How to design a logo – Basic principles/ Best practices

In my earlier post 2009 – Year of redesigned logos I did not consider some of the logos, since I feel the designers did not do justice with them. Redesigning a logo does not need to be a necessity if the spark and purpose is not well utilized. I again request designers not to design for the sake of designing but go deep into the reasoning. Do some homework and recognize the underlying principle of design.

5 Basic principles of Logo designing:

1. Simple, Clear & Crisp – Logo design should be uncomplicated for the viewer and designer.
2. Projection of company’s image should come across clearly & direct
3. Balancing Act – Logo designing is balancing act of creativity. One should not go overboard with the usage of design elements : font, color and shape. The key is correct use of styling and balancing of all these elements to form a composition called ‘logo’
4. Direct hit – Messaging should be direct either through graphics or text and should hit the viewers mind in one go.
5. Black & White as winner – Colors play a very important role but a logo should not lose its sheen when converted in black and white. This is a common issue we all face as designers and prefer to ignore it.

Logo conceptualization:

Color vs Black and White
The last point of logo designing principle is indeed the foremost important territory for a designer to conquer.

2009 – Year of redesigned logos

With the changing dates through the year, 2009 witnessed Web2.0 as a common word in our design discussions, client briefs and our design communities. Everyone wanted to upgrade their company’s image either through logos or websites with “Web2.0 look”.

I complied a collection of few logos for the companies which dared to jump into Web 2.0 wave and got themselves wet.

Are we ignoring user experience or the users have become smart enough?

Recently noticed most of the sites nowadays have moved away from marking the form fields as mandatory or required. Is this the change in design trend or there is a reason behind it? Are we ignoring user experience or the users have become smart enough?

Attribute of a designer

Provide a design to user which is self awakening and user-friendly. A user should be able to complete an activity in minimum clicks and it’s the responsibility and power of a designer to straighten out the complexes. In a project which is not conceptualized by a designer goes nowhere in the long run, we all know this with our own experiences. Fortunately, user experience and designers are now becoming essential for any good web designing firm that targets to reach the heights and survive there for long.

Power of good design

An intelligent design can change the perception of users. When the web world is facing North, only a designer can make web users turn to see towards South, such is the power of designer!

A quick peek into the user experience forms of the most appreciated sites during 2009, which have become a point of reference for most of the design boutiques

Beanstalk – Here I submitted the blank form to test what all fields I actually need to enter data and which ones I can avoid. Surprisingly all fields are mandatory to create an account excluding the Discount section. The instruction below Coupon Code field is very supportive for user ‘If you don’t know the code, just skip this field’. Similarly if a single line instruction was added above the form saying