Advanced Techniques for Logo Designs

Many designers approach logo design from a purely creative standpoint, playing with colors and fonts until they find something that “works.” While this approach may work for the early stages of ideation, it takes discipline and skill to refine those initial ideas into a truly iconic logo. In this post, we will discuss what it takes to develop a timeless logo. We will also cover the technical aspect of creating beautiful logos that scale. If you haven’t read our previous post, Logo Design Basics, we recommend that you do so before diving into this more advanced material.

Your Logo Is an Investment

When creating a logo, both the designer and the decision maker must understand that a logo is an investment. It requires a commitment of time and resources upfront, it appreciates over time, and switching out your logo—even once—comes at a cost.

For this reason, you should always aim to design a logo that is timeless. In fact, legendary logo designer Paul Rand considered timelessness one of the seven most important aspects of a logo. One way you can accomplish this is by staying away from design fads, such as trendy typefaces and embellishments. Instead, find design elements that best represent the essence of your organization. Research the elements that are commonly used in your industry, especially color, and keep your design as simple as possible. Your logo should not be a literal representation of everything you do. Your logo should be a symbol that clients associate with your organization.

Vector vs. Raster

The technical aspects of your logo design are just as important as the conceptual elements. First and foremost: never design a logo using Adobe Photoshop. This is a hard and fast rule. Although Photoshop is a fantastic program for photo editing, it only deals with raster images. To design a high-quality logo, you’ll need a vector program, such as Adobe Illustrator.

Raster images are composed of pixels (tiny squares of color). When you enlarge or zoom into a raster image, you will eventually be able to see these pixels. That’s a problem when it comes to logos, which often need to be made large enough for a billboard or banner. Vector images, on the other hand, are composed of lines and curves that use mathematical formulas to scale the image. When you create a vector file, you can make the image as large as you need and it will never look pixelated.

At Diace Designs, we know that file types can be confusing and design software can be expensive. Thankfully, you can avoid unnecessary work and expense by hiring our team to create a timeless, premium logo for your organization.

About Kara Franco
Kara writes copy that speaks. She has a knack for creating clear, compelling messages without wasting words. She is passionate about digital marketing and believes that copy is the cornerstone of user experience.

Copywriter + Content Strategist
Kara@diacedesigns.com