Today I would like to discuss about a few tips on becoming a good logo designer. Being a good logo designer is not simply being good with logo design software such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. It is about being good at understanding what branding is about and how it affects advertising and marketing.

When companies come looking for a logo design, the logo designer should be in a position to analyze the company, the industry, the competitors and brand principles in general to come up with concepts that work on the attributes of these factors. An effective logo should have an impact on its target audience. It should be able to deliver the intended message instantly. As they so often say, you have 4 seconds to grab your customers attention and when one sees your logo design they should be affected at some level almost immediately.

The problem with the current online logo design industry is that due to cut-throat competition and price wars due to fly-by-night companies mushrooming, genuine corporate identity companies are not in a position to get good logo designers and to invest the time it takes to create a good company logo. Sacrifices have to be made in order to pay the bills and keep the business afloat.

However even in such situations designers can follow some simple steps to ensure that they produce quality logo designs. These steps are by no means exhaustive nor are they intended to be the best possible advice.

They are just a collection of ideas that I and other logo designers in Logo Design Works employ to be effective in creating logos.

1) Always ensure you understand what the client wants
It is very important to understand completely what the client is looking for. Some times clients do not have a clue as to how their logo should look. In such situations you will have more room to experiment and try out new ideas. But when a client has put some thought into their corporate identity, then it pays to listen to the client and not be shy about asking questions.

If the client says they want to see some sort of a “pyramid” in the logo design, then it is your job to understand why and what of that request. Why does the client want to see the pyramid? What kind of pyramid would he/she like to see? 2D, 3D?

2) Always research a little on the industry in general
Before starting to put any thing on paper or on the screen, always spend at least 30 minutes researching the industry the client belongs to. What kind of companies are out there? A simple search on Google will reveal a bunch of companies in the same industry. Looking at their logos and their branding efforts will tell you about the current trends in that industry.

Check this case study of a coffe and juice logo design.

3) Always look at the competitor identities
It is also a good idea to check out the competition. This helps you identify the current trend so that you can see the similarities and come up with ideas that will make your client’s logo stand apart. It will also help you realize what is working or not in that particular industry.

4) Try to comment on each of the concepts
I have noticed that when several concepts are presented to the client it always pays to comment each of them with notes of what each element in the logo design means. This helps the client see where you are coming from and also enhances the value of the concepts. Many times clients simply do not understand what a concept might mean and therefore would not like it.

Stay tuned for more tip in this series.

Branding is such an important aspect of business that even apparently boring products such as pharmaceutical products, drugs and medicines become interesting and exciting.

Pharmaceutical industry branding is immature compared with the consumer and business-to-business segments, but that is largely by choice. For decades, a pharmaceutical company’s brand success formula was simple: discover a drug that was needed, introduce it to the doctor via a sales rep, and watch the prescriptions get filled. What is more, the products themselves, secured under a decade of patented protection, were almost guaranteed to generate large profits. Integrated brand strategies were unheard of and unimportant.

A scientist whose role was discovery and development, not marketing directed the corporation.
Gone are the days when companies used to release products with out much thought to branding, especially pharmaceutical branding. Now pharmaceutical companies are are starting to work on developing the pharmaceutical brand even before the product is fully tested and ready for production.

Pharmaceutical branding is an important way of creating awareness among the public to the potential benefits of drugs and medicines. The marketing process and branding give the public ready knowledge of what the product is about and thereby induces them to buy that particular product from among many other similar products in the market.

As more and more pharmaceutical companies start realizing the importance and the power of brands. So how do companies brand their products to stay ahead of the competition? To start with a good name is important. In fact a great name is very important! A great name can increase the value of a product brand and in turn the revenue, where as a poorly chosen name can lead to disaster for the product.

Marketing teams are spending more and more resources on getting the name of the pharmaceutical product right. However naming a drug or medicine is not the same as naming an electronic consumer product. Careful thought and consideration to all important factors is required for a pharmaceutical product.

If the product is going to be sold internationally then the name should not be wrong when translated into the local languages.

