The other businesses may flourish at one time and then may fade away after some time because of the changes in the customers’ way of life which is dependent on the development of science and technology, but the real estate business stays put with a minor recessions now and then and a spell of stagnation in an area or two. Even in case of complete evacuation of the residents and closure of all business in a town due to natural calamities such as floods and earthquakes, or due to running dry of natural resources such as mines becoming barn and ports being closed for some inexplicable reasons, the real estate business has a lucrative market relocating the evacuees and their businesses in some other area!!

The size of the land is fixed but the size of the population is not, which means the people using the land grow more and more while the arable land stays the same. This is where the demand and supply is imbalanced. Humans with their large and well-developed brains have tried their best to stretch the land to its limits, with dire consequences to the ecology, by cutting down the forests and wiping out the other animals totally, levelling up the jagged terrain, and by stretching it upward by building skyscrapers! And naturally the Real Estate business has a continuous market, either vertical or horizontal!

Even though the name might be different, the real estate business has been with us for hundred of thousands of years. The arable land used to be in the hands of the rulers in the ancient and medieval times, and the rulers granted temporary ownership or ‘title’ to those who were very loyal to them. These ‘landlords’ (lords, barons, counts, dukes, etc.) did not work on the land in their possession but leased them to the other people, usually poor people, who were willing to work on it on payment of some fee (rent) in return, and the landlords kept some portion of the income for themselves and paid the rest in the form of tribute or in some cases by supplying work force or soldiers to the rulers.

This process had a huge flaw in it: the rulers were dethroned quite frequently and new rulers were crowned, and the new rulers naturally cancelled all the land grants of the previous rulers and granted the same lands afresh to their own preferred loyal subjects. This created uncertainty among the masses because nobody wanted to work on the lands without certainty because cultivation was a year long process and one farmer (peasant) sowed the seeds and tended until it was ready to be reaped but the fruits of his labour would be enjoyed by someone else! Gradually, after several protests and revolutions in several different parts of the world some time at the end of the medieval age, new regulations had been formulated to make land ownership more stable with permanent rights of ownership to the ‘landlords’, and consequently, more certainty in the minds of the tenants. {The regulations and reforms are still being formulated even to this day!}

In the modern times, however, once a person ‘purchases’ a piece land, agriculture or housing, and gets his/her land registered with a government agency, registrar’s office, it is his legally, and he can sell, lease, let (rent) or pass it on to his children or relatives.

This present multi-billion dollar and multi-national real estate business had very humble beginnings:

Until some fifty or so years ago the business of selling and buying of the land and buildings was mostly a matter handled by local ‘brokers’, inevitably the local unemployed or retired people with the knowledge of the lie of the land, who acted just as middlemen between the seller and the buyer. The transactions were simple and direct and the deal was closed with a few negotiations.

Over the years, however, the ‘local activity’ of ‘land and house’ brokerage has grown into a regional affair as a result of more and more large factories, mills and companies showing up in places nobody has ever thought of before, depending on the access to raw material, work force or means of transport such as a railway line or a port in the vicinity. And naturally there is a demand for the land – a sleepy village grows into a bustling city in a matter of a couple of years. The best example could be California. With the gold rush in 1848-1852, a non-descriptive place that had originally been a part of Mexico transformed into such a prosperous region that it had to be hastily included as a state in the USA. Some insignificant fishing villages bloomed into large ports as a result of the discovery of a particular fish, some sort of fossil fuel or some other kind of raw material or mineral being tapped in a near-by area.

A more recent event, which I happened to stumble upon on the Net, is ‘Slifer & Company’ the real estate agency in Vail Valley in Colorado, which a Mr. Rod Slifer started in 1968. It is very interesting to learn how an out of the way place changed into a tourist attraction centre with ski resorts and other holiday activities in near-by Beaver Creek, and how the ‘one-man housing agency’ was developed into a real estate business of international recognition within a decade! [Now the Vail Valley has several real estate agencies, handling physical and virtual markets with links and hyper-links.]

