Art of Logo Design

Copyright January 2006: Niyam Bhushan. Inspired by the vision of Osho. Published
under the Free Documentation License (FDL)

01: Must Be A Shape

A simple, vector, shape.

Exactly like a glyph.
Imagine the alphabet with a new character-shape added to it.
Thus, a logo has to be the most primal shape you can imagine.
At times, a logo could also contain more than one shape in it.

02: Must Be Scalable

As a shape, the logo must scalable from about 5mm mm in size, to about the size of
a football field, without distortion.

To test the scalability of your logo, start with a logo that is scaled to 5mm in
size, make a copy double its size, and go on doing this until you fill an entire
sheet. Then print it out and see if the shape loses any detail or suffers from any
sort of distortion.

Sometimes, a minimum scalable size of around 1 cm is also acceptable, though it

does limit the use of the logo conditions where you have to use it less than this
size, for example on a tie-pin, or printed on components or products at that tiny
a size.

03: Almost A Square Or A Circle

The logo must have a bounding box that is almost a square or a circle.

A logo that is too tall, or too wide, will suffer when you scale it down to a
maximum size of 5 mm tall or 5 mm wide. The second dimension will almost
disappear.

04: Convert Strokes to Rectangles, Curved Strokes To Outlined Shape

A logo cannot contain a line or a stroke as its element. Each line or stroke in a
logo, must be converted into a thin rectangle, so that it appears to be a stroke.

The famous IBM logo does not have stripes. It appears to have stripes. In reality,
those are thin rectangular boxes cut to form the contours of the letter-shapes.

05: Add A Mnemonic Factor

Most logos are forgotten moments after they disappear from view. To aid memory
recall, the logo must have something unique and unusual about it, that aids its
recall.

The logo of apple computer has an icon of an apple, but the 'bite' on the right-
hand side is its strong mnemonic factor.

06: Play With Negative Spaces Or Counter Spaces

The apparant empty space or empty spaces around the shape or shapes of a logo,
must also tease. If someone looks into them, a new shape should also emerge that
adds to the visual metaphors of the logo.
The shape of the Adobe logo contains two triangles pointing down, and one arrow
going up. The empty spaces around these shapes forms a stylized 'A' shape.

The logo of Hindustan Times contains two horizontal rectangles, followed by two
vertical rectangles. From a distance, they echo the letter shapes of H and T.

07: Logotype Is Not A Logo

A logotype, no matter how stylized, cannot be the logo. The only time a logotype
can become the logo as well, is if the name it represents contains four characters
or less.

Examples: IBM, BBC, NeXT, SONY, NDTV, NBC, CNN, and a few more.

However, using alphabets creates a problem: the meaning of the logo would only be
understood by those who can read that alphabet. The vast majority of the world
cannot read English. Try the sub-continents of China and India as an example,
where two-thirds of the world population dwells.

Never be short-sighted about designing a logotype as a logo that only English-

literate people can understand. If successful, the logo will be used in markets
and for audiences you cannot imagine.

Poor examples of logotype as logo: Microsoft, Virgin, Airtel.

How ironic that all these three brands are making a great push to enter non-
English literate markets with their products and services. Of the three, Airtel is
targetting illiterate masses with its mobile and telephony products. Most of
virgin's products and services can also appeal to illiterate people who can afford
them. Ditto for Microsoft's speech or telephony products.

08: Mascot Is Not A Logo

A mascot is an illustration and therefore makes a poor logo. The Linux community
suffers because it only has a mascot, the penguin, but not a unique logo.

Air India has its Maharaja as a mascot, but also has a logo that is unique and is
emblazoned everywhere as well.

What the logo can achieve, the mascot can never achieve.
A mascot is optional. A logo is never optional.

09: Illustration Or Photo Is Not A Logo

A logo is a simple, primal shape, that captures the essence of what it represents.

It achieves this without using tones and shades like a photo would, or strokes and
sketchy lines like an illustration.

A logo is powerful, because it is so simple.

10: A Logo Is Colorless

Always design a logo as a black on white shape.

Then draw a white on black version. This to test how it would look against a black
background, say a black tee-shirt.
Then draw a simple outline shape, which is neither black nor white. just an
outline shape. This to check how it would look if you emboss or engrave it on a
surface, such as a glass door, or on leather, or have it cast in gold or another
metal.

You add unique, corporate colors to a logo solely to use unique color combinations
for creating a corporate or brand identity. Seldom do you notice that a logo gets
used in black-and-white most of the time, such as on continuation sheets, and even
while faxing or photocopying, where it gets devoid of its colors.

11: Use One Or Two Colors If Possible

Each color you add to a logo almost doubles its costs of production. A logo with
three colors is expensive to paint or produce on non-paper surfaces. One with four
or more becomes even more difficult.

Designers try to justify four or more colors by convincing clients the logo will
be economical to reproduce using the CMYK colors of printing, such as on desktop
printers or in offset printing. However, a client also has to use a logo on non-
paper surfaces, where CMKY may become impossible or difficult and expensive.

