Research
Lesson 10 from: Logo Design for Your Small BusinessMatthew Jervis
Research
Lesson 10 from: Logo Design for Your Small BusinessMatthew Jervis
Lessons
Course Introduction
03:56 2What is a Logo and What Makes it Successful
02:14 3What Kind of Logos are There?
03:38 4Logo Creation Considerations
04:56 5Creating Your Logo: Ideation & Research
15:02 6Creating Your Logo: Brainstorming, Sketching, & Typography
31:29 7Color & Logo Refinement
30:19 8Logo Review and Finalization
24:35Lesson Info
Research
The new logo, now I'm gonna walk you through sort of the different stages of that, the new logo. Oh, great. So the first was sitting down with Justin and figuring what he wanted. So, again, he sort of had the idea of what he already wanted based on the elements of the older logo, so I want the image of the mountains because I do landscape photography. So, normally, with the research I would go into a lot more, like go to many different places. I like to look at books to have examples of logos, but in this case I knew that he wanted mountains, so I just Googled mountains (laughs) and this is sort of what I came up with, and then I played in Illustrator with creating vector versions of the mountain photographs. So I do a lot of Google image searches, take a lot of screen caps, bring those into Illustrator. There's this great... Do you guys use the Illustrator Program, Adobe Illustrator? So it's a great way to take a photo. You can do image trace on it and turn it into a vector, or yo...
u know what I could have done is, mountains are basically triangles, so I could have created a different thing stylistically using geometric shapes, but started off, again, looking at mountains, so that was sort of my research. And then we got together and we brainstormed and sketched. I think that's the second thing that's another really important thing to do is sketch out your idea off the computer. Now I know we're just up to brainstorming, but what's your most favorite place that you really feel like your creative energies really start going? Pencil and paper. Pencil and paper? Yeah. In the research stuff or the brainstorming? The brainstorming. Oh. Yeah, the talking with the client. Sometimes, if I look at a bunch of different things I just get confused. Yeah. If I'm looking at what everyone else is doing, it harms my process. Right, yeah. Because then I start to feel like, oh, it's supposed to look this this, you know? Right. When really it needs to represent the business or the person, so a lot of sketching. How many sketches did you guys end up doing altogether? Well, in this case, actually, he did the sketching, so we sat down and he was like, "This is what I want," and he grabbed the pen from me, and I was like, "Great," you know? So it was a very short sketch phase, but normally I'll do like 50 at a time, and just go in all different directions, like maybe it's a monogram and it's just my initials, or maybe it's a picture, or maybe it's the two combined, so just trying all these different approaches with the pencil, 'cause if I try it on the computer, I'm just gonna get hung up in the software. Right, right, now did he change any way that he was gonna use the logo? Was that, did he have any different like, yeah, I want a new logo, and was there another, was there some event that was happening that he wanted a new launch of the logo? Was there some sort of ...? No. Or was it just dipping into redesign and ...? He was getting a lot more hits on his website. Oh, okay. And so I came across his logo because he was like, "Oh, I'm getting more hits on my website," and I said, "I didn't know you had a website, let me look at it," and then when I saw it I was like, "If you're getting all this new traffic, let's make sure that you put your best face forward." Yeah, 'cause we talked a little bit about sort of those moments where a redesign is sort of necessary, and you know, more traffic. Yeah, I mean, maybe I was just the right person to enter his life at the right time. (laughs) It was divine intervention. He's hanging out with all these photographers and then a designer is like, "Whoa. I'm not looking at your photography at all, 'cause I can't see past your logo," you know? (laughs) I can't get by that. Yeah. My eye won't go to the rest of the page.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Lacey Heward
Loved all the prep work info and how that translates into a great logo design. The class was easy to follow, the instructor answered some great questions, and it was a great overview of how to create a logo.
patricia villamil
I want to thank Matthew for a great insight into designing a logo. I am not an artist, have no creative experience in the digital or marketing or banding world, and because of this class, I actually designed a logo! I want to open a small kids art studio for classes in my neighborhood and I was looking to design my own logo to use in a Wordpress site and small scale branding/marketing and some building signage, and thanks to Matthew's easy and sensible approach to design, i was able to it. I def. recommend this class.
a Creativelive Student
Great intro to logo design. Matthew outlined some great steps to take to kick off my logo creation process. I think I'll be able to save a lot of time and money working with a pro for final design as I'll be able to come to them with a more clear idea of what I'm looking for.