The real estate is undoubtedly a prosperous business, but as there are hitches in the other businesses, the real estate business also has its own ups and downs. As there are several factors that boost the growth of this business in a region, so are there several factors, such as recession, government change-over, stock market fluctuation, etc. that act adversely leading the entire business in a region to the gallows.

Of the several categories of deals: agricultural land deals, commercial land deals, residential deals with letting, leasing and selling or buying, maintaining the property, etc., the most lucrative may be the commercial and residential deals. And in residential deals, selling and buying is more profitable than simple letting (renting) because the legalities and bank transactions involved are numerous, and consequently, the number of clients is more and the percentage of commission is high.

However, buying a house is not an everyday affair. Once a potential customer buys a house he/she is going to live in it for the most part of his/her life. It may be another 30 or 40 years, if at all, before another deal on the same house comes on to the market, which makes this business progressive all the time in general but limited in terms of number in particular most of the time. This factor, along with the other factor of the limited availability of the arable land, makes this real estate business literally a cut-throat market. (It has become common place to see an item or two in the news broadcast every day how two rival real estate agents used violent methods in the process of acquiring dominance. There have been incidents where the underworld mafia dons are involved making this lucrative business bloody.)

In this systematic chaos only one thing keeps a real estate agency in the ‘green zone’ and that is ‘honesty’! That honesty in the dealings must be exposed before and after a deal is closed. After a successful deal everybody is happy and the client may show his client-loyalty by recommending the agency to some of his friends and relatives.

But how do you make the client trust the firm before the deal?

This is where the agency’s own advertisement designer plays a pivotal role.

{One would not stop wondering how a logo can cause reactions that are really damaging to the logo designer and the business that has the logo. The best example can be the logo designed for ‘London 2012 Olympics’ – a causal visit to their official website shows us the aversion people have to a ‘bad’ logo design.}

In contrast with the other physical market items where the product can be seen and appraised by the customer directly, in real estate business, the value of a piece of land or a building depends more on the other factors, such as access to roads, proximity of shopping centres, medical facilities, schools, and the amenities, such as water, electricity, etc. In addition, the transfer of ownership of land is very complicated with ‘n’ number of legalities involved; therefore, the real estate market in the districts with fewer restrictions is more lucrative. Most of the first time buyers are not aware of these factors or cannot experience them without having used that property for some considerable time. So, these essentials must be guaranteed by the agent or realtor, and the assurance made in the ad must be felt by the client … at a glance!

Here we have some simple and pleasant, but very appropriate and informative real estate logos:

Check out more examples of Property Development Logo Designs and Estate Agency Logo Designs. You can also read some case studies of real estate company logos such as Arabian Korean Consultants, HCI Home Builder Logo and Kings Highlands Real Estate Logo Design.

Chateaux World Ltd looks classic representing some medieval Lord’s coat-of-arms, and it has to be because the company deals with ‘classic houses and castles’; ‘AZ Realty Pro’s LLC’ is a bold logo in real sense, showing the cactus plant with pale red showing the dryness and hotness of Arizona state; ‘The Kircher Team’ says everything without having to utter a word – the pleasing colours and perfect lines have done the job well; ‘Imperial Homes’ showing some design juggling with I and H being overlapped with the purple colour that represents royalty; ‘Step by Step Inspections, Inc.’ a cleverly designed logo having a pun in it, the foot-prints being used to show the “stages” of a long process of building inspection;
‘Safe haven’ is a classic example of the text and symbol mixed logo; and the ‘Highlands Development Group’ is classic by itself, looking so pleasant one would want to be there.

At Logo Design Works, in addition to designing a legendary logo, an agent’s web site with links and hyper-links through which a client can navigate to the exact location of his/her preference, is made attractive in the first place, easy to browse and easier to navigate. The site is featured to accommodate upgrades from time to time, which can be easily handled by an associate, not necessarily a computer expert, covering even a remote location.

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Most of us are made to believe that the logos are related only to businesses and marketing. Though this notion may be true to certain extent, it is not the completely truth. There are logos all around us, and they have been with us since time immemorial, and the markets have been using them to their advantage.

Most of the activities, which have very little to do with the commercial world, have symbols representing them. We see them all around us in our everyday life, but we are either too busy to recognise them or too used to having them around that we take them for granted and never give them a second look or thought. But they have been there!

