Designing a Logo: Its Principles, Methods, Colors and Examples

Logos are symbols made up of text and images that help us identify brands we like. The fundamental function of a logo is giving your business a unique mark that differentiates you from other businesses. A logo is different from branding in that it is a part of your branding, not the other way around.

The elements of a logo are typography, imagery, color, and context. The creative process of making a logo most designers follow is: So, how to design a logo?

1. Get Inspired
2. Learn anything and everything you can about logos
3. Develop your own creative process.
4. Design Brief: To collect information from the client.
5. Research: Learning more about the industry and the client's history.
6. Reference: checking out a design for client needs.
7. Conceptualization: sketching and developing the logo.
8. Reflection: Letting the idea mature.
9. Presentation: Choosing a couple of designs to show the client.
10. Set up your price system accordingly.
11. Learn from others.
12. Research your audience.
13. Throw yourself into the brand.
14. Save all your sketches.
15. Research Online.
16. Create mind maps or good mood boards.
17. Build a board and tear it apart.
18. Stop with the clichés.
19. Make the design Versatile.
20. Use a grid to produce a timeless design.
21. Use a pen and paper.
22. Construct Vectors.
23. Decide on your fonts carefully
24. Stay away from gimmicky typefaces.
25. Use a maximum of two fonts.
26. Tell a story.
27. Consider the space around the logo.
28. Design an active logo.
29. Think of tones along with colors.
30. Keep up with trends.
31. Practice all the time.
32. Mistakes to avoid while designing:
33. Underestimate the importance of a proper color scheme.
34. Fall into the cool, flashy creation trap.
35. Undervalue custom typography.
36. Be easy to predict.
37. Think of your designs as unparalleled.

The difference between warm and cool colors: Warm colors are vivid and energetic and tend to advance in space. Whereas cool colors give an impression of calmness and create a soothing impression.

The difference between Tints, shades, tones: Tints is adding white to a pure hue. Shades is adding black to a pure hue. Tones are adding gray to a pure gray.

What is the color wheel? It is a tool for combing colors and choosing one.

Color Types:

1. Primary colors: red, blue, yellow.
2. Secondary colors: Green, Orange, and purple.
3. Tertiary colors are created by mixing primary and secondary colors.

There are six basic techniques for color schemes:

1. Complementary color schemes.
2. Analogous color schemes.
3. Triadic color schemes.
4. Split-Complementary color schemes.
5. Rectangle color schemes.
6. Square color schemes.

Choosing Logo Colors: Choosing colors for your brand shouldn’t be about your favorite color, but rather what you want your logo to say about your company. Here’s a crash course on color psychology and what the 100 most valuable brands in the world are doing. How do companies pick logo colors? People pick their logo colors for a wide variety of arbitrary reasons. Some choose their favorite color.

Others like the color of their first car because of what it represented at the time. I originally picked purple as The Logo Factory‘s official color because it was my (now) wife’s favorite, purple and teal was a trendy color scheme at the time and red, my favorite seemed a little garish for what I wanted to portray. Others take a toss-the-dice approach, hoping to stumble upon a color scheme that looks “nice” on a webpage. All fine and dandy, but colors mean things and if used effectively as part of a design philosophy, can add an entirely new level of effectiveness to your logo and the brand that surrounds it.

Burger King is one of the largest and most famous food chains in the world today. The company was originated by James McLamore and David Edgerton as Insta Burger King, in the USA. The Burger King logo was introduced in 1967, and almost looks the same; a rounded figure with tilted fonts painted in catchy colors. The logo consists of two halves of a bun with the name of the company in the center. The Burger King logo has remained increasingly illustrious at all times. The initial logo contained ochre colored buns with a dull blue swoosh, which later altered to bright blue, and then was changed back to a dull blue all over again. The ultimate Burger King logo is circular in shape with reddish-purple font color.

The Burger King logo demonstrates an alluring and vivacious image of a fast food restaurant, which is ideal for the fast food culture amongst the teenagers. The sparkling colors used in the logo are vibrant enough to draw the attention of the spectators.

The shape of the Burger King Logo: The Burger King logo appears as a tilted round figure with bun halves on both sides of the logo and the font is inscribed in the center with a whirl, showcasing the entire logo. It accurately projects the sparkling features of the company.

The color of the Burger King Logo: The three colors utilized in the Burger King logo are red, yellow and blue. The exquisiteness of the three basic colors forms a striking symbol adequate enough to pull people towards it, irrespective of their ages.

Font of the Burger King Logo: The font used in the Burger King logo depicts clarity and simplicity. It is burgundy in color with capital letters enclosed in the circular shape, between the half buns. The logo is very exceptionally attractive and eye-catching. The font size of ‘KING’ is a little bigger than that of ‘BURGER’, enhancing the beauty of the logo.

The Burger King logo, besides being the most recognized fast food chain emblems and representing one of the most popular food chains, also managed to retain its standardized look throughout the years. The logo is simple in design and is eminent not only amongst the youth but also appeals to the adults. The emblem has proved to be a guarantor of the quality and goodwill of the brand.