10 steps to create logo for designers

Welcome guys, welcome. Thank you for staying tuning in with me in Design for Change podcast with me, Jagdish. Today we are going to understand how to design a logo step by step. Being a product designer or UI UX designer or maybe graphic design or any design. Right? Even people do freelancing. So this particular podcast is going to give you step by step guide for how you can create a very good logo. Okay, so this is my stem steps what I'm trying to explain. But there are lot many materials available in your online. You can definitely go read, watch videos, read blogs. All this stuff is good. But this is coming from a person who has nine years of experience working in product design, UI UX design. And I've seen the extreme ends of the physical products as well as the digital products starting from making physical components to a augmented reality experience. So you can definitely trust this is coming from a reliable source. Okay. But I'll also explain you how you can implement it in your real time activities. And I'll also be giving you some resources how you can create your logos instantly, very fast using some AI tools, using some fancy cool stuffs. Okay, so with that being said, now let's dive into the logo making steps sound vibe. What's up? Yeah. Welcome guys. Welcome, welcome. So the 10 steps, what I will be explaining you in this particular podcast is actually the step one is understanding the brand. Okay, first of all you need to understand your brand before going into making illustrations and Photoshop or the software tools. Try to understand there are four steps which you need to do first. Okay. In fact I would say going into the software is a seventh step. You have six steps before that. So first of all you need to understand the brand. Like let's say if you are designing a logo for some kind of a brand like book, okay, you need to understand you're doing it for an author, you're doing it for the particular audience, you're doing it for putting it in the physical book. It's a digital book. You can have a different language, it's a physical book. And it's also something which is going to reflect the artist, character and the personality of that particular author, whoever wants to write this particular topic. Let's say if that topic is relating to novel, let's say if that is relating to more of fiction books. So you need to imbibe that understanding of that brand. Okay, so let's say there is a book publishing called Rich Dad Publishers. Okay? So that publishing book publishes lot of books which is relating to financial things, wealth creation. See that logo and its reflection should be like that. Okay? So you need to be very careful and mindful of why do you choose what you choose. Okay. Yeah. With that being said, that's the first point which is understanding the brand and starting the process. Second thing is you will have to write lot of keywords. Just take notes what I'm saying guys, okay? Because this is the process which I've learned from my Germany, my professors, when I was doing my exchange education at Hochschule Hanover, Germany, which is central part of Germany, where I've really redefined myself to learn graphic design, editorial design in a very, very proper way. Okay? This people whom I worked with, whom I've got taught from, they have really established a very good graphical knowledge in their work. And you can see all the name board billboards and everything in the Germany and European countries mostly just like very beautiful. They choose typeface, mindfully they choose the colors, which is exactly in line with the requirements. So we can learn from them. Okay, so that's what I've learned. Like you have to put some keywords and you have to expand upon that keywords. You need to write 10 sentences. Let's say if that book author wants to be a sporty guy. Okay, if you're writing as well. So sports, sports means what's flashy speed, healthy fit. So you can write some 10 different keywords about it and you can expand on that each and every keyword. 10, 10 words more. You have to brainstorm with your other team members. Also, you should not be biased with your own ideas. Okay? Particularly design is a very creative field. There is a higher chance. We tend to become biased when you're solving some problem, when we're trying to create some solution. So it's good to try first, second, collaborate. Then you can able to try again on your own. Okay, so do it. Do this sandwich method. I normally don't recommend only do it one way or do it only brainstorm. So you need to be mixing match of these two things. Okay. The third thing what you can do is create a mood board with that words. Like let's say if you wanted to design something for a guy who likes white color, you have to design something for a guy who likes minimal products. Design that you are going to design something like a brand logo for a water bottle design. Okay, so water bottle with white color with minimalism. See, now I'm getting three to four keywords, right? So how can I create mood boards out of it? Go to Pinterest, go to Behance, try to download Some high quality images. See guys, there is a template to check whether this image is going to be there for your consideration. Hey, what is this mood board Jagdish? Can you tell about this? I'm not from a design background. Mood board is something which is normally used as two factors. Okay. One is to trigger the curiosity of the designers. Second is to make sure the boundary of the designer is well within. This is a safety for the designer. Also where if they create about a mood board for that particular topic or theme or context, they will not try to tend to go out of it. That's okay. That's a check for designers. Also. First is designer will have the continuous effort of seeing that and getting exactly the concepts relating to that. You tend to show your emotions through that particular mood. And the pictures or the music. You can even create music, guys. You can even create some kind of a graphics. You can create. I mean, what do you call some images? Pictures. So whatever you want relating to that mood, you can able to create it. See, mood comes when it comes to listening to songs or seeing something or when talking to people. So different, different things can be talked out and different, different