In fact, if we take the ‘logo’ phenomenon seriously, we are bound to recognise that logo designing is a religion in its own right. It is human nature to have a ‘symbol’ to show a person or a group of people direction, guidance and solace in times of disaster.

Wilson – the Wilson volley ball in the film ‘Cast Away’

The best example can be found in the film ‘Cast Away’ in which a man stranded on a remote island after his plane crash- landed on the sea near an island survived with the help of an imaginary companion in the form of an icon. In this film, the character Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) uses the washed off things from the plane to survive on the island, and one of them is a ‘Wilson volley ball’ on which he paints a human face-like figure with his bloody hand and names it ‘Wilson’. And most of his four year’s stay on the island, Noland uses it as a guide, mentor, companion and even a ‘god’!

He talks to ‘Wilson’ as if it were a real person, and after losing Wilson in his attempt to escape from the island, he loses all hope and even the will to live any longer. This is one of the traits human beings alone have and the object ‘Wilson’ is nothing but a symbol of faith in one’s own self – so when Noland lost the ball, he lost all hopes of living because his faith was lost!

So, it is not uncommon to see people having a symbol of some sort, mostly from the things they like or fear much, to keep them going. In ancient times animals were used as symbols – most of the ancient gods and goddesses, and the saints after them, have an animal each to represent them.

The most ancient and most important symbol is the 4000 year old “rod of Asclepious” which the WHO (World Health Organisation), Royal Society of Medicine, American Medical and Osteopathic Associations, the British and the Australian Medical Association incorporated in their insignia (logos). The old shape, the ‘rod with a single snake’ took the shape of a ‘rod with two snakes and two gryphons on either side’ in the later years; by and by, this icon again is given more than one subtle shape with minor changes here and there and has been used by several international pharmaceutical companies in the modern world.

And the most popular life-saving symbol, logo, is the ‘red cross’, a voluntary organisation founded by Henri Dunant of Switzerland in 1875 to give medical assistance to the wounded soldiers, irrespective of their nationalities, in battle fields. This symbol, a red cross + mark on white background, the opposite of the colour of Swiss flag, is an icon of humanitarianism which has been saving thousands of lives, military and civil, all over the world.

The most common but the least talked about is the ‘chevron’, the symbol ‘>’, supposed to have been found on the entrances of some of the ancient tombs, which is now used in military and police uniforms to show the wearer’s rank. There are several companies and sports clubs that use this sign in their logos, not to mention the multi-billion-multi-national Chevron Corporation, the oil and natural gas giant.

The Olympic Games is a global event that is celebrated in a different city once every four years. Pierre de Coubertine, a French national who was responsible for the revival of the ancient Olympic Games designed the International Olympics logo and flag, the Olympic Rings, to inspire people of the five continents on the Earth to unite and play games fairly. He said at a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris on November 25, 1892: Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future… He designed it in 1912 and then it was used officially for the first time in the Antwerp (Belgium) 1920 Olympics.

And each city (country) that has hosted so far has its own Olympic logo and flag, starting from 1896 to 2008. It is amusing to learn how the design has been developed over the years: the simple pictures of people have changed to the pictures of important landmarks of the host city (country) to abstract designs that just represent the spirit of the host and the games.

We can see from these Olympics logos of different hosts that the logo design has come a long way from mere photo posters and pictures of people to the pictures of the famous landmarks of those cities to the graphic designs with animation in which only the abstract symbolism is highlighted. There has been a radical change since 1984 – the Olympic design of any host’s Olympic logo and flag has had the touch of Olympics only with the Olympic Rings. The Beijing 2008 logo, for example, has the Chinese language character made into an athlete in a running position on the red background that represents the colour of the Chinese national flag.

Not all logos are very welcomed by the people in general, and one recent incident is the London 2012 Olympic logo. The London 2012 Olympics Logo Design has been under great criticism not only from the British but also from the logo designers all over the world. The design became such a faux pas that some Londoners even wondered whether the date of release of the logo was the first of April and the logo designing company was trying to fool everybody just for kicks!