The second most important part of pharmaceutical branding is the product logo design. The logo has to be in tune with the target market with the exact font and colors. Iconic pharmaceutical logo design or illustrative logo design can create a great impact on the consumers.

Then comes packaging. The packaging of pills and other pharmaceutical products is very important. Like the name, the packaging and pill can’t look like other products that may sit on a nearby shelf.
Also psychological issues are carefully examined. Take the pill shape and color. If a pill is large, and might seem difficult to swallow, dark colors such as black will be avoided because they make it seem even larger. If the pill has high toxicity levels, then a “hot” color such as red is avoided because it subliminally gives off a feeling of threat, experts say.

Pharmaceutical branding also heavily depends on the marketing and promotional materials. Every thing from brochures to the product leaflet has to be crafted to reflect the brand and appeal to the target market. Pharmaceutical products for children should have bright colored cut outs and packaging to appeal to children.

Pharmaceutical branding is more prevalent than many consumers realize. When you think about it, it becomes pretty apparent. There is no way that a drug company could sell a product by the scientific version of a drug’s name, such as Sildenafil. Who could possibly market a name that you can’t pronounce? You can’t, so they give a drug that is generically known as **** a name like ****. One that is easily recognizable.

Pharmaceutical companies are not foreign to branding, in fact, they have been doing it for years. They have been giving away free samples to doctors as well as free pens, notepads, file folders, and even scientific models of hearts, lungs, feet and other body parts. These are all promotional products and they all bear the name of their corresponding drug proudly. Not only do they brand themselves well, but they personally market the drugs as well.

Pharmaceutical representatives are sales reps and marketers at heart. They love to go out and meet new people and doctors and push their products. That is what they do best. They entertain and wine and dine just to sell their products. Everywhere they go, they are leaving little “goodies” behind and most nurses are always happy to see the pharmaceutical rep because he or she always has lunch and free pens. This is the way they make their sales and its an excellent brand building strategy. Friendly people, with free stuff and medicine that help people feel good.

Pharmaceutical branding exists even farther beyond the sales rep and the free promotional items. Now, they are adding the Internet to their mix. For those doctors that don’t make it to lunch, the branding exists in the form of a website. The website provides all of the relevant information on the drugs and tells the doctors just what they need to know. Even if the doctor doesn’t regularly use a site, they know it is there for future reference or if a patient has a question that he or she can’t answer.

Pharmaceutical companies also know that a catchy name is nothing without a good image. They work with marketers to develop names, logos and even pill sizes and colors. These are all important aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. People need to be able to recognize that the little blue, diamond shaped pill is **** or that long, white on one side and tan on the other side pill is ****. These characteristics are how people know what pills are which and which pill is for what. People depend on imagery and easy to remember names and drug companies are providing just that.

I would like to express a sincere thank you to Jeff Marsh and the design team at Logo Design Works, for the great job on our new company Logo, and business card and stationery design. Everyone who has seen the result is very impressed. It is very satisfying to work with such a professional design team, through many rounds of revisions, and to achieve such outstanding results. Great job! Excellent customer service! We will highly recommend your services to anyone looking for professional results.

Brian Wilson, Captain Electric Inc

The Beginning…

18th March 2005 2:45 PM

A tear rolled down my cheek as I glared at the computer screen intently. I had been glaring at it for the past 20 minutes. I was working on creating a stream illustration for a logo design and what ever I did I still ended up with a very fat file. I was staring at the screen in the hope that an idea would pop up that would allow me to use simple lines and yet achieve the same visual clarity.

The phone on my desk rang. “Hello, Jeff here, how can I help you today?”, I said, welcoming the distraction.

“Hi Jeff, my name is Brian Wilson and I am looking to get a logo design for our company.”, said Brian on the other end, sounding a little nervous.

“Sure, Brian.”, I said, “We have plenty of experience in creating logo designs and I am sure we can help you create yours.”

“Ok. my company name is “Captain Electric” and we are based in Ontario, Canada.”, said Brian.

“Ok. And what do you guys do?”, I asked.

“We provide domestic electrical services including repairs and installation.”

