The Basic Way to a Great Logo

By James Rognon

When walking in a crowd you recognize your friend by their faces and personal characteristics. The way they style their hair, wear the same shirt or jacket, or even their personal walk or the way they hold up their body can be very defining. Let's say that your friend changes their hair style without telling you, and you walk in that same crowd, generally we walk right past them without even noticing who we have passed. Even if it is a lifelong friend, we can still be unfortunately ignorant to their existence. This same concept applies to businesses and their personal character traits.

I worked for a company these last two years and within those two years they had changed their logo three times. Although this was a young company and in a fairly small town it still had an effect on the company and its recognition. They mostly did this because their first logo they didn't like. This company explained to me later that the first logo had too many colors, fonts, and was too cluttered. These are the most common problems that I have seen in my experiences.

There is a technique that helps solve most of these problems that occur most frequently. In one of my design classes in college we had a logo discussion. One of my teachers recommended designing all logos in black and white, with no color. The advantage to this technique is that it allows the designer to design a logo without the complication of color. Although color is helpful to the appeal of the graphic, the overuse can make the logo to cluttered and busy.

The goal of this technique is to create a graphic that can create a bold statement without the use of color. When a graphic can stand on its own without color, adding tones and shades will only enhance it, the symbol will have a better chance to be sturdy, solid, and everlasting.

If you would like to see some of my own work please visit http://www.makeshiftads.com And some of my own personal logos are at http://www.makeshiftads.com/Logos.html Makeshift Advertising