There are five basic logo design styles, each with its set of different strengths and weaknesses, and it is necessary for the designer and the client to be aware of these styles so that they can make the right choices when designing logos for their businesses. Below is a brief definition of each of the types as well as a few tips on how to make the right choice depending on the nature of your business-:

Woodmark logo design style

Woodmark logo style is also known as text logos. On a study organized on the top 100 brands in the world, it was discovered that 35% of them consisted purely of text, with most of them styled uniquely using different fonts. These logos are known as woodmark logos and can also be referred to as logotypes.

Woodwork logo design style works wonders when the name of the company is quite distinctive. For instance, the Google logo is an example of a woodmark logo design style featuring a simple, minimalist design. But it has worked well for the branding of the tech giant because the name also is simple, short and memorable. Other examples of big brands which have used this logo design style effectively include Yahoo and Pinterest amongst other brands that use relatively simple texts as the name and the logo.

This kind of logo style design is accordingly recommended for small companies or small businesses that are just starting to get their feet off the ground. This is because at this stage, getting the word out about your business is very important and you need to have a logo that will clearly communicate the name of the company.

Emblem logo design style

With this logo design style, text is used inside a symbol in creating the logo so that the two are inseparable. In most of such designs, they look like official badges or seals, and they are predominantly used by political and government organization. However, they have also been used for branding by some well-known corporate entities like Ford, Starbucks, Harley Davidson amongst others. These logos are flexible and also look more compact thus giving strong graphical representation of the image of the company as well as the name.

Brandmark logo design style

Symbols have been used by some top brands to express an idea more effectively than words or text. This is the essence of brandmark logo design style. This logo design style uses just a symbol or an icon to give the target audience a clear image of the company’s identity without using a single word. This is has been the secret behind the success of some global companies whose products are easily recognized by consumers in multiple countries, irrespective of the language.

Brandmark logo design style is also appropriate in instances where the company’s name is very long and does not provide appropriate letters for creating simple and clear initials. Some of the companies which use brandmark logos include Windows, Target, Toyota and Twitter amongst others.

Combination Mark logo design style

56% of the logos of the top brands in the world use a combination of mark and symbol in their logos. Combination Mark logo design style gives a taste of both worlds hence their popularity in most of the iconic logos in the world. They give out the name of the company while at the same time associating it with the image of the brand. Examples of such logos include Pizza Hut, XBOX 360, and Adidas.

Lettermark Logo design style (use of initials)

Simplicity is always critical when it comes to branding in general and creation of logos in specific. Lettermark Logo design style is here to help designers and clients achieve this with their logos. This logo design style is similar to woodmark in the sense that it also uses text, but it highlights the initials of the company and not the entire name.

This is the preferred logo style if your organization’s name is difficult to pronounce or if it is comprised of a very long name. For example, “IBM” looks simple and catchier compared to the full name which reads “International Business Machine”. If you anticipate that you will have a minimal space for branding, lettermark logo style would be a convenient way to maximize on size while still providing a good indication of the name of your company.

Additionally, lettermark logo style has a unique way of assigning equal visual weight to all of the letters used in the initials of the company’s name. This, in turn, makes the logo to be easily remembered by customers, thus further enhancing the effectiveness of the logo. Examples of logos designed in this style include EA Sports, CNN and IBM amongst others.

Learn if your restaurant should have a logo here!

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This is rather appalling, given that you can have the clients look for you and not you go hunting for them if you decided take your time and build a freelancer designer brand. If this has always been your interest but you have never had a clear way of how to build your freelance designer brand, here is how to do it without spending a lot of time or money for marketing.

Create a website or a blog

The first process in building a freelance designer brand is to a create website or have a personal blog. Through the blog, you will have an easy medium to share you work with the entire world and those interested in your services will also have an easy way of getting in touch with you. In the blog, you should not just provide a portfolio of all the works you have done, but also remember to offer useful design tips that will make potential customers perceive you as a highly skilled designer and be ready and willing to buy your gigs.

It is true that you can have your portfolio hosted in other several places on the internet, but having your blog will set you apart from the rest of the designers and portray you as a real and serious professional. Besides, you will have total control over the use of the blog and you can used it for other things like showcasing your design videos, which may be possible with the other third party portfolio websites.

Take advantage of the wider design community

The wider online design community is another place to consider when building your freelance designer brand. These communities bring together designers of all levels and from different parts of the world. They can be a source for clients since most the clients usually head over to such places looking of the right designers to do their works.

With the online design communities, you need to establish yourself as a trusted authority so that you can get the attention of your peers as well that of the potential clients. You should share some of your best work in the community. Not only this, but also you need to participate actively by taking part in the discussions going on, offering helpful tips and engaging with other members.

You should however avoid all temptations to be a bother like spamming or commenting on every thread or post. Such behaviour might work against you as you try to build your freelance designer brand.

