Logo Basics

Looking to make a logo for your site or company? May I suggest not doing it yourself, and hiring a professional? That is probably a good idea, but if you are simply building a logo for a website that you are having fun with, or have no budget for, then we must do what we must do. Here are a few logo basics to get you on your way.

Description Quality

You must easily be able to describe your logo without having a picture of it. Looking at this link building logo from Graffias Network, you can see it’s pretty easy to describe. It’s simply their name with a few lines (dots indicating lines) of a network. This is a great example because the image compliments the word network. If you look at BWI’s it’s simply a square with the BWI on top. Why the square? Well you will have to read to understand. There is a reason though.

Limit Colors

Don’t go nuts with the colors. Three is a very good number, and if you do a little searching on net for the keyword “Magic of 3″ you will see all sorts of reasoning. Limiting the colors to just three will help you comply with the first rule making it easy to describe, it will make it easier to blend a site theme with it, and it will certainly make it easier when it comes time to putting your logo in print.

Simple in Design

Having a simple design is a key for branding, and compliments the first two rules. By keeping it simple it makes your logo easy to remember. It makes it easier to describe, and it makes it easier to control the number of colors. Using the Graffias site as an example again, they could have just as easily put a picture of a computer or a server on that logo. Would it say the same thing? It might, but do you really need to see a picture of a server to understand what a network is? It may even give the wrong message. It may be perceived as that they fix or build networks. Yikes, you don’t want that.

Building logos doesn’t have to be hard, but before you take on the task yourself make sure to look at some of the big boys, like the Fortune 100 companies. They are banking on their logo, and many of them rely on branding type advertising where their logo is everything.

Graffias Network

On a side note, since I used Graffias Network as a logo example, I thought I would give them a quick mention on what they do. They are a web marketing company, so yes, they put a lot of thought into their logo. They also have a cool directory list for you directory submitters out there.