“Ok. And what is your main medium of advertising. I mean, where will your logo be seen the most?”

“On stationery and the side of our vans.”, said Brian, wondering where this line of questioning was leading to. “I would like to know more about how your process works.”, he went on.

I took a deep breath and went into explaining how our logo design process worked. After a few more questions Brian said he would thing about it and sign up if he and his brother Dave decided to go with us.

18th March 2005 5:30 PM

I had successfully modified a shape to make it look like a stream with out using too many layers or masks and was pleased with myself. What I needed was a coffee break.

Suddenly an alert popped on my screen. I had been assigned a new logo design project. I double clicked to see who the client and saw that it was Brian of Captain Electric. I smiled. It was nice talking to Brian. He sounded like an intelligent man who knew the importance of getting a good company logo design.

After the short coffee break I opened the Captain Electric project in our project management system and read through the details. Apparently Brian and his brother Dave owned and operated this company and were changing it’s name from “Nova Electrical” to “Captain Electric”. They needed a new logo to go with the new name and possibly some stationery and a new website.

I read through the project requirements section and found that Brian wanted something catchy to go with the catchy name. Maybe showing movement on lettering? He did not want us use lightning bolts or zaps, Canadian flag or an American flag.

They also wanted their company slogan ” To Serve and Connect ” somehow built in to the company logo.

The Conceptual Phase

19th March 2005 10:15 AM

I initiated the Captain Electric Logo Design project and decided to assign Viktor to the project (since this was a platinum logo design package). Viktor, also a lead designer, had been with Logo Design Works since 2001. A very talented logo designer, his strength was conceptualization. I also assigned Laurie to the project for more creative ideas. Normally we assign only 2 designers for a professional logo design project, but for this project I wanted one more designer to help us with the brain storming phase.

I passed copies of the project brief to Viktor and Laurie as we sat at the conference table in the “Newton” brain storming room. Our office used to have 4 meeting rooms and each was named after a great inventor - Newton, Edison, Morse and Bell.

Our initial discussion centered around coming up with a super hero kind of character for this logo, since the name had a super hero kind of feel to it. But then the client did not want to go into that since he felt it would prove to be expensive to promote such a character at this stage. He wanted to get a mascot design later on down the line.

So we went into a different line of thought. This time we started discussing about the “captain” concept. How can we represent a captain, presumably an air force captain, since the client did indicate he might like that direction. So I called Brian and told him about this new direction.

He was immediately excited and said, “I was thinking along the same lines. In fact I really think having some kind of a winged emblem would really well. What do you think?”.

19th March 2005 02:22 PM

Here is a rough hand drawing of the “wing emblem” concept.

21st March 2005 10:37 AM

So we came up with the “wings” concept direction. Here is the result of the first round of concepts:

I posted these concepts on the studio floor (an online section of our website where clients can log in to see their logo design projects in progress and interact with the logo designer) 8 concepts for the platinum logo design package.

21st March 2005 12:18 PM

I got a call from Brian. He was jubilant.

“These concepts are excellent, Jeff!”, he said. “Way better that what I had expected. I will show these to my brother and a few other friends and will get back to you with some feed back.”

The Revision Phase

21st March 2005 7:15 PM

An alert on my desk top told me that Brian of Captain Electric project had posted a comment and change request for logo design revisions. I opened the project and reviewed the comments.

The gist of the feedback was that even though he was totally committed to the “air force wing” concept, Dave, Brian’s brother was not really keen on it. They did however like one of the concepts (#8) and wanted us to use that as a base to build on the next round of logo design concepts.

Moving ahead with the logo design revision phase, Brian wanted us to use #8 and then turn it into some kind of a super hero shield (not a super hero character but a kind of shield that some one like Captain America might use). The thought process behind this was that this company would server and connect much like how the local law enforcement would say “To server and protect”.

22nd March 2005 10:22 AM

It was raining outside and I had come in late due to the traffic jam resulting from the down pour. I guess it was raining most of the night and the roads were quite wet and slippery. Viktor, as usual was in around 7:30 or so and had played around with some ideas for the Captain Electric project. I poured a couple of cups of coffee, booked the smaller meeting room, Morse Room, and invited Viktor to join me.

