How To Judge A Logo

Posted on 05. Aug, 2010 by Gagandeep Singh in How To

I really don’t like people who base their opinions about somebody or someone only on first impression, but in a world where all around us you can find multiple opportunities this could be decisive. When we are talking about the online world then a logo is equivalent to the first impression. Thus judging the great importance of the logo is revealed…but another question is how to judge the quality of a logo?

There are two components of judging the quality of a logo:

1. A subjective one that depends on the style, mentality or the culture of the judger. This can’t be predicted…all is very vague; each person has his own preferences. It could happen (the laws of Murphy are respected) that a very bad logo which doesn’t match the rules of design to be greatly appreciated by a client… it accomplished his/her/their demands and of course, like it; what impresses them is the logo and not if it respects the rules of design or not. The subjectivity wins over the principles of design in the most cases.
2. An objective one means that it is based on the rules of design .The problem regarding the rules and the number of it is still open…here are the ones which are the most important.

1. A Quality Logo Should Be Easy Rendered On All Possible Media

All the rules should be logical or have a commonsense. In most of the cases the clients are initially asking for a logo to put on a website… some of them believe that it is less expensive; in these conditions the restrictions are almost zero, or the creativity of the designer; few moments after finishing the logo he remarked that it will be perfect for him to have the logo on a business card and that could be a disaster. A logo only for a website could have some shadows, highlights or gradients and these are hard/impossible to look well or barely the same in print.

It is possible that the client wants the logo printed/painted on a T-shirt in an aggressive campaign of promoting and here other particularities arise. In these circumstances it is a mark of professionalism to realize a logo that has the same features on multiple media.

2. Try To Avoid Shadows, Highlights Or Gradients

This piece of advice has a connection with the previous one and the reason is clear to not recommend using these even if the overall design seems to suffer.

3. A Logo Should Look Well In Black & White Format

An important feature of a quality logo is the capacity of it to look well in black and white. This is so important because in this format the concept is highlighted and not the design. In the judging of a logo the primordial fact is the concept… colors, fonts can suffer some small modifications along the time. Problem of this: the trends in color??? These are changing every year and maybe the client wants a fresh look: he can change the nuances keeping the project. It is easy to notice and to understand a logo being fine in black and white has no problems in changing the colors.

4. Few Colors And Few Fonts

The great majority of high quality or well-known logos are using no more than three colors and one-two fonts, which are known by most of all users.

This recommendation is the one which makes the connection between composition and the concept of the logo. A logo should say everything about the owner: who the owner is, his field of activity, the quality of services and so on; all these should be conveyed in few shapes and two-three words. You may ask yourself… why that?

We all know that a human being can’t retain everything that he saw along the time of his life; in these conditions a complicated logo with a lot of colors, multiple fonts which are hard to distinguish and many shapes surely won’t be memorized by someone even if the services or goods provided are very good. Also keep in mind that a normal person has no interest in memorizing logos.

5. KISS- Keep It Simple Stupid

This is the most important. Maybe you could ignore the all previous rules, but ignoring is synonym with poor quality. Look at the great showcase of logos on the web and you will see that this rule is respected by all. Here are some places to visit and see great works:

6. Make It Recognizable

Obviously, no one except maybe the logo designers want to study logos. When you create a new logo, always keep in mind this statement; we live too fast and have too many opportunities to easily bring back some graphics in our memory. I recommend you to do something that can’t be learned, there works only of our talent and creativity but this is sure to be important: try to make it recognizable as much as you can…. but how can you do that? Simply, here the difference between a very good designer and an inexperienced one is made. There is no piece of advice, and I am afraid I could do nothing for you and once again, here works only talent, creativity and experience.

I am really excited to hear your principles of judging a logo or how to bust you skills in creating masterpieces.

Tags: Design, How To, Logo, Tips