However, in support of the logo, Lord Sebastian Coe, Organising Committee Chairman, said: “It’s not a logo; it’s a brand that will take us forward for the next five years. This is truly innovative …” The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said: “… When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life. It is a deliberate change from previous Olympic logos, which often feature images from the cities.” {This logo is supposed to inspire young people.}

Then there are logos of international organisations we see almost every day. The UNO (the United Nations Organisation) which was formed in 1945, presently with 192 member nations, has the logo that encompasses the entire world.

It is interesting to know the simple beginnings of a great logo. When there was a meeting of the newly formed UNO, ‘an identifying pin’ on the lapels of the delegates was needed, and a Navy officer, Mr. Oliver Lincoln Lundquist, was asked to make one, and he, in turn, assigned his assistant, Mr. Donald McLaughlin, a graphic designer, to design one. Mr. Donald McLaughlin made this round design with the globe showing all the five continents surrounded by a wreath of olive branches. That simple round design with a very minor change has been the logo of the UNO – just an identifying pin design became a symbol of peace and global cooperation!

The International Civil Aviation Organisation has adapted the same design, with wing-like projections on either side of it.

The international clubs, such as the Lions International and the Rotary Club International, have their logos seen by almost all the people of the world as they have clubs (branches) in almost every major city of the globe.

The ‘Lady Justice’, a young lady with a set of weighing scales in one hand and a double-edged sword in the other and with or without a blind-fold, is a very common symbol at court houses around the world. A statue at the entrance of a court house reminds people of impartiality in the weighing scales, power of Justice and the consequences for being guilty of something immoral (punishment) in the double-edged sword, and the treatment the people get irrespective of their position, status and appearance in the ‘blindfold’. A ‘logo’ representing the entire business of that house!

We have had this line “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!” from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1594.

Yes, a rose flower gave us the same sweet smell even if we gave it a different name, but that was long, long time ago. In the present world, we have hybrid rose flowers of different colours, different shapes and different smells; we cannot name a flower by its shape, colour or smell any more. The development of logo is like-wise!

A logo expresses symbolism, honour, neutrality, unity, theme and other practical activities the establishment owns it. But does it have to be? Do all logos contain all the details? Is it possible to show all the details in a design that measures 4X4 ? The answer is a simple ‘NO’. We have seen that mostly people and animals were used in the logos of the past, and some things found in the nature were used in the later days, and finally we see virtual images that have nothing to do with the original theme or purpose of the logo in the present day logos. Is there anything terribly wrong with the present day logo designing? No, not at all! It is the CHANGE we see in the logo designing in general. When there was only the technique of sculpting, we had just those statues representing the theme. As the technology developed, the fine arts including the logo designing simultaneously developed.

Back To Logo Designing In The Commercial World

Naturally, every establishment, commercial or non-commercial, likes to have a logo of its own – a different one from the rest of the designs (and it should be different because of the ‘copyrights’). And each designer has a vision of his own. But the point here is that in days gone-by, it was easy for the people to understand the theme from looking at the logo, but these days, it is not so… it is like ‘artificial insemination’. People do not actually get the theme by just looking at the logo; they need some explanation. Therefore, most of the time we cannot understand the logos; we just look at them! It is like the logo has become a status symbol rather than the representation of the spirit, theme, etc. {Well, it hardly matters for most of us as long as we are given some feedback on the product or service the logo represents.}

For example, the first one of the beautiful designs we see below, which needed a lot of computer manipulation, is attractive to look at, but does it give us any information? I don’t think so. The purple coloured line is supposed to be, according to the designer, the letters V and S – video and sharing. I had not been able to make out the shape until I read the designer’s note under the heading ‘Inspiration’. The other example is the second one, ‘ultimatennis’ – the symbol is supposed to be a tennis ball with letter U in reverse (in black) and letter T in light green. Well… And in the logo for ‘alera’, according to the designer, the bird represents freedom, and the two projections, which I thought were the wings of the bird, are, in fact, a hammock! The ‘edgelink’, on the other hand, has a look of its own – the letters being linked to one another, and the designer is proud to state that it is an ambigram – a word or design that looks the same even when reversed or rotated, and, of course, it does represent ‘edge’ and ‘link’. It is to be noted that, after all, not all names can be given this sort of treatment, however efficient and imaginative the designer may be.

