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Professional logo
vs. Homemade
Soup
and chocolate chip cookies are best made at home.
Logos are not.
Your
company logo is often the first element of your business
that prospective customers see. As they say, you never
get a chance to make a first impression. More importantly,
the image of your logo will become cemented in the
mind of your customers as an icon that symbolizes
everything about your company--what it stands for,
what customers can expect of it, and how you are unique.
Think of it as the engine of your business.
If
your car broke down, would you entrust the repair
of your engine to your nephew, friend or neighbor?
Probably not.
Some amateur designers can
make a gorgeous logo. No question about that. But
logo design is not about pretty pictures. It's one
of the most complicated and "artistic" aspects
of graphic design. A good logo doesn't just look good,
it works for you.
It's
not exaggeration or profession territorialism when
we say that logo design is a job for professionals
best left to professionals. Logos
are symbols. Symbols, from simple cave drawings to
complex Renaissance religious iconography, are basic
to human communication. They very often generate an
emotional reaction long before they coax an intellectual
one from us.
What
a logo designer (or any graphic designer in any design
situation) does is use color, shape, form, typography
and composition to influence and, to some degree,
manage the emotional reaction fo the viewer. Just
how that is done is based on hundreds of years of
understanding of how readers interact with pages and
layouts, symbols and designs passed down from designer
to designer through apprenticeships and formal schooling.
These
conceptual and practical understandings extend beyond
just the design process. Average designers are makers
of pretty pictures. Good designers are counselors
and strategists.
For example,
it's not uncommon for a client to ask us to use his
or her favorite typeface (font) in a logo design.
Why, we ask? "I just think it looks good."
Fair enough. At that point, we've found that with
an amateur designer, the conversation ends: typeface
is used, logo is created.
As professionals,
however, we have to ask more questions. Why do you
like that typeface? Does that face match what you
are trying to say? Does it counter the other visual
elements in your logo? Is it imappropriate for your
industry or business?
Type,
like any other graphical element, has meaning. Bold,
serif (having little feet at the bottom of
the letters) faces like Times New Roman, transmits
feelings of reliability and authority. Perfect for
a bank (a variation is on US money) but not for a
water slide park.
Arial,
a standby on PCs for years, is a factual but stocky
and rigid face. It's fine for some purposes, such
as headers and presentation graphics or lables, but
is a little awkward in large paragraphs. We have never
used it in a logo. There are other, better sans
serif (no feet)faces that do wonders at suggesting
a symphony of nuanced meanings: futura (tall, bold,
demonstrative, open); gentle sans (a happy face, its
letter forms seem to chuckle whimsically); gill sans
(like gentle sans but more austere). Which to use
is a matter of experience mixed with learning.
Color
has meaning. Line direction and weight have meaning.
All of these elements play into making a successful
logo. Little of the knowledge of the subtleties of
design come packaged with Photoshop or Illustrator
design programs.
How can
you tell an amateur job from a professional one? When
you shop for your next logo, sit down with the designer's
portfolio and start evaluating. Look for the obvious
first: badly aligned elements, type that doesn't flow
well, awkward illustrations, the use of clip art.
Then look for things that are not as obvious, characteristics
that require you to think a bit yourself: does the
logo tell about the business or is it just a collection
of pretty shapes and colors? Does the typeface match
the business or compete with it? Does the logo just
not make sense?
While
you might not consider yourself and expert, you ARE!
You are a consumer, and you see logos every day. You
can say better than anyone else, perhaps, if a logo
works or fails. Ask yourself if you can picture it
on a business card? Stationary? A store sign? A vehicle?
(That is why we include "real world" applications
of our work in the Case
Studies section of this website. It's shows that
we are not just making logos. And we live by what
we say here.)
There
are a lot of amateurs on the web. There are some truly
talented professionals, as well--fewer of them, of
course, but they are there. One point to remember
is that it's easier to design a logo that is used
on the web...print (lithography) requires a much more
precise, versatile logo that can work in one color
and survive the cut-and-dried demands of the pressman.
That's
a large part of why the Web has been the home of so
many amateurs-posing-as-professional logo workshops:
it's much easier to look good online. The
portfolio of a professional logo designer will have
a lot of one- and two-color logos. Why? Because that
is what works.
Choose
your designer carefully. Use the same discretion you
would were you to be getting eyeglasses or auto repair
or a new roof put on your house. You don't want a
slack job. Professional designers give you the results
you and your business need and deserve--results clearly
different from that which one gets from an amateur
or casual designer.
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