After sipping coffee and having a little small talk about the miserable weather, Viktor quickly loaded up the concepts he was playing around with on the huge plasma screen, via his lap top. I liked the direction he was taking. A simple triangular shape to be used as the base logo icon, which would then be superimposed on logo design concept #8. We discussed a few more minutes and then decided to go for this logo creation direction.

22nd March 2005 5:16 PM

Viktor submitted his logo design revisions for the Captain Electric project. I was working on a restaurant logo design project for a South Carolina Logo Design client. I had just completed the initial concepts phase and uploaded the logo design concepts on to the studio floor.

I then opened the revisions that Viktor has submitted on the Captain Electric Logo Design Project and after making a few modifications uploaded them:

The Refining Phase

23rd March 2005 09:45 AM

Very pleasant day. The sun is up and I got to office with out any hassles. I started my day answering a few emails and assigning a few projects to my logo design team members. Because we operate online, we get projects from all over the world and due to the time differences it is very common to come into office in the mornings and find that several logo design orders had come in during the night. It is quite a nice feeling to see that.

I checked my schedule and my alerts to see that Brian of “Captain Electric” project had posted some comments on logo design revision round 1. I opened the project and reviewed the comments.

Essentially Dave and Brian both liked logo design revision #2.4. They both felt that the wings were just making the logo look too busy and felt that the clean cut look of the logo icon in #2.4 would suit their image better. They loved this new logo design concept and wanted us to build on it. Brian really liked the metallic look and wanted us to try the NAME in different metallic colors, maybe silver / stainless steel, and a light-gun metal. He also felt that the NAME could be easier to read if the outline was a little bolder.

Both Dave and Brian thought the banner (To Serve and Connect) is really good as it was (classic - in dark blue with lettering the same color as the Name) and wanted to see the #2.4 logo design with the different metallic colors, the banner lettering should be the same as the name color.

Logo Design Refinement: Over the next few days we presented Brian with the following logo design revisions:

Dave and Brian liked 3.1 and wanted to proceed with that logo direction. Here was the feed back:

1. I do like logo design concept 3.1, but can you make it easier to read? When you look at 3.3 from a few feet away it is definitely easier to read than 3.1 - it appears that the outline is darker, which distinguishes the letters better. Can you try something with 3.1 to help. Not putting an outline around it - but thickening the line.

2. How about adjusting the reflection line that runs through the middle of the logo - try lowering or raising this shading line, or try some variations on the blue - maybe slightly darker, whatever.

3. How about a version without the shading line. I realise that shading gives it the chrome look and I really like it with the shading, but in your experience - will it be easy to embroider on shirts and jackets with shading - or do we have to drop the shading when embroidering?

4. We need to know how it will print in black and white. Our Yellow pages ad will be black - no color. And also how it will look on documents in black and white, for fax and invoices.

5. Our logo design t-shirts will be white (some might be black) and our jackets are black. Can you show us 3.1 on a black background ?

After another round of edit requests we finally got the logo elements just right both on white background and black background.

Corporate Identity Creation

9th April 2005 1:45 AM

We had wrapped up the logo design project for Captain Electric. Brian and Dave were both happy and had sent us a wonderful testimonial. As I was munching on my sandwich the phone rang.

“Hi Jeff!”, said Brian. “Remember me?”.

“Of course I do Brian.”, I replied. “How are ya?”.

“Doing quite well, thank you.”, Brian replied. “In fact we are ready to continue the project with you. We are looking for some kick-ass stationery designs and also a website design.”

“Good news”, I said, genuinely pleased at another opportunity to work with Brian.

A couple of hours later I was reading the stationery design project brief for Captain Electric. Brian wanted to see designs that had lots of white space in them so that the logo will be visible clearly and would stand out. He also wanted us to design a referral card for them.

I played around with a few ideas and drew a few sketches to how best to layout the business card design, letterhead design and the envelope design.

11th April 2005 10:22 AM

I had completed the stationery design concepts for Captain Electric and posted them.

