Posts Tagged ‘logo’

While I worked on a lot of web last month, this month has more print. Below is a list of what I’ve worked on.

1. United Way: Bookmark
   
2. United Way: Dress Down Stickers
   
3. Kathakali Centre: Brochure (non-profit in India)
   
4. Seattle Catering: Brochure
   
5. Camp Fire USA: Accordion-fold Invitation
   
6. Helix Massage: Print Advertisement
   
7. BalMar: Event Card
   
8. Sesame Communications: Papandreas web design
   
9. Sesame Communications: McQuade web design
   
10. Sesame Communications: Patzawan web design
    
11. Sesame Communications: Glenwood web design
    
12. AMV: Noted Occasions Web Design
    
13. CMR: Sesame Postcard design
    
14. Malware Analysis: Logo design comps
    
15. Technology Alliance: Postcard Design
    
16. Val Patrick Golf: Web Design
    
17. Roomaker Organizing: Web Design
    
18. Phoenix Studio: Akonni Data Sheet
    
19. New Project News: Magazine Layout (Aug)
    

June was a very good month for me…really busy! Below is a list of projects that I have worked on during the month:

1. Active Body Pilates (for AMV): web design
   
2. Brain-Voice: web content updates
3. Camp Fire USA:
   Auction Save The Date Postcard
   
   Auction Save The Date Flash Module
   Parent Map Advertisement
   June e-Newsletter
4. Neuwaukum: Spec Art
5. Seattle Reproduction: June Newsletter
6. Sesame Communications:
   Waxler web design
   
   Faulkner web design
   
   Shimizu web design
   
   Smith web design
   
   Vossers web design
   
   Larson web design
   
   Rzazewska web design
   
   Farran web design
   
   Weiss web design
   
   Gu web design
   
   Pickering web design
   
   Thomas web design
   
   Chan web design
   
7. Bob Gress: Logo & Business Card
   
8. Clarity DX: Web Design
   
9. Holum Design: Web development of Kensington Gardens
10. Jensen Estate Law: Web design & development
    
11. Marbella Day Spa & Boutique: Web design
    
12. Sterling Landscaping: Web Design
    
13. Natalee Roan (V Journal): Logo design
    
14. Peace of Body: Logo design comps
    
15. Greg Bartell: Logo design comps
    
16. Wedgewood Dental - A-Board
    

Are you an individual or small business that knows you need some sort of logo to help identify you from competitors? Do you have no idea what you want in a logo, making it hard to talk to a graphic designer? Below are some quick tips to help articulate ideas to shorten the design process and potentially saving you some money.

1. Look at the logos of other businesses in your industry. Do your competitors use solid, conservative images, or flashy graphics and type? Think about ways you want to differentiate your logo from your competition.
2. Make a list of your values and circle the top three. Values are what appeal to your target market and are true to you as business. These things are so important that they become rules to guide your company. Values are who you want to be and how you get there. They are your culture.
3. Make a list of brand attributes (metaphors, descriptive words and symbols) and circle the top three. The brand attributes are personality traits that reflect the idea that businesses can be viewed in much the same way that people are. We react emotionally to all our interactions with them. It’s important to ensure that these interactions are consistently on target with just the right business feel and tone of voice.
4. Now that you have a list of values and attributes, what images, symbols, or colors come to mind when you think of them? Make a list of them.
5. Round up a group of other people in your network. Share your values, attributes, images, symbols, etc. to get feedback. Often, you are too close to your ideas. Your network can see your business as a consumer/client and give you valuable information. They may come up with ideas you haven’t thought about. Be sure to write down all ideas, no matter how outrageous.
6. Your logo should be clean and functional. Your logo should work well on a business card or a billboard. A good logo should be easy to reproduce. Icons are better than photographs since they can be deciphered when scaled small. If you include too much detail, think about what it will look like scaled really small or on a fax.
7. Using all the information you have gathered, sketch out some ideas on paper. Logos can be one of three types: font-based, consisting primarily of a type treatment; an illustrated logo that literally illustrates what your company does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its logo; or an abstract graphic symbol, such as Nike’s swoosh, that becomes linked to a company’s brand. You don’t have to be an artist. If your shape doesn’t look quite like it should, make a note of what it should be. The point is to get a rough idea to share with a designer.
8. Explore your colors. One thing you need to be careful of as you explore your color options is cost. A five-color logo might look gorgeous, but the price won’t be so attractive when you put it on stationary. Try not to exceed three colors unless you deem it absolutely necessary.
9. Take your rough sketches and ideas to a graphic designer. Shop around for a graphic designer. If the price seems high, look at it this way—remember that a good logo should last at least 10 years. If you look at the amortization of that cost over a 10-year period, it doesn’t seem so bad. Sure, you can find a cheap designer, but you often get what you pay for. A graphic designer can take your ideas and give them some finesse, as well as make them digital. Since you have done your homework, you cut down on the amount of time a designer has to brainstorm with you, which could potentially save time and money.
10. Next steps. Be sure to get several versions of your new logo. At a minimum, you should request a color version, a black & white version and a reversed version. Depending on your design, you might also want both a horizontal and vertical version. Insist on getting vector versions of your logo (.eps) with the fonts converted to outlines. You don’t’ need to know what that means and you might not even be able to open the file, but it’s extremely important. You need to safeguard these files as any other business asset. Any time you work with a print company, print designer, web designer, etc. be sure to give them these files. They will love you! Have your logo designer also give you JPG or PNG versions of each version of your logo so you can use it in email, Word docs, etc.

