this video is for those who want to take their logo design career seriously and we're going to
dive into areas of logo designing that many people Overlook or just simply don't know
about and we're going to start by dispelling a myth what a logo isn't a lot of people think
that a logo design should Express what the business or the brand does however this is a
fallacy and it's not actually a rule take the Apple logo as an example it belongs to one of
the most successful and iconic brands in human history but does this brand sell apples no of
course not and sure there is a story behind the logo design itself but the point here is that a
good logo doesn't have to express or show what the business does essentially it's more about
expressing certain emotions and giving a vibe to a specific group of people I.E the target
audience and that is while acting as a memory hook the logo should be memorable enough to
stick in the minds of the target audience it needs needs to appeal to a specific group of
people and fall in line with their psychology and that brings me on to the next point before
you design anything you need to know who you're designing for and spoiler alerts it's not your
client this next section is going to show you how to finally determine who your logo is going to be
aimed at this is really really crucial and so you do need to follow this because if designers
overlook this step their design is going to become kind of lost BAS basically I'm going to start
things off with a secret hack that's going to get you moving in the right direction find a direct
competitor or similar business to your clients and make sure it's an active and successful business
and once you've done that you can head over to the social media pages of those people and truly
find out what kind of people are interacting with your clients's business or brand Twitter is really
good for this because the bio on Twitter often tells us things like the age the profession and
so on now if you look right here we're on Apple's X account well formerly known as Twitter and oddly
enough they don't even have more than one post but anyway i' digress if we come into this guy's bio
right here someone who obviously follows Apple we can see that he's into technology and AI related
stuff and he actually mentors people on things in a space looking around the bios of accounts
linked to your client's Niche can actually give you a great idea of the sort of person you should
be tailoring your logo designs for and it's a pretty f way to do that too now a huge part of
Designing logos is actually mocking them up and presenting them to your clients and I'm excited
to show you a new product I've recently discovered that takes making those mockups to that next kind
of level it's an online 3D visualization studio called Pro visual now this is an incredible web
app where you can create 3D mockups with ease now it's got a wide ranging collection of pre-made 3D
models a huge library of tech textures materials hdri environments and also backgrounds now you
can customize and fine tune ready to use assets to make any visualization that you can think of
pretty much and I found it really easy to pick up and just use right out of the gate and you
can make stunning personalized mockups in a matter of seconds bringing your design onto
Pro visual is really simple and we can work with layers right inside prual as well and I actually
really like how we can rotate our design all while looking fresh and clean throughout and as I said
it's just really easy to change materials and environments with only a few clicks as far as
mockup generation and creation goes this is not something I've seen before also in Pro visual
there's a share button as well which means you can share your creations and presentations with your
clients your colleagues or even your friends and client pitching is a crucial part of the success
rate of a logo designer and so with Pro visual you're able to Showcase your projects in the most
attractive and effective way possible and let's not forget it doesn't require any downloading
or software is right into your browser now everybody can try Prov visual for a 14-day
free trial but you can get a 20% discount using my code Satori 20 all in uppercase letters and so
to learn more about Pro visual just go to that link in the description box below you won't be
disappointed so in this section we need to identify their personality their values the
interested Hobbies lifestyle and attitude just to quickly demonstrate let's say your client owns an
organic juice business we're going to make what's called a psychographic so we can fully understand
how the customers of this business think what makes them worry what they want and so on this
normally would take a lot of research but luckily these days we have resources like chat GPT it's
actually insanely powerful and as you can see here we have information about their possible
lifestyle that being health conscious active focused on the environment and so on kind of
typical things someone who drinks organic juice might adhere to their values and beliefs also
follow on from that and you really shouldn't underestimate how important and Powerful this
information is to you as a logo designer I would pay close attention to the points about their
goals and also their paying points so here they read labels on food products they like follow a
plant-based diet or something closely related and they find it frustrating that they can't
find sustainable organic products but get this I didn't ask chat GPT for any help in applying
this information to a possible design but at the bottom here it does actually give
a few bullet points and how we might use this information on a logo design and look
here at the very foot of my results it actually confirms what I've been saying today tailoring a