12: Colors Must Be Web, Print, And Video Safe

Use colors that can be represented on the web using

1. the web-safe palette of 216 colors, or the expanded web-safe II colors;
2. offset printing on coated and uncoated paper, such as newspapers;
3.video-safe colors, such as broadcast television.

Sometimes a color could be visible on the screen, but cannot be produced

accurately in print, or vice-versa. So be careful while choosing colors for a
logo. The color must fall in the common color-gamut of all the three media.

13: A Logo Cannot Have Metallic Colors

How will you represent metallic colors, such as gold or platinum, accurately on
the web, in print, and in video? None of these media reproduce metallic colors
with their color models.

What will you do with your dependency on metallic colors, if the logo has to be
etched, embossed, or engraved on a metallic surface, anyways?

14: Test Inverse Colors

Sub-consciously, you tend to design a logo to be used against a white background.

It could be eventually used against a black background, so invert the colors to
see if it retains its look. If not, you may have to add a white box around the
logo, and that may just break the logo.

Test the color version of the logo by placing it against backgrounds of white,
black, and various other colors.

Test the logo by placing it against one of the colors that matches one of the
colors of the logo. How will you invert or preserve the color combinations of a
logo in such a case? Will you place it against an enclosing box of white or black?
Or would you use the black-and-white version of the logo against colored
backgrounds.

The Benetton logo is an example worthy of study. So is the Apple logo, gracing so
many differently-colored iMacs.

15: Must Be Able To Fax Or Photocopy A Logo

This is only possible if the logo started out as a simple shape design.

The Deutsche Bank logo is a superb example of a logo.

The logo of Wipro is the poorest example of logo design. It violates almost every
guideline laid down in this book, and hence suffers from a complexity of problems
in its reproduction across various media.

16: Can It Be Ported To Other Surfaces Or Media?

First, check if the logo is weavable, so it can be used on all types of textiles.

Then, check if it can be etched or engraved, like on wood, metal, marble, plastic,
and several other surfaces.

Can you represent the logo as an embroidery?

Check if it can be embossed, such as on leather, paper, plastic, or other

surfaces.

Can you create a landscaped version, such as on a lawn?

The Mercedes Benz logo effortlessly passes all the guidelines mentioned in this
book.

17: Summarized Logo Incarnations

To summarize, a logo must have the following mandatory incarnations:

1. Full-color, CMYK version, for offset printing.

2. Full-color, spot color version.

The colors used are labelled using an industry-standard, such as Pantone. The
colors must also be defined with their web-safe equivalents.

3. Single-color, spot color version, for applications where using more than one
color is not feasible.
The spot color, defined as a Pantone or in another standard, must also be
reproducible in CMYK offset. Define the web-safe values as well.

4. Grayscale version. Tones of gray represent the spot colors.

5. Black-and-white version. With no other tone.

6. Line-Art version. Like an outline. Sometimes the black-and-white version works

just as well, but be careful.

18: Play With Enhanced Versions

After you have made your six basic incarnations of a logo, play with the full-
color version, embellishing it with soft-pillow shadows, lighting effects on its
surfaces, applying textures and surface-maps to see how it evolves.

Watch how MTV plays with its logo in their short, channel-id films.
19: Explore The Third Dimension

How will you play with your logo as a 3D version? The need will arise when the
client wishes to create a sculpture of the logo, or for purposes of merchandising.

The golden arches of MacDonald's are architectural symbols for their outlets, and
therefore have to have height, width, and depth.
The HBO movie channel, plays with their logo in 3D for all their channel ids. So
does MTV.

20: Enhance The Logo For Animation

For television graphics, it is wonderful to have a logo that can be animated. See
how you can play with its shapes and dimensions to create a memorable animation
sequence.

Animation is also required for mobile phone graphics, flash presentations, and
more.

Sometimes, even a simple fade-in of a logo can have a powerful, commanding impact.

21: Test The Logo For Over-Inking

Check if your logo has fine details, such as hairlines or hairline gaps, sharp
jutting or pointed edges, or closely-placed shapes. If it does, chances are these
details will get lost when the logo is scaled to a small size, or the ink used to
print it spills a little more.

Here's a quick way to test your logo. Reduce it to a small, say 5 mm to 10 mm

size. Print it on a desktop bubble-jet printer, using a tissue paper or blotting
paper as the media. If all those details get distorted or simply vanish, clean up
your logo.

The Tux mascot of Linux suffers from this problem when reduced to a small size. It
is an illustration and not a logo.

22: Go Beyond Unimaginative Alphabet Tweaks

Almost all logo designs today, are nothing but the initials of the name they
represent, tweaked a little bit here and there. It just shows the designer is
being unimaginative or loves mediocrity.

Here are two ways of going beyond alphabet tweaks:

1. Draw a shape that captures the essence of what it represents.

Be careful, this does not mean you end up drawing an icon. For example, the logo
for an on-off switch cannot be an iconic drawing of a light switch. It has to be a
circle with that simple line in the centre.
Radio-active waste cannot be represented by the trashcan icon that graces most
desktop computer interfaces. It has to be the circle with the three slices
converging at a centre circle.

