Hello and Happy Monday! Lately, I've been working on copywriting and logo design, which is making me look at my own copy on the site here. Plus I've been doing the "A Designer Explains" thing for some time now, so marrying the LR Graphics logo with a new A Designer Explains logo is something I've been trying to hash out.
This week on the blog I'm going to be looking at a few things I've been doing wrong and some articles on how to address those problems with the design.
First thing first: Type. I know I am lacking in this area just because I've been focused so much on illustration. It's an embarrassing problem because I used to really focus on type design, Gill Sans and Bodoni will always be special to me. But I do recommend all aspiring designers to read The Elements of Typographic Style (2002) by Robert Bringhurst and review this article about type hierarchy.
The color is important. I tend to play it safe with a single color, usually black. When I start getting into color schemes I always feel like it looks a bit cheesy. I like the idea of blue and green going together, but committing to a color scheme means changing up all my other branding. So for argument's sake I think I'm going to stick with the classics, black and white with maybe a mid level shade of gray for secondary text or shapes.
Simplicity. I can't stress this enough, say you want your logo to be a lion. You want it to look golden, but it's so difficult to get that gold look without adding some gradients. I hate gradients! I think it makes things look a bit cheap, kind of 90s style. I like bold and instantly recognizable logo designs, so I think that's what I'm aiming for in this application.
I will leave that there as my own rules and guidelines for this new project I'm assigning myself. I did consider hiring another person to design this for me, but that's poor advertising as a logo designer- if I had to contract my own logo design out I don't know if I'd feel good about that.