People In The Logos

In the modern era too we see some exceptions. There are popular logos with the pictures of real people – the KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken, for instance. The statue of Colonel Harland Sanders is placed at the entrances of some KFC outlets in some countries. Though it has had its share of changes and improvements made to it, it is a good looking logo, but we certainly cannot expect every logo to be with the picture of the owner of that establishment and, to be frank, not all faces look as pleasing as that of Colonel Harland Sanders – we get bored!

Client’s Logo Choice

The outcome of a logo is directly dependent on five factors: the type of business, the client’s concept, the budget, the customer target, and the designer. Of the different types of logo designing – Iconic logos, Illustrative logos, Enclosed emblem type logos, Text based logo, etc. And again, like the Shakespeare’s line ‘A rose by any name …’, the basic purpose of a logo is the same: to let people know, get attracted to and remember the logo, the brand and the product that logo represents! In addition, keeping the terminology aside, every individual business has a specific market target, and the logo that represents it must be appealing to that particular market.

For example, a florist in a town can be very liberal with his logo that is more illustrative with relevant words, but a multi-national software company needs a design with a modern concept, like that of Apple Inc. , because in the international market language and complicated design do not serve the purpose, and translated versions may not give the desired punch, and in addition, young people who are the potential customers of the computer software sector like to see their favourite brands in modern and chic logos! On the contrary, not all international products fare well with only a simple symbol.

The company that produces the Christmas cards, for instance, needs a logo that is full of merriment – jingle bells, coloured ribbons, tree, bright ornaments, etc. that represent nativity story. An international food product company certainly needs an iconic logo that shows, without much use of words, that the content in the pack is an item of food – the Nestlé can be a suitable example.

In case you are curious to know more about the LOGOS, you are free to visit Logo Design Works, and have lots of fun!!

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Logo Category: Security Logos
Logo Type: Iconic Logos
Client Location: Chicago, IL 60641
Project Type: PLATINUM Brand Package
Project Cost: $997

Project Summary:
Citywide Security Group provides contract security guard service as well as private investigations. Located in Chicago, Illinois, CityWide Group ensures their clients get high quality and reliable security service.

Target Market:
They work with property management companies, retail establishments that use security guards, attorney’s, individuals looking to hire private investigators for cheating spouses etc.

Design Review:
The client wanted a clean iconic type of design possibly focusing on a shield type of icon. The design had to look modern, have a 3D style, show strength and look cool. The client also had a specific logo color palette that we needed to consider.

We created a number of logo concepts for this client which included emblem style logos, font treatment, circular badge type icons, abstract shield icons and other styles. The client liked the 3D shield based icon that our logo design team created.

Logo as Car Wrap:
The client had a car wrap created with the logo design that we created and it looks stunning.

Stationery Design for the client:
Since the client had selected the PLATINUM Brand Package, after the logo design was completed, we moved forward to create matching business card, letterhead and envelope design.

Website Design:
The client was looking for a clean, professional and high impact website design.

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Our Earth is full of colors. Colors are an integral part of our lives. The colors found in nature are important to us because we have adapted to survive in nature! Colors are an important part of our visual arts, too, which is considered to be the first of the human professions!

In the modern concept, manipulation of colors to get a desired effect is believed to be both subjective and technical. Basically, the multitude of colors we see are divided into groups:

primary colors (colors in their own right; they cannot be made by mixing other colors) — red, yellow and blue;

secondary colors (colors we get by mixing the primary colors) — green, purple, orange, etc.; and

tertiary colors (colors we get by mixing the primary and secondary colors) .

And the main bands of colors are six: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, and according to Sir Issac Newton, (1642-1747) mathematician and physicist and one of the eminent scientific intellects of all time, there are seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet. But the popular pattern with which an artist creates an ever-lasting colorful impression holds up to a set of twelve colors: black, grey, white, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown and azure.