logo design with a psychographic profile can help the design and the brand connect with a
target audience effectively by addressing their values their needs and their aspirations so you
have your audience Persona nailed down and you researched your client and the industry
and so now you can begin to make Concepts based around that body of research and here are some
really important things to keep in mind when you are making your Concepts and your design
ideas look at your Concepts and then try to find at least one way that concept reflects
an emotion or feeling in your target audience from your research you should know exactly what
kind of emotions you want to evoke in the target audience let's take a look at the lion concept
from the in banking logo this concept was meant to mean that the company does everything in its
power to secure the saving deposits of its clients why because the symbol of a lion is
powerful it's wise and it can suggest protection this concept relates back to making the user of
the bank feel safe and secure with their money here's Master card's double circle logo the double
circle suggests East and West coming together as one but what shapes psychologically suggest
togetherness well that's circular and oval shapes and then you have Adidas's logo which
has a three-step pyramid and that uses shape psychology not once but twice firstly slanted
lines suggest forward movements which is great for a sports brand and then the triangle shape
they make suggests strength and power which is another great suggestion for a sports brand so
ask yourself does your logo design concept relate back to the emotional response in a
target audience the next rule is that in your research phase to have at least three keyword
pairs although I do suggest more but you should have one pair for the target audience one pair
for the Brand's motto or mission statement and one for the Brand's industry if you've done your
research properly this should be easy but what does that actually look like one really great
example of this in action would be the innocent smoothie logo the logo designer or designers
could have researched the brand and taken word pairs from there like innocent or Genuine from
there perhaps the concept of a Halo to represent the innocent parts and then a handdrawn simple
logo to represent the genuine parts could have materialized and genuine in the sense
that it's less corporate and more approachable this is how we can generate Concepts simply
from relevant keywords in our process next it's the Brand's mission statement or their motto an
example would be Apple's motto which is bringing the best user experience to customers through
Innovative Hardware software and services a word pair for this could have been Innovative
experience and this next session is going to look at how logo designers can still come
into problems in their logo design process but importantly how to fix those problems
the first problem that I see many beginner and many intermediate designers doing is that they
have overly busy logo designs and here's a classic example it's a construction logo
where the designer has gone wild and basically just created a digital illustration rather than
a logo design the color choices are pretty good though more about color later but this design is
too hectic and it's too busy to ever be iconic or memorable it's just way too easy to forget
this logo and it's not going to hook into the minds of the target audience so what we can do
is to vastly simplify the design down to something like this design right here the Arrow does suggest
a change of movement and we have an easily recognizable and simple iconic building house
this design will be absorbed by the viewers in a matter of milliseconds which is in comparison to
the previous design which is just way too chaotic to be absorbed the new design is so iconic that
it probably works just fine without the logo type and as a standalone logo Mark in fact it probably
works better like this the next mistake that logo designers sometimes make is that they have a kind
of inappropriate design that they don't even realize sometimes that is inappropriate sure
you might laugh at these designs that edge on the confrontational side of things but imagine if you
were a business owner and the designer you've been paying money for comes back with something
like this you probably won't find it that funny then these designs are pretty funny though yeah
this designer has taken some of the notoriously inappropriate designs and remade them a great
example is this Oriental design that has been remastered perfectly also notice how the design
respects the first logo fix that we looked at earlier simplification the logo just uses a
single color and it's an iconic stamped design so do remember to keep in mind the target audience
and question if not the design is going to appeal to them or if it's going to rub them up the wrong
way so to speak like a lot of these inappropriate logos surely will the third logo design problem
that needs to be fixed is something I see everywhere these days and that is the logotype
not matching the logo symbol this means the style of the typography does not match the vibe or the
feeling of the logo and this will confuse the target audience and leave the logo looking pretty
unprofessional we do want professional logos of course this example of a tech logo uses a playful
and organic font which totally goes against what a tech audience probably relates to they
like something modern something less organic and more professional I also couldn't help tilting
the logo Mark just to see how it would look and turn out and these aren't my designs by the way if
you're worried that your design is guilty of this then go back to the brief and study the target
audience write down words and phrases that relate to their wants their needs and their emotions and