11th April 2005 5:41 PM

Brian called me to say that stationery design concept #3 was a clear winner. He had a few minor changes he wanted made including changes to the address, phone numbers layout and a couple of design elements. After the stationery was completed we also designed and launched a website for Brian.

Ok. Now that you have decided to get a logo designed there are a few things that you need to be aware of so that you can get the most out of your logo designer at Logo Design Works. Please note that these tips are relevant when you are working with one of our logo designers and might not be applicable to other companies as their process might differ.

Logo Designer Schedule

When a milestone is assigned to your logo designer, please note that the deadline is valid till the end of business on the day of the milestone. Once your designer posts the initial logo concepts or the revisions on the studio floor you will recieve an email and you can login to review the designs. Our logo design process is highly streamlined and we try our best to ensure that milestones are achieved on time.

Think through your revision requests

When requesting revision, either via email or the studio floor, please make sure you spend some time thinking through the kind of changes you are looking for. If you have a printer then print out the concepts and show them to focus groups (friends, family, associates etc). Try to get a feel for the design that seems to create the right impression. Ask your focus group to rate the concepts on a scale of 0 to 5. Then use your final vote to select the concept to go forward with and request for revisions. However please make sure you do not fall into the “design by community” trap which might lead to a really bad logo.

Fax sketches of changes required

If possible take a print of the concept that you have selected and try to draw or write the changes on the paper pointing to the various areas of the design that you want the changes done. Then fax this sketch to our fax number at 614 388 5573. This will help your logo designer come up with accurate revisions.

Be prompt in your logo design change requests

Please make sure you respond quickly to any revisions posted on the logo design studio floor. If you do not reply back to a revision round for more than 12 days then the project will be de-activated and you would need to get it activated again to continue the process. This is because your logo designer would be moving on to other projects and we would need to schedule your project again.

If you have any questions on this article or the process of logo design please call us toll free on 866.910.5646 or on our regular line at 614.917.2177 and one of our designers would be happy to talk to you.

When engaging a logo design company to design your company logo, the first thing to be sure about is weather you will have direct access to a logo designer. A lot of the online logo design companies do not give access to their logo designers. Customers have to talk to “account managers” who in turn would communicate with the actual logo designers.

The reason these companies do this is because 9 times out of 10 they employ freelance designers.
With Logo Design Works, you can be assured of contacting and communicating with a real logo designer at any stage of the logo design process. We give our logo designer’s direct phone numbers to our clients.

The client can then call and talk to their designer about concepts, changes they want, file formats and after sales support, including lassoing with their printers if need be.

So what are the things to look for in a good logo designer?

First and foremost, a good logo designer should be willing to “listen” to the clients. He/she should ask the right questions. He/she should also spend some time on researching the company, the industry and any competitors before putting pen to tablet.

Yes, you might wonder. How can our logo designers spend time on research and analysis when we charge so little for creating logos?

• We have a very strong system in place that enables us to pay good salaries to our logo designers and still manage to keep the business profitable.
• We cut out a lot of over head associated with traditional design firms because all our business is conducted via the internet.
• We have flexi time system so that designers can work on projects in a more efficient way.
• We do not have to pay for expensive or fancy office space.
• In fact our design studio is very low key and the only money we invested was in cutting edge hardware and comfortable working desks and seats

Secondly a good logo designer should a lot of experience creating corporate identities. They should also ideally have some sort of formal qualification in graphic design or fine art. Most of our logo designers are graduates in graphic design with some having degrees in computer science. Our recruitment process is very vigorous and we take great care to filter out designers who consider graphic design as a hobby. There is nothing wrong in having it as a hobby but we look for passionate designers who aspire for a rewarding career in corporate identity development.

Third, a good logo designer should be communicative. When he/she comes up with the logo concepts, they should be in a position to explain to the client the theory behind the concepts. This helps the client in making a selection and also in understanding how the logo related to their company identity.

Next week we will talk about the logo design process and what goes into creating a logo. In the coming weeks we will also be studying and reviewing some famous logos.