Client: Blue Ribbon Sweets specializes in high end sweets, mostly truffle like chocolates.

The client wanted a logo that was elegant, modern and crisp, something that would appeal to higher end clients. The client wanted to see a blue ribbon incorporated into the logo.

We started out with a few sketches.

We illustrated those same sketches digitally, and made some minor changes.

Once we had the black and white samples done, we put a little color into them.

Our client liked the top left logo, but asked for some color changes as well as incorporating the ribbon into the hat.

Here’s the final logo the client chose.

Be sure to visit BlueRibbonSweets.com

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Client: A freelance photographer who specializes in event photography such as weddings and bar mitzvahs.

The client wanted a logo that was professional but not stuffy, he was using a logo that was tall and not wide, he also wanted to change that and make a wide logo. He wanted to use one or two colors maximum in the final logo. The client really didn’t have much direction other than that and pretty much gave us free reign to produce the samples.

We started out with lots of rough sketches of cameras and camera related items.

We paid more attention to certain sketches and made some roughs of what we want the first round of logos to look like.

Once we created those digitally, this is how the first round came out.

Revision 1: The client liked the third logo sample, but first he wanted to see the words
Focal and Finesse separated by more than just a capital “F” we opted to add the second color and also make the type on “Finesse” italicized.

Revision 2: The client liked the color combination but he wanted to try a more playful type. He also wanted to add something to the camera to bring it together. We added the bar below the camera to give it a more defined look.

Revision 3: Our client asked to see a few more typefaces for the word Finesse, he also asked to see what the flash would look like if it were a little more rectangular.

Final logo: The client chose the 3rd logo as the final logo, we provided the logo in both color and black so that they client may easily also use the logo as a watermark.

admin Branding your Company, Design a Logo, General Design, LogoBang.com, Typography Branding, case study, graphic design, logo case study, logo design

There are many reasons why someone may want to design their own logo, many times the owner of the company will have their own vision or maybe the company is just starting out and wants to save some money, but it’s important to have a high quality logo whether you’re making the logo yourself or having a logo company create one for you.

The first step in creating your own logo is to identify your business, a lot of people tend to over-think this process and want to include every element of their company name or the services they provide, into the logo. You want to keep your logo simple and unique so it’s often hard to find that balance on your own, which is why lots of companies choose to hire a professional comapny to take care of this. Sometimes a logo doesn’t have to include a definable image at all, especially when their services are in a wider range. There are many factors that contribute to what should be included in a logo and what shouldn’t be. For example, if a comany was called Red Bucket Lawn Services, some might include a lawn mower illustration, while some might include both a lawn mower and a red bucket, though it might be best to focus on only the red bucket, as it’s what’s making your company unique and set apart from other lawn service companies. It is not always necessary to be so literal in the translation of your company name to a logo.

After you identify your business you should also identify your clientele. An example would be marketing towards children, you would want something that will appeal to them but still have that simplicity, but what appeals to children will probably not appeal to an executive business crowd.

Once you’ve narrowed down your business and your audience getting started on sketches is a good idea. It may be a long process but it’s important to use the right type of font as well as the right type of illustration, if any. After narrowing down a sketch you can proceed to illustrate the logo online. Usually it’ll take a few tries and you may have to tweak it a little, but once you get it right, you will know.

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Inspiration for a logo design can come from anywhere.  You don’t necessarily have to have what you do incorporated in a logo design.  For example, you don’t have to have a DNA helix for a biotech company, or a car for an automotive company in the logo.  For many companies, the logo has no indication of what the company does.  It is a graphical representation that identifies the company.

Ideas can come from just looking at the logos of other companies.  You may want to incorporate some concepts that appeal to you in multiple logos.  You’ll need to look at design features, colors, typography etc… Once you get an idea of what your logo should look like, you should hire a professional to put the idea into reality.

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Here at the LogoBang blog we’re going incorporate tutorials or other neat tricks that you can try. Here’s a cool way to spruce up some basic text.