2. Tweak the alphabets imaginatively for a whole new meaning.

This will show the use of secondary imagination.
For example, take a look at the logo of goodwill. Note how the alphabet 'g' also
looks like a smiling face.
23: The Viewer's Imagination Must Get Drawn Into The Logo

A viewer who gazes at the logo must get drawn into it, using her imagination to
draw the undrawn.

Some part of your logo must be left formless. The form you draw must jump into the
reader's imagination and give form to the formless.

The logo must conjure up visual cues or visual metaphors in the reader's
imagination.

When a shape is thus actively invoked in the viewer, it becomes a logo.

You have to know how to master this art of invocation.

24: Complement A Logo With A Logotype

Once the logo is done, use expert typography skills to typeset the name or word it
represents. Do this by:

1. Choosing a font that reflects the essence of that name or word or the culture
it has to represent.

2. Use expert typography techniques, such as kerning, tracking, ligatures,

condensation or expansion, to create a seamless, uniquely set typesetting. This
becomes the logotype.
An example is the logotype of Dunhill cigarettes, with the tall ascenders.

3. In the logotype, add a small, discrete mnenomic factor as well. The dropped 'e'
in the intial logo of Intel was great. Look carefully at the way 'Microsoft' is
typeset. The 'o' and 's' are joined through a subtle cut, gently echoing that this
corporation makes operating systems.

4. Avoid gimmicky fonts or lettering for the logotype. A great logotype has to
endure and not look tired once the gimmicks wear out.

25: The Art Of Selecting A Logotype Font

Choosing a font for a logotype is a non-trivial task. Some organizations

commission typographers to design a complete collection of matching serif and
sans-serif fonts for their use. A whole book can be written on how a corporation
or an organization should choose a set of two or more fonts for all its
communication.

Only highly-skilled and experienced typographers or designers can capture the

essence of an orgniazation in the subtle nuances of the font and typographic
settings they choose for the organization's fonts.

An example of such commissioned work: Stanley Morison designed the famous Times
New Roman font for the Times newspaper in London. More recently, the Ecotype font
was custom-designed for The Economist newspaper, with further revisions a few
years later.

British Airways commissioned a new typeface family called 'Mylius'. A team of

specialist typographers worked to create the custom family, and is also involved
in finding complementary sets in arabic, chinese, and other languages.

26: A Logotype With A Long Name or Many Words

Suppose a long name has to be used as a logotype, or two or more words have to be
used together for a logotype. Place the letters and words such that the logotype
becomes more squarish than wide. Or a main word becomes more emphasized.

Remember the secret of secrets: a logotype is nothing but a word or words strung
together to form an unique ligature. Viewers should just look at the total shape
and without reading each letter, instantly recognize the word or words.

Example: The calligraphic style of Coca Cola. I doubt many people worldwide can
even read those letters. Or those who can, read it everytime they look at it.

27: Let Gravity Play Between The Logo And The Logotype

The logo will often adorn the logotype. How you place the two together is an
amazing, intuitive art and understanding of gravity in the universe.

Every satellite, planet, star, and galaxy in the universe is perfectly placed in
motion in a huge cosmic balance.

You have to find exactly where the logo has to be placed next to a logotype. Is it
to the left, top-centre, to the right, or an unusual place between some ascenders,
or a place where magically some hidden lines guide the eye.

When you find the magic positioning, it will feel like a strong magnetic pull.
Like a dowser finding water several metres below, aided by nothing but a twig or a
tree branch.

28: Overall Positioning In Emptiness

Once you have bound the logo and the logotype in a gravitional pull, carefully
decide how they adorn an empty space. Should the logo appear at the top-left, or
the top-right, the top-centre, or the bottome-centre, or the centre, or another
unusual position?
Ditto for the logotype.

Once this is decided, create a strict stylebook, that ensures the logo and
logotype are always used in the correct proportions, at the designated position.
Test this with a sample business card, letterhead, website frontpage, packaging
box, newspaper ad, brochure cover, tv graphics, and by pasting these on a sample
product, and on merchandising such as tee-shirts and coffee cups.

If it rings everytime, you've got it.

29: Add A Leitmotif Element If You Wish

Consider playing with a leitmotif element to discreetly complement your logo and
logotype. Sometimes, this could be the slogan of a brand or a company.
'Just Do It' for Nike, 'Think Different' for Apple, are a few examples.

Sometimes, this could be a visual element, like the curvy line on the left-hand
side of every LG electronics communication.

The most daring leitmotif that does not seem to be a leitmotif, is the crazy,
wild, colorful, fun approach to design used by Swatch. You don't even have to
check for the logo or the logotype. You just know the colorful plastic band with a
plastic watch, wrapped around a wrist, is a Swatch.
30: Finally, A Logo Is Not Really A Logo

It is a Yantra.
A cosmogram.