The Art of an Impractical Logo

Being in the offline marketing/advertising world, I get to see a lot of logos. Our clients bring everything from very expensive designs made by some high end Manhatten firm to sketches on a napkin made during a drunken brainstorming session at the local pub. Interesting enough the comparison is never usually good or bad when it comes to the logos we see. The question is almost always practical or impractical. Try telling someone who paid over $5,000 for their logo that it is completely unusable. Not Fun!

With that being said, I thought I would post a couple of observations for discussion.

Color - Obviously color matters. Without going into all the psychology about reds and blues and the feelings they invoke, I would like to say be careful with some of these trendy bright colors. They are hot today but may not work in a couple of years. Also, remember that the client has to match things up to that color. Office furniture, uniforms, vehicles, their private jet.... Think about that before you build in some crazy color that cannot be replicated.

Gradients - Many of the logos I see around this site rely on gradients and 3D effects to make them work. Please remember that if the client does any offline advertising at all, these gradients and 3D effects may be very hard or very expensive to print. For example, we had a client that had a new logo designed in time for a big trade show. They called us and needed a new booth made, new collateral, and t-shirts to give away. Because of the gradients and 3D effects of their logo, their t-shirts cost 4 times as much as they should have.

Make the logo work without the gradients and shadows first. Make sure the logo can be used as a black and white image, then add the colors. Remember the client may send things via fax. If you cannot use the logo as a black and white, it will look like a big ink blob on the other end.

Size - Here is the best way to sum up size and aspect ratio. Make sure the logo will look good printed on the barrel of an ink pen. If you design the logo in this way, it will look good on almost every other printed item.

I know many of you work exclusively online, but sooner or later, most clients will need to use their logo offline. Save them a lot of headache and cost by thinking through the logo a bit longer. If you have to, go to the pub, have a pint, and then draw it on a napkin. If it works there, it will work anywhere.

 

Nice post, I totally agree 100% with everything you've said here. I've tried explaining this very same thing to several newer designers to the industry as well as why doing the Logo originally in vector is beneficial. Most ignore what I say because all they have is photoshop (A photo manipulating & paint software), fine for web branding work but not brick-n-mortar. Others agree & say that it makes sense, yet still do nothing to learn about points / paths vector, simplicity, 3 color rule, etc...

I see more & more designers producing highly filtered logo's these days (E.G. gradient, bevel, transparency, etc..) because they think it looks cool, not for flexibility & practicality. A few years ago I started training myself to not use filters / effects at all, none, zip, zilch. My reasoning helps keep the work flexible, practical, clean, cross platformable, monogramable, Etc.... The cross platforming was my biggest interest at the time when I found that filters either A.) convert to an embedded bitmap or B.) are lost completely when trying to cross platform to another extension for compatibility reasons on the client side.

An embedded bitmap in a vector makes it useless (No longer fully upscalable without loss of quality & the loss of filters cause the design based on it to look deformed). At any rate, with 0% filter use I can now provide over 78 file extensions without any quality loss. Fully cross platform compatible.

I've actually had clients get upset with me when I've told them their logo concept is not practical nor really usable in real world situations (E.G. business card, letter head, fax cover, etc..). Maybe a 45% ratio actually listened to me as to why & the remaining 55% took their business elsewhere for another opinion. I can only hope that where they ended up told them the same as me, otherwise they ended up finding out the hard way when it got to the print company.

Nice post by the way, + Rep to you

 

Very useful advice. During my graphic arts training, professors were always nit-picky about online-to-print transfer of designs. From an artist's perspective, thinking about the commercial aspects of art creation can seem like an annoyance. But to be competitive and gain a good reputation, it's worth understanding.

 

Sorry to be naive here... but isn't the basis of all design training is to develop logos in black and white first and test the sizes from 2cm up? Perhaps the explosion of bitmapped and filtered/effected logos comes from a simpler base... laziness. Clients are easily impressed with a jazzy looking logo, and aren't interested in hearing about the practicabilities or lack there of. Designers see it as a fast sale and fast work.

I agree 100% with doing a logo right. I just don't see designers caring enough to educate their clients, when making them "happy" in the short term is so much easier and more profitable.

 

Fantastic post and it succulently sums up a message I spend a lot of time trying to get across to clients.

I remember the first time I commissioned a logo rather then knocked up something myself. It was quite expensive and I was nervous having persuaded my client to spend the extra money to get it done 'properly'. When the choices of logos came through my heart sunk a little as I realised that I could have drawn any of them in 30 seconds (and I'm a terrible drawer).

But that was the point, less really is more with logos and that argument about drawing it on the back of a napkin is very valid although I'd say more so post design. In my opinion a good logo artist has the ability to come up with something that anyone can copy recognisably with a biro. The real hard bit is at the same time making it unique.

That logo I mentioned above was three geometric boxes and has successfully been printed on t-shirts, 20ft vinyl banners and vehicles as well as the usual business cards and letterheads.

Simple shapes are also far easier to recognise too.

If there is any doubt in what this thread says then look around you at the logo of any large brand; Nike, Gap, Dell, T-Mobile, HSBC, Gillette etc - they all have simple logos.