One of the approaches that has been known for some years now includes the K.I.S.S. principle of design. This means: Keep It Simple, Stupid, which is a glaring reminder of how important simplicity is. This sends out a very important message, and rightly so because a logo sometimes just has a few seconds to do its job.

From a psychological angle, the human mind accepts and rejects things it sees over a short span of a few seconds. Sometimes, this decision-making time hardly lasts a second, and this is why it is most important to make an immediate impact, and the best way to do it is to have something that is not complicated for the human mind to decipher. The quicker the human mind can decipher the design and its meaning, the more likely it is that your logo will be perceived well and perform its duty.

If you have a refined logo with a distilled identity, it will do its job easily even if someone whizzes by at a speed of 70 miles per hour. Additionally, your simple logo will be able to catch people’s attention easily whether it is on packaging on crowded store shelves, or on any other advertising, marketing and promotion vehicle. Nike has been the world’s largest internationally branded shoe manufacturer that has been recognized by a simple graphic swoosh.

If you review and assess the success of logos over a range of hundreds or thousands of them, you will find that success has been with those largely that have been simple in their approach. Anything too complicated and flamboyant tends to lose human attention. In contrast, simple logos are most likely to be readily recognized, remain memorable and convey messages easily.

Your Logo Design Must Be Memorable

If you desire your logo to be memorable, you need to make sure it is created keeping in mind the previous pint, simplicity, and it should also be appropriate.

Many people are surprised to learn that the subject matter tends to have little importance in a logo design. Additionally, content appropriateness may not hold sway. However, this does not in any way mean that appropriateness is undesirable; rather, it means that there is often a lack of a one-to-one relationship between a symbol and what it symbolized. Additionally, such a relationship may even be objectionable. With this in mind, we ultimately find that a logo must be distinctive, memorable, and clear.

Timelessness is of Immense Value

Your logo design must be created so that it looks relevant and current over a lengthy period. While it is good to design a logo according to trends around, do remember that trends come and go, and you don’t want your logo to be out the door along with a passing trend. The main concern is brand longevity, and you must make it a point to create a logo that has a long lasting brand identity. Therefore, the best approach is for you to stand out and be different despite trends!

Versatility will Always take You Far

An effective logo can operate across an array variety of media and web applications. It ought to be created in vector format in order to scale it to any required size. Designing your logo this way can be an immense advantage.

You need to answer the following questions in order to ascertain whether or not it is still effective when printed out.

• Can your Logo be enlarged to place on a billboard?
• Is it in one color?
• Can your logo colors be reversed color (i.e. making your logo print light and placed against a dark background)?
• Will your logo look good and be effective on a postage stamp?

One approach to producing a versatile logo is to start by designing it as a simple in black and white image. This approach will allow you to pay attention to your required concept and shape, as opposed to color, which is of less importance at this stage and is also of subjective nature. You need to also keep in mind printing costs; the more colors that you add in your logo, the more it will cost you. In the long run, this will amount to a large sum for your business.

Working with a black and white logo is almost always a top priority with professional logo designers. Working with a simple form is most advantageous, as it will fend off the subjective and emotional elements that often are tied to colors introduced. Additionally, colors can be very distracting, especially when you are working with many of them at one time. The black and white approach is most appropriate because it allows you to stay clear of distractions. Many logo designers will not even consider submitting colored drafts to clients when they know that they are still working on the design with every intention of revisions. Once a client is satisfied with the black and white draft, only then should you go ahead and add in the colors.

It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with processes involved in commercial printing. This will prevent you from facing problems in terms of concepts and practicality down the line. You can also learn to distinguish between CMYK, Pantone and RGB color systems, which will certainly help you to take up the most suitable format for your logo. This will also prevent you from squandering time, money and effort on results that will inevitably be undesired or unusable.

Making Your Logo Appropriate For Your Intended Audience

Your Logo needs to be positioned appropriately for your intended audience. An example of this would include a child-like font and color that would suitable for designing a logo that is meant for a children’s toy store, such as the one above.

Logos don’t necessarily need you to state what their purpose is or what they represent in words or drawings. For example, restaurant logos don’t have food shown. Also, most dentist logos don’t show teeth, and furniture store logos can do without showing furniture. The bottom line here is that; just because something is obviously relevant, does not mean that you must use it. For example, the Mercedes logo doesn’t have anything to do with the car, and the Apple logo has nothing to do with a computer. You are free to be creative when making an effective logo design, and this is what most professional logo designers believe in.

Related Posts

• What are the Secret Behind Good Logos?