An expert on colors stated that: Colors by themselves are not a fundamental property of light but are often related to the physiological response of the eye to light. The color of an object depends on both the physics of the object in its environment and the characteristic of the perceiving eye and brain. It is believed that the human eye can distinguish thousands of different colors – shades, hues and tints! Most humans have three types of color receptors, the organs that receive colors and transmit them to the brain, but many animals, such as some species of spiders, some marsupials, birds, reptiles and several types of fish, and some human females, have four types!!

It is interesting to know that a person’s perception of the color of any object depends not only on the spectrum of light reflecting from its surface but also on a number of contextual cues so that the color is perceived as relatively constant. This effect is known as “color constancy”. For example, when we think of milk, we think of it in ‘white’ color, but not in any other color; when we think of blood, we think of it in ‘red’, but never in black, blue or green though there are some animals whose blood is other than red; when we think of a leaf of a plant, we see it in green in our mind’s eye.

Just because we are now able to define color and give it a colorful terminology, it does not mean that the concept and use of color are new phenomena. colors have been an integral part of the human societies since pre-historic times. From stone-age man, cave man, man in ancient civilizations to the present computer-man, all have been influenced by colors and all have used colors in their everyday life.

The man in primitive societies used color for war-paint (drawing colorful designs on their face and body in order to frighten the enemy and also to show off their status), for decorating the deities, shrines, idols, totems; the man in the medieval societies used color for their clothes, for decorating their dwellings, and more importantly, for representing themselves in other social activities, such as war, sport, traditional ceremonies, etc. Read more about the ancient history of logo design.

And in the present modern societies, color is in every aspect of life in general – just try to imagine how difficult it would be to have all ‘white’ toothbrushes in a family of four, they can never know which is whose, and how hard it would be for you to find your own car in a parking-lot when all the cars are painted ‘black’! In nature, the animals have mastered the art of camouflage by having colors or by changing their colors to suit their surrounding, and some animals are with bright body colors, usually yellow and red, to warn their predators that they are toxic and so should be avoided.

The colors the first people (according to the records available, between 40,000 and 10,000 years B.C.) used mostly were: red, black and white. The Magdalenian painters, the people who were supposed to have lived between 18,000 and 10,000 years B.C. and drawn pictures of animals on the faces of rocks in the open, and on the floors, walls and ceilings of the caves in several places across Europe, used yellow and brown. By using crude methods and raw materials – minerals found in the earth, water rich in calcium, vegetables and animal oils – these cave painters of Magdalenian were able to produce awesome “polychrome art”!

Though there has never been an undisputed explanation for the purpose of drawing these paintings, one very strong explanation we all must agree to is that ‘art’ is a form of expression and man needs to express his thoughts in one form or through one medium or the other; man needs to express his thoughts for communication or for preservation of history or for recreation or just for the mere satisfaction of expression, and there has never been a stopping to this urge.

Though there has been no agreement on the purpose of drawing these cave paintings, the time period and the material used among the experts, almost every eminent historian and art critic opines that the awesome colorful cave art was thought-provoking and probably this art later became the ‘father of religion’!

Color stimulates our senses:

“Color psychology” is a recognized system of investigating the effect of colors on human behavior, feelings and emotions.

The eye receives the light reflected from the surface of an object and sends it to the brain which then acts or reacts by creating impulses depending on the ‘color’ the light brings in, which, in turn, control the person’s or animal’s behavior. It is like we smile at a smiling baby but turn away from or wince at a crying baby. The same way, studies have shown that people react in different ways to different colors. [This assumption may also depend upon the culture, time period and religious aspects.] It is a proven fact that when we see items of food in red color, we tend to get hungry faster and drool more than when we see food in pale colors.