Let your work be seen across other channels

In building a freelance designer brand, the objective is to position yourself strategically so that you can attract quality design clients. You should therefore strive to get your works out to as many channels as possible. In addition to your website and the online design communities, think about other places where you can get exposure.

For instance, you can create account with all the social media channels to help increase the exposure on your projects which will ultimately help you get more clients. But while using the various channels, it is imperative to maintain uniformity for the sake of building a uniform freelance designer brand.

Use the freelancing websites

Many skilled designers tend to shun the freelancing websites in the process of building a freelance designer brand. But these online workplaces can offer a great launch pad for your career as a freelance designer. A lot of people who need design services usually flock to the freelancing websites in search of potential designers. By being present in such sites therefore, you increase your exposure to lots of quality clients.

Additionally, most of the freelancing websites have a review system where customers can post either positive or negative reviews depending on the services they received. If you can maintain to get consistent positive reviews, it will be only a matter of time before you swarmed with orders from people seeking your services. Therefore, you should never bypass the freelancing website when building your freelance designer brand.

Introduce a value-added Giveaway

Using incentives is another powerful method you can employ in building your freelance designer brand. You can promise to offer value added complimentary services for every gig purchased from you. For instance, if someone orders a logo design, you can promise to offer them a free business card design as a giveaway. You are not just giving them something for free, but whatever you offer them will add real value to their business.

As you try to build your freelance designer brand, it is important to remember that it takes time and effort to have the brand off its feet. Be ready to do the hard work now and you will reap the benefits later on when your freelance designer brand will be doing all the marketing for you.

Here is how you can create a great graphic design resume!

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Every professional graphics designer understands the importance of having strong design principles to define their work and establish their brands in the design world. The design world demands uniqueness, and you can’t come up with unique designs unless you have unique design principles which you follow with every design project you embark on. This is the only way to build your personal brand besides creating coherence and consistency across all your designs.

The process of discovering or creating your design principles might be challenging at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it will be interesting and it might be one of the most rewarding things you will ever do for your design career. Listed here are certain principles to help you discover your design principles and how to stick to them so that you have your different methods of accomplishing your design tasks-:

Appropriateness

The first step towards determining your design principles is to interrogate the relevance of every design project you work on. As a graphics designer, you should ask yourself why you are doing the designs you are doing in the manner that you are doing them. As you do this, you will start to realize or notice certain patterns you tend to lean towards and which you have adopted in most of your designs.

The answer to how appropriate your designs fit the needs of your clients will also reveal to you if you are a trend follower in which case most of your designs are based on fads. Basing your principles in fads may not be a bad thing so long as the design remain relevant and will be adaptive in the future should there be changes in the fad. Therefore, if you can define the appropriateness of your designs, then you shall have taken the first step in determining your design principles.

Understanding needs of the client

Adequacy of design will only come if you can determine the needs of your client. It is thus imperative that you take the time to understand what your clients really want for you to come up with the right designs that will solve their needs. Every designer has their unique methods which they follow to understand the needs of their clients.

For instance, some will assemble mood boards, make reference to past works, study the brand guidelines, or simply resort to researching more on the topic. Whichever method works best for you; you need to be aware of it so that you can consider it as one of your design principles to help you save time and make you more productive.

The Execution of Work

How you execute your work is another important element in determining your design principles. Many people usually think of craftsmanship simply as the style, but it goes beyond that and reflects directly on your knowledge and understanding of design. Every designer aims at attaining high levels of craftsmanship since, without beautiful designs, it will be very difficult to attract and retain customers. It is, therefore, important to have a conscious awareness of how you execute your projects and also master the kind of results you have been getting from them.

This will reveal to you a deeper realization on how you work as well as your levels of craftsmanship so that you can refine further your design principles for more proficiency. When considering how you execute your work in defining your design principles, you should think about all the work you do, how you do it and the tools you use in arriving at the final product.

Passion

Without passion, you will always have dismal results from your design endeavors. As part of your design principles, you need to determine just how passionate you are about the work and the particular things you do to ensure that you don’t lose your passion as a graphics designer. You should have a desire for constant progress and adaptability, and as your portfolio grows, you should be able to note improved quality of your previous works. Your passion for design will affect your style hence your design principles eventually.

Uniqueness

Finally, the design principles you adopt must be unique. This should always be the case since each and every designer has a different approach to reaching solutions for the design challenges they encounter. As a graphic designer, it might take a while before you understand your unique style or position as far as graphics design is concerned, but as you continue to practice and be more proficient in the career, you will start to notice the uniqueness in your design principles. You can also try challenging yourself each time to come up with unique solutions and always operate away from your comfort zone.

Having a good understanding of your design principles will make it easy for you to avoid being complacent and always be on top of your game. Otherwise, design will just be routine for you and will never get any pleasure or achieve levels of mastery without solid design principles.

Check out these impressive logos that have just two colors

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