With a well-designed logo, potential clients can instantly discover how your business can serve them.

When I’m working with new clients, I typically need to ask them for a vector version of their logo. Most have no idea what that means and more often than not, they don’t even know where to look for one. Many clients that have very busy logos that don’t look good when scaled down or need to be black & white only.

If you are having a new logo made, you need to know the following information:

1. Your logo should be scalable. The best logos are simple with clean lines. If you have too much detail in your logo, it will look messy when scaled small.
2. Ask for a logo in black & white, color and reversed so you have a version that will work with whatever printed or web piece you may need in the future.
3. Be sure to get a vector logo as well as high-resolution JPGs. A vector logo is one that is created in Illustrator or Freehand. The file can be scaled to any size without losing quality and will always appear sharp. It also usually has a transparent background and can be placed on anything. The file extension should be .ai or .eps. JPGs usually have a white background, which makes it difficult to place over color or photos, especially if your logo is mostly text. JPGs are useful when a client needs to the logo in a Word document or something with a white background. A client can also view a JPG on any computer, but cannot usually open and view a vector file. JPGs can only be scaled down…scaling up will result in very poor quality.
4. A logo from your website will NOT work for printed pieces. Your logo on your website is only 72 dpi (dots per inch). You need at least 300 dpi for print. Since the web can’t display a vector logo, it will either be a JPG or GIF, neither of which can be scaled larger. While a print-out of your web page may look ok on when printed on your desktop printer, it is handled differently when printed on a press and will appear blurry/fuzzy.
5. Your logo tells who you are and should be safe-guarded from loss like any other business file. Put all these versions on a disk and in a safe place. Keep the designer’s contact info in case you ever need to refer back to them.

As a value-added service, Lolalu Design will always give you a logo designed to be scalable and in various formats with instructions on keeping it safe. I will also help you insert your logo in your email signature and give you instructions for other scenarios where you might want to use your logo.

If you don’t understand the difference between vector and raster, you’re not alone!

The majority of images you see everyday on your computer are raster-based. Raster graphics are simply a grid of pixels, with each pixel assigned a color.  When you zoom in on a raster image — like a .jpg photo of your family reunion — you soon see the pixels in Aunt Sally’s face (or was that acne?).

Raster art is terrific for photographs, because it can capture and show very realistic gradients in color – like the highlights and shadows in people’s faces.   Newer digital cameras can take very high resolution photos, so you have to zoom in a LOT before you see Aunt Sally’s pixels.

The downside is that the file sizes can be very high — in the 20-40 megabyte range — and image quality can be lost when the file is re-saved as a JPG.

Vector art is based on mathematical formulas – not pixel colors. So instead of a series of colored blocks to create an image, a vector art file is composed of “instructions” that tell the computer to show a curve with a given length and bend, an area of certain color, etc.These instructions take up far less space than an equivalent raster image — so a 40MB raster file may only be a 800KB vector file. That smaller size makes editing much more efficient, because your computer isn’t freaking out while trying to render your changes. And it  makes them much easier to manage and share.

The other huge advantage of vector is that the image is crisp no matter how far you zoom in. So you don’t have to worry about a graphic being pixelly when you blow it up for a large sign, binder cover, etc. Vector art can be viewed and printed at any scale — whether business cards or billboards!  As an .eps file, it can be read by any vector-based graphics program, and even imported into Microsoft Word as clipart. This means that the same logo file that looks great on a business card will also look great on a billboard.  The bottom line — for print design, a vector logo will always look and work best. Any design agency will typically start with a vector logo, but can easily export Web-friendly files from this format.

One more thing — a raster image will either be grayscale or CMYK  color for print. If you have a logo with one or two colors, you’ll still pay for a 4-color print process using a JPG or TIF image. If you use a vector image, you can specify Pantone spot colors and really reduce your printing costs!

If you only have a logo that is raster (JPG) based, I can help you turn it into a vector graphic that can be used on many different applications. Just contact me at anita@lolaludesign.com.

These are projects I have worked on during the month of June 2010:

1. Sesame 24×7 – Jorgensen web design
   
2. Sesame 24×7 – Pelusa web design
   
3. Sesame 24×7 – Theisen web design
   This one was quite a challenge. The client insisted on the red to purple nav area and the fall trees in the header photo. They also wanted a light “yellow” background and a polaroid picture for the main photo. Somehow, in spite of their crazy demands, I made it work.
   
4. David Drake – The Yak Book cover design & sales flier
   
5. Rachel Whalley – Twitter background design
   
6. Sesame 24×7 – Lin web design
   
7. Sesame 24×7 – Mann web design
   Client wanted a southern “homey” site
   
8. New Project News – BBH ads design
   
9. Sesame 24×7 – Olsen web design
   
10. Sesame 24×7 – Sink web design
    
11. Entertonement – The Exorcist web design & player design
    

    

12. Ballard Food Bank – Pro bono brochure design
    
13. Dave Kuhns – Business card design
    
14. Balanced Rock Healing – Logo design; business card, letterhead & envelope design