Logo, Branding, and Identity Notes

Brand is the "Perceived" emotional corporate image as a whole, it is the reputation both claimed and perceived.

Branding:

• A organizations brand or branding is essentially their public image
• A designer can create the framework for a brand, colors, fonts, artwork, style... but the audience completes the bran through an emotional reaction with it

Branding Example:

• Apple is an IT company that projects a humanist image, positive corporate ethics, and support of good causes
• When people use the products they connect to the brand emotionally

Identity:

• Corporate Identity is comprised of the visual aspects that form the brand
• Close attention is paid to executing a consistent experience for the viewer

Identity Design:

• The corporate identity includes strict usage of colors, font families, graphic elements and other guidelines, usually detailed in a corporate identity guide
• The identity can include the logo, logo variations, business cards, labels, envelops, letterhead stationary, advertisements, tv commercials, packaging, etc.

Logo:

• A logo is for identification
• A logo is the simplest way a company or organization can represent itself, through the use of a mark or icon

Summary:

• Brand - The perceived emotional corporate image as a whole
• Identity - The visual aspects that form part of the overall brand
• Logo - Identifies a business in its simplest form via the use of a mark or icon

Logo Design (Using Line Quality and Graphic Style in Your Design)

Vector Art:

• We create logo's as vector art because it is flexible, powerful and easily edited, this is important when clients want to make changes
• Vector art can be scaled up infinitely without losing quality!

Pencil to Vector:

• Creating a logo design requires many phases
• Many meetings and review sessions are required to arrive at a design that works
• Converting a simple pencil sketch to vector are requires establishing graphic style, color, line shape, and typography

Final Art: Graphic Style

• Decide what your "Graphic style" will be
• Will it be bold, simple, and cute?
• Will it be sleek, technical, and sedate?
• Will it be cartoony, fun, and cool?
• Will it be High tech and 3D?
• There is a wide range of styles to chose
• Choose what fits your concept and market

Final Art: Line Quality

• Line Quality refers to the smoothness and precise nature of your lines
• We use the Pen Tool to create perfect smooth lines
• Take your time with this part, if it doesn't look right try again!
• If you have line art in your logo your line shape is important!
• Do you want an artistic look to your line? Try a custom "Art Brush" from the Brush Library in AI
• These line shapes are all created with the Stroke Palette in AI

Color Matters!:

• Color makes a huge difference, use colors that are appropriate for your design

Logo Design (General Rules and Styles for Designing Logo's)

Logo Design Rules:

• Describable
• Effective without color
• Memorable
• Scalable

Design Styles:

• Style 1: Typeface Focused. This style relies on a typeface to create the logo design, creativity is utilized in the proximity, contrast, color, customization of the letter forms
• Style 2: Mixing typefaces. This style uses 2 different type faces to create the logo design. Strive to create a balanced design, typefaces that are too similar will lack contrast in style. 
• Style 3: Typeface plus graphic element. This style uses simple graphic elements in addition to the typeface to create an emphasized and balanced design. Graphic elements remain abstract
• Style 4: Typeface plus shapes/symbols. An even balance between art and typography is achieved in this style
• Style 5: Graphic focused design. In this design the graphic elements are the focus or dominant aspect of the design, the typeface plays a supporting role