things could be carved out as a mood board. It's not only just downloading some pictures in behance. It's called mood board. I've given you various aspect how you can. How we can understand mood boarders. Okay, Being understood, we have to now create that mood board. We have to take some pictures, we have to take some illustrations, we have to hear some music which is related to it. Try to put that visual language into your boards. Okay? Try to take physical print and you can copy, paste and you can put a pin on it, you can put a jump clip on it. So whatever you want, you can just create that. See, when you see it opposite to you in front of the wall or something and you ask your other team members also people will try to bring more ideas. Your horizons will expand, your creativity will go high and you will stay focused in that particular theme. Like let's say white. Like let's say minimal design. Like let's say water bottle design. So you will tend to create a water bottle which is minimal, which is white, which is in that language. So you will not go out of it. And your creativity will also be in that exact sense of particular mood. You wanted to vibrate and resonate with that particular product. So this is how you have to start collecting pictures of it. After this third step, now you have to go for sketching. See, now you can use pencil sketch or digital sketch whatever you want. But you have to sketch some ideas. Do not go into the software now. Okay, I can understand all the people will be very much tempted to put those lines, boxes and everything in Illustrator. That is so fancy. Okay, so sketch it. Then comes very, very, very, very important thing. You need to match the need of the design, the customer's need and wants and the Persona, which is you're going to design that for. You have to check these three important things, guys. This is why you need to understand the brand clearly. Because you would have ideally had a Persona. You would have found out their needs and wants. See, needs is different, wants is different, right? So needs is something like. That's a must. Want is like, okay, if it is good, it will be. If it is there, it will be good. So that's how people tend to do that. So you can. You have to just make sure your audiences is this target group, this market, this brand, this particular product and service. And this is a needs and wants. And then you have to iterate on that. See, having said this, till the step five, you will get a clarity. Step six is when you iterate more concept in that particular area. Now you will have divergence. See, earlier you were having more divergence and you converged on one thing. Now you're again diverging it. This is called Diable diamond approach. Okay? Because initially you did the research, you put the keywords and then you expanded the research. Then you have draw some sketches which is towards pointing the solution. Then again you are expanding. So when you do it, then you tend to get lot many ideas related to that band. Go and watch a series in Netflix, guys. A documentary of Instagram logo. It's a total 45 minutes video. It's a beautiful process of iteration. Thousands and thousands of concept of Instagram logo has been made. It's not a joke. I'll be pasting that link also guys, you can go and watch it. Okay, so the point here is it's a. It may look like a very simplistic logo, right? But how many people and how many hours and how many days efforts of work is done there? How many iterations? I'm just telling you less. I think it's more than 5,000 to 10,000 iterations they made. So iterations will only give you clarity. And after you do iteration, you get a concepts of 50 to 100 different concepts. Now you can choose the best 10 and go and design in the software. Hey Jagdish, what year I know Illustrator better. Why should I? Why shouldn't I start first in the Illustrator. Let me tell you what will happen. Guys, you will only explore four or five ideas if you directly go into Illustrator. Illustration is a software. See there are lot many software which is there. You can use Squarespace, Loco Creator, you can use CorelDRAW, people who are little old. You can use Adobe Illustrator, you can use Canva. Canva is a very good non designer software. You can use. You can use Hatchful, which is a very beautiful site for creating websites. You can sorry logos. You can put your keywords, guys, automatically AI will generate for you. So this much of option is there. But you should not allow your creativity to take over by AI. You have to first use your ideas, do the research, understand sketch concept, use the tools, do not love the tools. I always repeat for my students. So you can use even ppt. Guys, you can use even Keynote. So you can create whatever you want. You can use slides, you can create simple logo as simple as possible. If you want a very complicated thing, then you can go for Illustrator or maybe Squarespace or Logo Creator or something. Okay, so when you come for the design software, lot of your iterations and process should have been done. If you do it in the step one, you will only explore three, four ideas and the quality of the idea will be really bad. The concept quality will be really really bad. You will not have a very solid understanding why you did it. If any customer is given by feedback or if you feel itself not bad, you will have to redesign that entire tree again. That is why sketching in the pencil and sketching in the digital way is very fast, iterative and it will give you clarity once. If you have this kind of a clarity in what you're going to do now, present it with your customer. Once your customer says okay, then sit in the software. Do not put some random logos for 1500rupees and keep it guys. Okay, that's for start. Initially, if you're a student, it's okay, fine. But right now you need to switch your mindset and flip. Then and only you'll be able to create that impact when it comes to designing products and services for the customer in lining with the brand. Okay, so after using the software, you can create as much as good concept as you want. The eighth step is now you can choose colors. Guys. See, you need to reflect back on the third step which is mood board, which is a picture, which is a music, which is illustration. Try to think and decide what kind of colors can resonate