Some of the most common ‘colors and the moods (positive and negative)’ they generate in people and animals are:

GREY

Positive: solid, intelligence, modesty, practicality, maturity

Negative: old age, obsolete, rusty

BLACK

Positive: mystery, secrecy, tradition

Negative: fear, evil, death, mourning

BLUE

Positive: power, calmness, success, trustworthiness
{the most common and most liked color}

BROWN

Positive: earth and nature, simplicity, seriousness

Negative: drab, uninteresting

GREEN

Positive: harmony, health and healing, nature, prosperity, money

Negative: greed, jealousy

ORANGE

Positive: affordability, fun, youth, creativity, celebration

PURPLE

Positive: royalty, justice, fantasy and dream, luxury, wealth

RED

Positive: excitement, action, adventure, love, passion, food

Negative: danger, death, caution, anger, hunger

WHITE

Positive: simplicity, cleanliness, innocence, purity, peacefulness

Negative: death, mourning (in certain cultures)

YELLOW

Positive: cheerfulness, playfulness, curiosity, amusement, intellect

Negative: flashy, carelessness, harmful
{the most difficult color for the eye}

PINK

Positive: femininity, flamboyance, openness, friendliness

Negative: carefree, demanding attention

Colors in everyday life:

The ‘eye’ which is the body organ that receives thousands of colors of objects in itself comes only in a limited number of colors – ‘brown’ being the most common and ‘green’ being the least common. There are believed to be 20 cases of pure natural red eye color throughout the world.

[And so, it is known that people with brown eyes take in only the brown color and the people with blue eyes take in only the blue color and so on … No!! I’m just trying to bring some color into my article (LOL). Whatever be the eye color of the beholder with a healthy eye, he/she can receive colors and most of the thousands of their shades and hues.]

As colors influence our moods and behavior, we use colors for different purposes in our daily activities. The use of a specific color in certain traditional or ceremonial activity, however, has a different connotation depending on the culture of a society and the period of time of its existence. For example, a bride wearing a ‘white’ dress on her wedding is accepted very well in the western cultures, but the same white is used for mourning and worn by widows in some eastern cultures. The westerns may feel repulsive or offensive on seeing yellow color being used at a religious ceremony, but the same yellow color may generate reverence and intellect in people of the East!

As every rule has an exception, this color code also has exceptions and there are some colors that are used for certain specific purposes universally! The best example is the color red which is used for ‘danger’, ‘stop’, ‘no’, ‘wrong’, etc., and the quite opposite is the color green used for ‘safe’, ‘proceed’, ‘yes’, ‘right’, etc., and the color white being used to express peace, simplicity, purity, etc.

Color terminology in languages:

Colors are used extensively in languages. There are proverbs, sayings, phrasal verbs and some common expressions used in similes and metaphors (‘color idioms’) to express the moods, feelings and behavior of people and animals with color-word phrases. For example, “to see red”, “to paint the town red”, “ to be in the pink”, “ to feel blue”, “white lies”, “written in black and white”, “being green with envy”, “white as a sheet”, “once in a blue moon”, “green card”, “green light”, “with flying colors”, “nailing one’s colors to the mast”, “one’s true colors”, etc.

Colors are also used to represent the different human races: white people (the Caucasian or white face), black people (the Ethiopian or black race), yellow people (the Mongolian or yellow face), cinnamon-brown or flame colored people (the (native) American race or red face), and brown people (the Malay or brown race).

Colors & Computers:

People who work with colors in their profession or occupation should have some basic knowledge of the science of colors and color combination, and how colors influence the moods of people and animals.

Colors change to different shades and hues depending on the material they are projected (printed) on. A certain color may look pale when it is used on a piece of cloth that absorbs liquids, and the same color looks bright when it is used on a glossy paper, and yet looks with a different hue when used on a plastic sheet. And a color combination made on the computer screen may not be the same when printed on a paper – it is not that it changes into a different color, but gives out a different shade or hue.

To gain mastery over the use of color combination, an artist, painter or logo designer must have some basic knowledge of the dynamics and terminology of the color and color combination. Some of them are as follows:

“Chromatics” – the study of colors physiologically; “color psychology” – the study of identifying the effects of color on human emotions and activities; “chromatic therapy” – using color psychology scientifically (‘chromatic therapy’ is used as a form of alternative medicine attributed to various Eastern traditions); “color theory” – the art of color mixing and the visual impact of color combination; “color code” – a system for displaying information using different colors; “color contrast”; “optical illusion” – a condition in which the eye (the perception of color or vision) is manipulated into believing something that is not there or something that is not what it actually is; and so on.

