"Make it simple, but significant."

-- Don Draper, fictional character on Mad Men

There’s a ton that goes into designing logos. Placement, colors, ideas and creative expression are just a few. We’re gonna be talking about the design and branding process. Basically, how a logo is made, and what goes into a logo. Essentially, a logo is a representation of a brand. It encompasses your vibe, what you do, and how you do it. It’s not too complex, but not too simple either. I’ll explain what I mean

Representation of Brand

When designing a logo, you have to know what the company does. If you have a brief understanding of how the company works, It’ll help the process tremendously. In order to understand the company, you can ask these questions

• How does the company provide its service?

• Why do you provide the service?

• What is the industry of the company?

• Why are you passionate about this?

These questions will really pick the companies’ brand and spark inspiration. It’ll help them explain the best way they can. Through excitement. Everyone wants to talk about what they do, and how they do it. Use that to your advantage. Also, if you’re looking for a logo designer, don’t be afraid to get really excited explaining your companies' process.

Creating, Drafts, and Tools

Now this is the fun part. Take all the notes and do some research! Look up images in the industry. Look up other logos. Get inspiration! Take the time out to have fun and be creative. You are making a logo, yes, but that doesn’t mean that the logo can’t be fun!

Drafting is the second thing you want to do. Lay out all the options your brain has. Sketch concepts. Write notes. Most importantly, don’t rush the process. Perfection takes time. Create a moodboard as well if you don’t have any ideas currently. Pinterest is a GREAT way to collect your thoughts on design. Just continuously pin things that you think fits their brand. This works for companies as well!

There are many tools out there to create logos. You’ll want to stick with vector tools when creating them. Vector essentially means resizeable. It’s the general format that all the big industries use for print and design. A few programs you can use that are free are Inkscape, Gravit Designer, and Vectr (That’s V - e - c - t - r). The industry standard for creating vector images is Adobe Illustrator which requires a creative cloud subscription. It is fairly cheap as well! At the time of this episode, it’s $20 a month. If you’re not looking to pay for a subscription, Affinity Designer would be more up your alley. That’s a one time fee of $50.

Dissecting Other Brands

When you look at big brands like Starbucks, Marvel, Bently, McDonalds, and Apple, they all have one thing in common. Their logo represents their brand! Like I said earlier, it encompasses everything that they do. Their logo represents them as a whole. They also use colors and research to tie it in as well. Do a Google Search on color theory and color psychology. You’ll see those colors were 100% intentional.

You don’t have to include color psychology and color theory in your brand, but it definitely helps and is encouraged. I’ll go into color theory and psychology in a dedicated episode so stay tuned for that.

Summary

So to summarize this episode, Here’s how you can make your own logo:

• Make sure your logo idea encompasses your brand

• Draft as many sketches as you need.

• Put all your Ideas on the table

• Pick your tools and use vector programs

• Use Color Psychology to select your colors

• Get inspiration from research

With that being said, if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask a question in the comments! Thank you guys for reading.