1. Choose a font and color you like and type out your desired word.

2. Right click and create an outline of the text.

3.  Sheer text with the sheer tool if desired, we made ours look like the image below.

4. Add a gradient to your text, we used a black and white gradient with a 90 degree angle.

5. Make a duplicate of the text (while the text is selected an easy way to do this is to hold down alt then click and drag) and select the pen tool and draw a curved line over the duplicated text.

6. Select the text and curve and choose the DIVIDE option in the pathfinder, delete everything that was on the top portion of the curved line.

7. With both the partial text and original text selected, use the align tool and select VERTICAL ALIGN BOTTOM.

8. Make any additional adjustments to the gradients if required.

9. Add a stroke to the original text.

The finished product should have a glossy look such as above.

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As we get more and more technologically advanced, so has other aspects of our lives.  Company logos are no different.  They seem to evolve overtime as well. Companies such as Xerox, IBM, Motorola, Apple, AT&T and others have have given their logos new life by adding some modern aspects to its logo.

Designers have said that a good logo should not need to be updated as a strong logo should stand the test of time. Although the above companies have updated their logos, they’ve done so by making some minor cosmetic changes to the logo. Some of the logo’s that have undergone drastic changes did in fact have drab and outdated logo and needed to be modernized.

Other reason for changing or updating a logo is that your company has expanded it business practices. If your logo design was too specific to the nature of your business and as your business changes, your logo may need to be updated to reflect the changes. You may need to have your logo say more about the company if in fact it does provide more services.

Lastly, one obvious reason to change your logo is if your company changes its name. You may want to redesign your logo to reflect the business practices of a merged company and or the new name of the company. You generally don’t want to change the name of the company because consumers might get confused but if it is necessary, you’ll want to have consumers know the new company name.

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Every year, artists are coming up with new and inventive ways to create logos.  This year is no different.  Logo Lounge has a rundown of some of the trends that appeared in logo design in 2007.  One of the most prominent design trends of late has been eco friendly logo designs.  These designs promote eco friendly companies that do business to clean up the environment or something associated with clean economics.  Also coming into more popularity are logo designs with some sort of 3D aspects.  These designs tend to give the logo more depth to the 2D image.

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Now there are a lot of software out there that says you can design your own logo.  However, the money you spend on this software may be a waste of money.  Most of the design features on this type of software usually incorporates some sort of clip art that you can move around and add fonts etc.  There is really nothing that is custom about this and the design you generate from this software usually looks like it was made from clip art.

In order to get a really great looking logo, you’ll need to hire a professional designer.  One who can gather information about your company and design something that has features unique to the company.  The designer can also use effects such as shading, 3D, and other tools to really make your logo stand out from the other companies who don’t use professionals.  All of the big companies usually hire professionals to design their logos and or marketing.

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In designing a logo, the best thing that you could possibly do is to keep the look of the logo relatively simple.  If the logo gets too complicated and distracting, it makes it harder for the end user to remember the logo and to associate the logo to your product.   The best thing to do is to use specific colors and don’t try to use too many different colors.   You may want to keep shapes and features simple as well.  Some examples of some of the most recognizable logos in the world have this same characteristics in it.

McDonalds‘ is just an arch of the first letter in the company name.  Microsoft is just a font of the company name.  Nike is a graphic depicting their representation of a swoosh.  Apple computer is a logo of an apple with a bite out of it.  As you can see, the logos are very simple, not a lot of color combinations, etc..  It may be best to keep your logo with this “simplicity is the key” mind set in designing your logo.

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Every year there are dozens of new trends going on in every industry and the art and graphics industry is no different.  We recently came across a blog entitled the Best Logo Trends of 2006. The blog writer goes through 10 trends which he thinks are the best of 2006, the trends range from overlapping to dry brush strokes to splats. It’s still unclear as if any of these trends will stand the test of time, but with all trends, things usually come to an end after they’ve run their course. Regardless of whether or not these trends will last longer than others, the blog entry is still a good piece and is a great read.

admin Design a Logo, General Design 2006, logo design, logo trends