All businesses need a logo. Ideally, a logo illustrates your product, service, or business name (think Apple Computer’s logo). Please don’t make the mistake of using a piece of generic clip art for your logo. Think about it… a competitor could have chosen the same image. Your logo needs to be as unique as your business.
Your logo should work at all sizes, from a business card all the way up to billboards and building signage. That means two important things: First, don’t make your logo overly detailed. When you shrink it down to the size typically used on a business card, all that detail may be lost. Second, your logo absolutely must be in a vector graphic format, so it can be enlarged without any degradation. Graphic images come in two basic types: bitmap (made up of individual “bits” or pixels) and vector (made up of mathematical equations). Too many times a client has provided me with their logo, but in bitmap format because that’s all they have. When you try to enlarge this type of image, you get that jagged “stair step” effect around any curves. That’s because all you’re doing is making the individual “bits” larger. I always provide clients with both bitmap and vector versions of their final logo. This way they have whatever they need for future marketing material.
When working out the colors, your logo should be clear whether rendered in a single color, say via fax, or in full color. I always start out the logo design process working in black and white. That way I know it will hold up if reproduced with a single ink color. Once the design itself is finalized, then I work on colors. An important consideration here is budget. I recommend logos be kept to two ink colors (yes, black is an ink color). This will keep a client’s expenses low when they need to print business stationery, but looks more professional than a one color logo. Occasionally I’ve had a client who insisted on a higher-color logo. I just make sure they understand what that will mean when they need to print anything with their logo.
Read more about some of the logos I’ve designed here.