Colors and website design:

When it comes to web-designing on computers, designers had been encouraged to stick to the ‘web-safe’ colors which were a set 216 colors (colors with their shades and hues) commonly used. However, David Lehn and Hadly Stern, have discovered that only 22 of the 216 colors used in the web-designing are reliably consistent (on 16-bit computer displays). These 22 colors can be considered “really safe” colors to use in web-designing because they are relatively consistent.

Another important fact a web-designer or any other professional, using color combination must bear in mind is that not all people can identify all colors. People who cannot recognize all colors are generally called ‘color blind’. (This phrase is not very apt because they do identify some colors; they do not see the world only in black and white, and so the more appropriate term or phrase to describe them is “color deficient’!)

In some people partial eye-sight, aging and congenital color deficits all produce changes in perception of colors that results in reduced visual effectiveness of certain color combination. [In countries like Sweden, along with the traditional set of traffic lights – red, yellow/amber and green – another set of lights that are easy to perceive for the color deficient people are placed at the road junctions!] A combination of two or three colors that contrast sharply to someone with normal vision may be less clear or even confusing to someone with color blindness!

Therefore, the web designer should not take it for granted that the clarity of a design is appreciated in the same way by all the people.

Color in sensory branding and log design:

Branding or logo design is the art of giving a symbol or icon to a commercial product a company produces or a service a firm or company (law firms, hotels, travel agents, etc.) gives, or just as a symbol for recognition for a club or association.

A logo design is the most repeated and frequently displayed symbol of a business, and “color” plays a major part in creating a logo design.

There are three kinds of logos: text logos – with simple words without picture, design or symbol that explain the nature of that particular business; symbol logos – with a picture, design or symbol but without written words; and text and symbol logos – with some written words and a picture, design or symbol in it.

Martin Lindstrom, one of the most respected ‘sensory branding gurus’ and author of several books and DVD’s, advises his clients, the logo designers, to have good knowledge of colors and color combination because, according to the statics, 83% of all commercial communication appeals only to one sense – our eyes!

It is a very well-known fact that the human mind is hardwired to respond to color, and a person’s subconscious mind turns colors into messages, and that colors can influence the opinions of a person in less time than it takes to blink an eye!

As the main purpose of commercial branding is to facilitate cross-language and cross-culture marketing, most logos tend to be ‘symbol logos’ because language plays little or no role when the logo crosses its place of origin, and while creating a symbol logo, the choice of color is as important, if not more important, as the symbol design itself.

The logo designer without this basic knowledge is bound to ignore or overlook the choice of color in his client’s logo, and the client may be losing his/her potential customers or clients instead of luring them. In such cases the main purpose of having a logo is lost!

At Logo Design Works, one of a very few logo designers who are equipped with such tools of trade to create not just logos but legendary logos, a client is given not only a colorful logo but a never-fading colorful experience of having a logo!!

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Logo Category: Consulting Logos
Logo Type: Iconic Logos
Client Location: Charlestown, MA 02129

Project Type: PLATINUM Brand Package
Project Cost: $997

Project Summary:
Doran Consulting and Contracting is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) consulting company. In a nutshell they help building owners/managers save money through more efficient building operations. Additionally, they are licensed construction supervisors, so they can actually implement the projects as well. Basically, a one stop shop for “green” building.

Target Market:
Anyone who owns property or is in a long term lease that would benefit from saving 30-60% a month in energy costs.

Design Review:
The client wanted to stand out with their identity and company logo right from the start. They wanted the identity and the look to be professional and more focused on the business aspect of the company (i.e. making customers more profitable my saving them money on energy costs) versus the environmental/save the planet side of things.

Our logo designer team researched this particular market segment and came up with ideas including the usage of the initials integrated, emblem based logo concepts to show strength, imagery to do with the construction industry and building material related icons. The client selected the creative initials concept and we refined it further to arrive at the final design.

Stationery Design for the client:
After the logo design was completed, we created an elegant stationery design concept for this consulting company.

Website Design:
Finally we moved on to creating an awesome looking website design for Doran Consulting and Contracting company. The client wanted a simple, elegant and dark themed website that would create the right kind of impression online.

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