As a designer, ideally, your mind should be brimming with ideas. Unfortunately, things do not always work like this in the real world. Many times, designers suffer from creative block, while developing a business logo design. In such a situation, opting for certain smart strategies can help designers to overcome this creative block and design a logo successfully. Read on.

Experiment with Alphabets of the Company Name

An interesting strategy is to experiment with different alphabets of the company name. Alternatively, you can tweak fonts of the company name to come up with affordable logo design ideas.

Study Designs of Your Competitors

If you are suffering from creative block, consider studying designs of your competitors. This will provide you with an idea about the current trends and help you to understand what you should not design (because your competitors have already implemented these ideas).

However, irrespective of anything that you do, do not solely use designs created by your competitors as your sources of inspiration. Otherwise, your designs will be similar to that of your competitors.

Research About the Target Audience

Gathering information about the target audience can refresh your mind and help you to come up with innovative ideas. Ideally, you should research about educational qualification, income level, and gender of your target audience. This will allow you to utilize the time productively and acquire relevant information. All these in turn, will help you, while actually creating the design.

Study Interesting Designs

Famous designs can serve as good sources of inspiration. However, as stated earlier, avoid copying these designs. Otherwise, the concerned company can sue you on charges of plagiarism.

Pay Attention to the Tag Line

If you cannot think about any design currently, leave it. Rather, pay attention to the tag line. Remember that tag line also plays a critical role in creating awareness about a company and enhancing popularity of the design. Therefore, concentrate on developing the tag line and you may soon get rid of the creative block.

Write Down Your Thoughts

Sometimes, expressing your thoughts may help you to create intriguing designs. Let your ideas flow freely. Remember that you can always polish up your ideas, before presenting them before the client.

Understand Goals of Your Company

Researching about your company goals will bring you one step closer in fulfilling your goal of creating a design. This will also help you to come up with a design that reflects goals and values of your company.

Discuss

Discussing about your problems with your friends and family can be a good strategy for avoiding the creative block. Even if you have developed an unpolished design, you can show it to your family. This will also help you to acquire a fresh perspective about your design.

Think About Different Elements of the Design

To get fresh ideas, research about different elements of the design. These may include color, and typefaces. Paying attention to these aspects will help you to create a design more easily.

Finally, do not forget to develop a design that has a classic appeal. Remember that this will maintain popularity of the design, even after 10 years.
 

A logo is the face of a company and changing an old, famous logo design is always a challenging task. However, before you set off on giving your old logo the desired face-lift, you must understand why redesigning is important, despite being risky.

Generally, companies will change their business logo design to fulfill three qualities - boost a company’s brand value by reestablishing their brand identity, reconnect with the audience, and convey the new brand message to its target consumers.

How You Can Turn Your Old Logo Design into a New Design

People are familiar with your old logo design. So, don’t change the design drastically as it may confuse your loyal customers. Keep the main framework and modify the color or shape to give your logo a new look. For instance, Windows changed the color in their new logo, but maintained the same framework. However, if your current design does not match with your revised brand identity, consider changing the logo completely.

You can choose 1-2 elements from your previous logo and add new elements for a successful redesign. However, you must identify the elements that are best related with your corporate identity design and use only those in your new logo. For instance, Apple changed their logo several times. In the 1980’s, they came up with a multicolored logo that changed in the 1990’s to black, and more recently, to white. However, in all these redesigns, they have never replaced the famous half eaten apple symbol.

Make sure the new design is simple, yet appealing. Your logo must help your consumers understand your brand value and create a positive buzz in the market. Also, your new logo must be original. Check the logos of companies in your niche and make sure to not duplicate your competitor’s design.

There is a difference between simple design and unattractive design. If your current logo looks garish, tone down the flashy elements for the new design, but don’t lose the aesthetic appeal. For instance, in the past 30 years, Nike has removed their brand name from their logo and changed the angle of their famous swoosh, however, have maintained uniqueness to retain loyal customers.

If you want to change the font style in your new logo, make sure that the new font matches your brand image. For instance, if you sell dolls like “Barbie”, you can’t use a “AT&T” business style font in your business logo design.

Remember to never follow a design trend. If you design a logo following a current trend, a few years later, your logo may become old and outdated.

A logo designer is meant to create a brand identity for his client and help him connect with his target audience. Unfortunately, between managing projects and creating a great design, some designers ignore the importance of maintaining good client-designer relationship.