with your brand and the logo. What you're trying to say, see Coca Cola, Pepsi, right? Red color, right? Blue color, right? So Domino's Pizza, blue color. Indigo fried blue color. When we have the logo or the brand name, we tend to associate the color also. It's like feeling right finger licking good. KFC red color. The chili fried thing, you get to feel that emotion. So this is how you need to associate your colors, your typeface, your graphics, your entire spacing and the language of the logo accordingly. Simple guys. See guys, typeface is a live face. There is a designer called Paula Sheeler. You can just go and watch it out. Her history, her case studies and work. She works for Pentagram. I'll paste you the link also you can go that and you can understand how she has evolved. She's been a 50 years old graphic designer. She's the best graphics designer living in this planet now. So you can just go and follow her work. You can understand her Instagram pages and you can also try to comment on her works and get some feedbacks. You can subscribe for the Pentagram articles. So these kind of things will continuously keep in touch with you for the customer and the work what they're doing. Okay, this is the eighth step. Ninth step is ensure it is producible in a mass scale. See, end of the day that matters guys. If you're not producing that, what happens is if you make complicated logo, it is much difficult to replicate it in your brand guideline. It's much difficult to replicate it in your T shirts, it's difficult to replicate it in your letter pads, in your name boards, in your hoverboards, in your website, in your app. So think about all the mediums which you wanted to do. This is why understanding the brand and understanding the requirement of the customer is very important. If you randomly sit in the illustrator without knowing any of this thing, you will keep on iterating, guys. You will not complete your project, you will not get your payments, you will not get your project also from the client next time for your information. Okay, so ensure it should be mass, productible and also scalable very fast. How people can design hundreds of software using this same logos without having graphic trash or something like a software testing crash should happen. So make sure that scalability should be smooth when you're working closely with designers and developers and implementers and code coders and programmers. Finally, the tenth important step which is a golden step, guys. Okay? Golden tip. Keep it simple stupid. Kiss. Okay K I S S Keep it simple stupid. So all these points, whatever we discussed, nine points now Let me recap. Understanding the brand essence, brainstorming the words, what you're taking out, creating a mood board associated to it, sketching some pencils, concepts, how to be original. And you need to be very original at that time. I need to match the requirement of the user with the needs and wants according to their Persona and ideating more, converging and diverging on more ideas to get clarity and then going and sitting in a software to design. And after that you choose your color graphics and the necessary typeface and graphics for it. Then make sure it is scalable or not. Okay, so till now we have seen nine step. The final step and then the closing of this podcast is Keep it simple, stupid. See guys, whatever you do, nine steps, if you're not making it simple, nobody's going to ever use that. Complicated. Logos are gone on that days, gone old days, 10, 15 years before. The graphic language is very different. The minimal you communicate, the better it is for the people. Less is more, guys, data rams always used to say, okay, simplification and simplicity is their actual sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci said. So make sure your personality is going to reflect that simplicity. And if you're able to do it, yes, guys, you're going to become a great logo designer and become successful in your career. Okay, so you can follow these 10 steps and create two different type of logos in just two days, guys. One logo for one day and two second logo for second. You can create, you can just do it for an imaginary fictional brand. Like let's say if you wanted to design a logo for something like, like let's say if you wanted to solve people's relationship problem. Okay, let's say example. So you can create a logo for a relationship, product or service, whatever you're offering. Let's say if you're giving some therapeutic sessions or something, you're building an application for it, you can create that logo of that application in this, that distance, solving the problem relationship. So can you use some colors like little grays and little greens? Can you use some yellow colors for vibrancy? You can use some kind of a rejuvenation color so the relationship is coming back. So you can think about those keywords and think about the study and think about the segment of the target and then bring exactly a very good solution for it. Okay, and feel free to drop me your work. Also guys, how do you develop your logo following all these 10 steps? I'll be happy to give you feedback and I'll be giving you some of my additional materials. Also how we can make sure you can follow this kind of a mood board and templates when you're designing your design framework. I don't give for all people who really comment on my podcast and then they seriously learn from my work and then they send an email. I'll help them out, no problem. Okay. But if you wanted to come into my mentorship program and take my mentorship. Yeah, you can drop in an email. I'll check whether you're qualified or not and I'll be happy to take you for help and coaching. And thank you so much, guys. Thank you for listening to this podcast of 10 Steps of Logo making. Make sure you take action and implement it. And finally, you can go and watch abstract of design in the Netflix series, which is Paula Sheila's history. Okay. To close this podcast, go and watch out immediately when you're hearing this podcast and go to YouTube also you can find that abstract of design by Paula sheila. It's a 40 minutes documentary. Go and watch it. The way in which you start designing logo and graphics and illustration will completely change. Okay, thank you so much, guys. Take care. Bye. Bye. All the best. Take care.