then match those words to specific Styles or type face it's just an easy way to create a
winning combination when you're working on Logo designs the next mistake that we're going to see
how to fix is a really big pet peeve of mine as a designer and that is the literal logo designs you
know the story by now light bulbs for electricians books for libraries or in this case here a bike
for a mountain bike brand how uninspiring does this design look jeez sure it's a pretty cool
illustration but as an iconic logo it does nothing more than Fall Into Obscurity and blend into the
background of forgettable designs now to overcome this you need to think outside of the box and
really just get creative now to do that you need to work hard on making word pairs based on your
logo design research generate words that relate to the brand the industry sector and the target
audience and then generate some interesting pairs Silverback is a great example of a logo in the
mountain biking world and we don't see a mountain or a bike at all however the iconic design works
well and it is memorable the logotype is slanted to give the illusion of motion and speed so yeah
this is a pretty well thought out design with no literal connotations whatsoever then we have
color and boy oh boy this one can be tough there are a few different approaches you can take when
it comes to choosing the correct color for your logo Maybe we can do what the designers did for
the Ikea or Ikea logo design they noted how important the origin of the brand is to their
story that being Sweden and so the logo uses the colors of the Swedish flag or you could
just simply look at the industry that your client or the company you're designing for is in and then
see what kind of colors are the norm for logo designs and so here for Branding we see a lot
of the blue and red being used so you can choose a color scheme based around that to play it safe
or choose a color scheme that contrasts that to make the brand stand out you could also just think
about the kind of feeling you want to evoke with your logo and then apply Color accordingly FedEx
wants to emphasize a fast delivery service and so an action related color of orange works well and
that's contrasted with a calming color of purple which does give it that kind of professional
touch so you've arrived at a stage where your design is pretty much finished so you think but
the next stage is arguably the most important stage of all it is the presentation of your
design ideas and your Concepts to your client and here are some really good ways to approach just
that firstly the client should be reminded of what a logo design is and what makes a
good logo design the logo should be timeless it's simple and it's not the brand but an extension of
the brand and so on reminding them of the logo design principles and what makes a good logo
design it would actually help to limit the amount of subjective input they have or they think they
can have so maybe kick off the presentation by quickly demonstrating three to five key attributes
that make up a successful logo design and why they are important yet the most important thing to do
is to remind the client of the problem that they have it's that thing they hired you for in the
first place so early on in the presentation maybe talk about the goals of the project so it could
be something like your logo is going to help the brand cut out to their own space within the nich
sector or it might be something like it's going to help them compete with their main competitor
at this point in the project you should know all of the project goals inside out the next
trick that goes down really well with clients is the brand color split screen when your slideshow
or PDF presentation actually gets to the section where you show the logo designs start off with a
brand color split screen now if your client has a very strong brand identity then they will have
a main color for the identity so have half of the screen in that color and with the logo in
White on top of it and then the other side in White and the logo of their brand color clients
typically strongly believe in their brand and so this slide or page in your presentation will
often resonate really well with them and from here you can go on to show you know the logo in
different mock-ups and situations but it's really important or really good to start with that split
screen brand identity here's the next thing that I noticed that really helps create conversation
and kind of broke the ice in a presentation show the logo in unique and cool situations via mockups
now what I mean by this is to have the logo on say a pen make a badge with the logo on and just
show interesting situations where it's being used not only does this help them visualize the real
use case scenarios of the logo it makes the pitch less cold and it adds more of a human element into
it which clients seem to really respond well to so the next thing that really gets a resounding
yes from clients when it comes to presenting your logos or your Concepts is to show how your
logo will interact with the target audience for example if the logo is a clothing brand show the
target audience of that brand interacting with the logo add into your presentation that the logo will
appeal to this group of people and also why not only will this make your design idea stronger but
it helps to bring the client away from my own bias and then of course try to remind them the
logo isn't for them but it's for the people who interact with a brand the presentation of your
logo is an art form in of itself being able to sell your design ideas is often more important
than the actual design or equally so and of course if you want to learn yet more graphic
design goodness just click that video on screen but until next time guys design your future today
peace