Some designers, despite offering affordable logo design services, fail getting many projects. Poor communication skills is one of the reasons. You may be capable of creating a beautiful business logo design for a client, but if you can’t convince him his target audience will love it, you won't get to work on it either.

It’s hard to impress a client, if you don’t communicate with him frequently. As a logo designer, your main aim should be to win your client’s trust and convey your designing ideas to him, clearly. Lack of communication can lead to major misunderstandings.

The following communication tips can help you communicate with your clients successfully:

Be Self Assured- When it comes to successful communication, attitude matters a lot. Your confidence should show through your designs, and your body language reflect it. When you go for a client meeting, talk with the client like an expert and make him realize that you can handle any logo design project.

On the contrary, if you appear with a pale face and trembling hands, you can forget about the project. Unless you have faith in your skills, how can you expect clients to trust you?

Listen Intently- Before you design a logo, listen to your client carefully and note down the important points he tells you about his company. Once he finishes explaining, you can ask him all the things you need to know. Communication is a two way process and when you pay attention to your client, he realizes you are really interested in his project.

Talk Objectively- When you explain your design decision, show some relevant data and talk objectively. Evidence proves your point and compels the client to say “yes” to your concept. For instance, if you want to use the “eco-friendly” trend in your client’s logo, show him other eco-friendly logos and submit a report that proves the benefits of a “eco-friendly” logo design.

Keep a Track Record- When you handle different projects at the same time, you are bound to get confused and forget things you have discussed with your clients. To avoid this, you can create project specific folders and store all emails, letters and chat communication in them. Keeping a track of things discussed will not only streamline the process of work, but also avoid unnecessary complications during the same.

Stay in Touch- Some designers won’t contact the client unless the design is complete. This could lead to problems because, if a client tells you that he does not like your designs, you have to design again, from scratch.

Always communicate with your client during the project. Tell him how things are progressing and take his feedback. This strategy may decrease your speed, but it also reduces any possibility of major disappointments.

Every experienced logo designer devotes a lot of time to research before designing a logo. If you are a graphic artist, you need to take care of several things, from color to font, to create an unforgettable logo. Here I will discuss the 4 most important and vital factors of logo design.

The Trademark in Logo- Everyone loves a great looking logo and there are many down-market companies who are always looking for an opportunity to steal a famous brand’s logo and use it in their products.

To prevent such blatant plagiarism, famous brands often include a registration mark in their logo designs. The ownership mark gives the logo its exclusivity and trust. Patented logos often have a trademark ™ or a registered mark ®.

When you design a logo, think carefully how you can successfully blend the trademark in the logo design. You have to decide the font size, style and location of the trademark in the logo. You can either use the same font that you used in the logo, or try something new.

When you use the same font, it will create oneness with the whole design. If you use a different font, the trademark will stand out proudly. If the logo contains only letters, then you can put the registration mark near the baseline. It will look like the ™ or ® and be a part of the alphabets used in the design. On the contrary, some logo designs have smaller fonts and larger white spaces. You can put the trademark in the white space to make it visible.

Check for the Anchor Points and Handles- A logo will be used in both small and large sizes. While small defects won’t appear in the small size prints, they will look ugly when you blow up the logo to a larger size and use it in a billboard advertisement. A good logo looks great in all sizes and never distorts. If your logo has many angles and curves, zoom in and inspect for minute faults in those places.

The Color Combination- Every corporate house uses their chosen colors in the logo. But if your client doesn’t have any predetermined color palette and asks you to pick the colors for the logo, select the colors very carefully. Not only does each color have its own meaning and create emotional bond with the viewers, but they have to match with each other to create the desired effect. If you use a color that has neutral value, then it will neither match with other colors in the logo nor will it help the logo be noticeable.

Create Various High Quality File Formats- A logo can be used for many purposes. It can be used in the letterhead or in the TV advertisement. To serve the purpose successfully, you must create the same logo in different formats.

You should design

• A pure CMYK,
• A spot color-based,
• An untainted black ,
• A pure white.

Before saving the logo in the mentioned design formats, check for any useless or extra gradient, color or pattern swatches. If you find anything unnecessary, delete those elements. Before you give the client your final logo design, save the design in these four formats and give all of them to him. The black and white format is mainly used in letterheads, while the CMYK file is used in print advertisements.

Logos are used for marketing purposes in print media, TV and internet. As a logo designer, you should always double-check the logo in different sizes and in different formats to realize whether the logo is retaining its appeal in all forms or not.