Logo Tips from Future IT Services

Which Draft should I choose?

Some people may find it quite difficult to choose between 2 or more drafts when making that final decision.

Below you will find some clues on how to choose your final logo.

1. Test each design. Ask as many people as you can find; customers, workmates or family friends, their opinion on each stage of design. The more people's opinions the better, as you are then able to test the logo's semiotic ability on a grander scale, and can measure its effectiveness on a wider audience, rather than relying on your own particular feeling. A good way to do exercise this process is to offer your customers a free gift for filling out a survey. It''s incredible how quickly you can find a trend among their opinions.

2. Try to see what your customers will see. When people are involved in the design process, they tend to pay excessive attention to aspects of the design that are hardly regarded by customers. Watch the whole thing, look for balance. Neither a colour, a font face or a shape will make your logo extraordinary by itself alone.

3. Business logo means businsess, not passions. Many people want to include their favourite landmark, place, fish or bridge in their logo. What is meaningful for you, maybe means nothing for your customers. Good practice is to keep your logo in tune with what your business does.

4. On paper, and... what else? Although it should have been considered by the designer, some designs are easier to apply on different surfaces. Be sure to always specify this clearly to your designer at the beginning or as soon as it pops into your head!. If you need your logo to be printed on various formats be sure that your design allows you to achieve this.

5. Keep it simple. A draft can't communicate all the things you want your customers to know about your company, as a well-marketed corporate company's logo can do. However this is developing a brand, and involves much more than having just a logo designed. When you look at a Fortune 100 company's logo, you're watching millions of pounds being invested in making their brands meaningful. In fact, if you look at most of the companies' logos, you'll realise they are very simple and on many occasions, they are primitive.

Ten Tips to fill out a Graphic Design Brief successfully

1. Be ready to invest as much time in your answers as the questionnaire may require.

2. Do not leave questions in blank. Each of them has been included because they allow the designer to understand you needs and preferences. No matter how redundant something may appear to be, it is certainly important for the designer

3. Do not take anything for granted. Something that may be well known by you and the people who are related to your business, customer and market could not be known by the designer

4. Lack of details leads to generic designs: Colors, font styles, shapes and effects are important clues for the designer. Give your suggestions even If you are not sure about some subject, because there is no better way to know if something works or not for you than including it on a drafts. If the designer doesn't find any clue, he is forced to draw generic designs as he has no particular knowledge about your preferences.

5. Designing is a process, not an event. Do not expect to receive your final logo at once. From initial drafts to the final logo, there is a fine-tuning process, getting the draft closer to your expectations. Great initial drafts have been ruined by further revisions, and modest initial drafts turned out to be great final logos. The quality of the information provided to the designer thrives the quality of the logo design.

6. Knowing the logos that you like: we need to be guided to know your tastes, not to copy somebody else's logotype. Many people believe that saying something like "I love Nike's logo" will be used to copy the nike's logo. Just the opposite. This prevent us from using the same resource and will help us understand how your written requirement matches your graphic preferences. Not all the people call "sophisticated" to the same thing. What may be considered "trendy" for us may not be for you.

7. Be clear: Please be sure your comments and suggestions are clear. Explain why things like you and why not, and give clues about how to refine the design. If you like very much a draft, you can still get a logo closer to your expectations by guiding the designer to refine it.

8. It isn't over until it's over. If you provide accurate feedback during the design process, there are very high possibilities that you get a design that fully satisfies you. When the design process is over, choose the draft that better meets your needs and "adopt" it.

9. Test the drafts: Do not only choose one design because you like it. Ask your customers, friends, workmates their opinions on it. When you need a Caterpillar, use a Caterpillar, not a Porsche.

10. Broaden your scope: Your business identity is not exclusively defined by your logo. Identity is the result of a "communication system", which is "read" by your public. So, it is so important to have a nice logo as to have professional marketing collateral and stationery, among other things.

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