Cheap Logos are Bad for Your Business
The importance of professional logo design is completely undervalued in today’s world. A good logo is incredibly valuable for any business, so you should not treat your logo as a cheap commodity. To understand the importance of a logo, though, you must first understand the purpose of one.
A logo creates immediate recognition and establishes a visual identity for a business. Businesses want to be trusted and viewed as having a superior quality in their market, so a logo should imply trustworthiness and superiority. Your logo is the centerpiece to your brand identity, and consequently a cheap-looking logo will make your business look cheap as well. Considering the magnitude of a logo’s many purposes, why would a business want to spend as little as possible on their logo? Let’s compare some cheap/budget logos with professional logos.
Cheap Logo Design
Here are some logo designs I rounded up from samples on Craigslist.
Notice some things they all have in common: they look like they were created in all of 5 minutes, use basic typefaces that can be downloaded for free, and their logo marks all look like clipart that was downloaded for free from some clipart website. None of them are particularly memorable, either.
No CommentsColor Psychology 101
Color psychology is just one of many complex areas of the broader subject of design psychology, and stems from the subject of color theory. It is too complex of a topic to cover in-depth, but I want to give a basic overview of it for those unfamiliar. The colors used in any design have a powerful, if even unknown, effect on the design’s viewers. It is vastly important to select the right colors in order to project the desired image and message to a viewer.
Here is a core list of colors with their meaning. Keep in mind that the precise hue and combination of colors used also has an affect on the overall meaning.
Red
Red is an intense color denoting passion, and can represent both love and anger.
Orange
Being a combination of red and yellow, orange takes on attributes of both. It isn’t as intense as red, and creates a feeling of warmth and energy
Yellow
Yellow is a cordial and happy color, and can denote both joy and shyness.
Green
Green is a refreshing color, signifying nature, growth, and renewal. Depending on how it is used, green can also be associated with envy.
Blue
Blue has a cool, calming quality to it. Like with any good thing, though, too much blue can appear cold and depressing. Blue is frequently used in corporate images.
Violet
Violet/purple is a spiritual color that has long been associated with wealth.
Black
Black can be all kinds of things, both conservative and edgy. Depending on how it’s used, it can be sexy and modern, or more traditional and safe.
White
White is a soft color that denotes purity and innocence, and meshes well in combination with any other color.
Gray
Gray is the most neutral color of all, being conservative and balanced. It is generally more sophisticated, but can also appear moody.
Brown
Brown is a wholesome earth tone that creates a sense of reliability and stability.
No CommentsWhat is the Difference Between a Typeface and a Font?
To be sure, they’re not the same thing. People often use the two terms interchangeably, unaware of their difference. While the difference between the two won’t matter to most people, it is important that designers be able to discern between them. It’s kind of like calling a squirrel and chipmunk the same animal. While technically different, they’re similar in relation.
What is a typeface?
A typeface is the actual design of the characters of the alphabet; the style of that particular set of letters, numbers, and other characters. Times New Roman refers to a specific style – it’s a typeface.
What is a font?
A font is a single style and size of an assortment of alpha-numeric characters and punctuation. Think of a font is being the file on your computer that contains the information for that single style and size; it tells your computer and printer how to displace a typeface. Times New Roman 12 point bold refers to a font.
Adobe’s Definition
The definition of a font according to Adobe: “A font is one weight, width, and style of a typeface.”
Now You Know
I leave you with this humorous Periodic Table of Typefaces from geekologie.com
No CommentsEquip 2 Conceal Instructor Badge
My design for the official badge/patch of certified Equip 2 Conceal firearms instructors. Equip 2 Conceal wanted an officieal seal-of-sorts that would identify their NRA-certified instructors. They wanted the badge to look patriotic, as well as maintain the Equip 2 Conceal branding I’ve long been in charge of. The end result was this, which is already printed as details on the instructors’ vehicles and will also be seen as a patch on the uniforms of Equip 2 Conceal instructors.
No Comments
