Designing a Logo

Having a logo is important when it comes to having your own business. It gives the first impression and views of your business. Giving you your own identity and making the interaction feel more personal between you and the clients.

When it comes to making my first logo, I must start by researching into other logos already in the industry. There I will be able to see what is standard within the industry and what I can take inspiration for my own logos.

When starting out on a logo, people dive straight into making the most simplistic style of logos they can. McDonalds for example has possibly one of the most well known logos in the world, alongside apple. However both their logos did not start out as simple designs. As shown above they started with their name within the logo and as their brand awareness and loyalty got bigger, they slowly moved into the simple M we have today. 

This informs me that I should aim to have my first logo with text inside explaining what I am. For my logo I would like to use my name as currently I am not a business. The logo will be called BT Media Production. I will add the Production on the end as to make sure I am not confused with BT broadband and steer away from copyright infringement.

Looking back at Duncans work, mentioned in my Digital profiles, he has a very streamline, simple and clean approach to his website. He is very professional with his layout and gives the customer a clear identification of his specialisation. After looking at Duncans logo, I am wanting to include my full name within my logo. This is due to the fact that since i am a single person, it will connect me with the client more. Instead of the client seeing me as "BT media production", which comes across more as a company or corporate brand, I will come across as a person. Therefore, when clients approach me for my services they will feel like they already have a personal connection with me due tot the fact that they already know my full name. 

Another aspect of Duncan's logo which I like is the font. The sans serif font, yet still formal, follows the codes and conventions of a professional product. It isn't quirky or abstract in anyway. The simple, yet effective font makes it easy to see who he is and what he specialises in. Following Duncan's design choices, I believe I could make an effective logo for myself. 

 

When it comes to making my own logo, I believe that trial and error will be the best protocol. Therefore, already having the basic knowledge and basic ideas of what I wish to create, I will begin to create my first draft. 

In photoshop I went for simplicity and ended up my first draft. I am happy with this being a draft and I feel like I am on the right path towards my final outcome. The serif font has a professional appeal to it, which is what I wanted. However it is not as professional as I believe it can be. In my personal opinion, I believe that the logo is not as eye-catching as it could be. To me it is too simple and looks like I have just put it together in a few seconds. 

However, I do believe that keeping it as just words is the best idea. No one would ever see my logo at the moment by itself, like Mcdonalds. While my name is being shared and people are getting to know my brand identity, my logo will be used on business cards and as watermarks on images. Once my simple design has caught attention and captured an audience, then I believe I could revisit my logo and try make it more like an image instead of writing. 

For my next draft I am going to try another font and see if I can draw more attention to my logo with sizing.

After playing around on photoshop for a while with different fonts I landed on "Bodoni 72 Oldstyle". It is slightly crisper than my last font and it more pleasing than the last. I tried increasing font sizes but ended up making the logo look messy and unprofessional. Therefore, I thought that by keeping the size the same, but making my name bold I would create more depth and perception into my logo. This way people will look at my name and remember my name as it is in big bold letters. On the flip side however, having bold letters makes the logo more soft instead of firm and sleek. Due to this, I am going to see if I can change my logo again.

I ended up changing my media production to a smaller font instead of having my name in bold writing. This way I have drawn more attention to my name. When people look at my logo now, they will see my name and then see what I do. This makes them "meet me" first and then see what I do afterwards. However I would like to move the media production. This way the audiences have to slightly move their eyes to see what it reads. Instead of it being clear to read and being central, if I move it to the side, the audience will have to put a little more effort into read it. Therefore, since the audience have had to read it instead of giving it a glance, they will be more likely to remember what I am. 

This is my final logo design. I am very happy with the final outcome. I decided to  In order to be able to use it as a watermark on any image, I have saved a black version and a white version. Therefore, on any background the logo will be visible. Overall my logo stands out due to my name but then the audience have to spend time reading in order to see what I do. They will remember who I am and what I do because of a logo. This is a great beginner logo and I am excited to see how it changes in the future. 

However, in order to make sure it performs well in the real world, I need to conduct a survey to see if others agree with my choices.

 

out of my 14 responses, only one person said that it would be better to have media production in the centre so it is easier to read. However, due to the fact that most people said it was in a good position and that I purposely placed it their in order to make the audience have to look at my logo instead of glance, I believe it is best to keep it how it is.

I need to add a S onto the end of my "production" I made a grammatical error and it will be quickly changed.

Overall, my logo had great feedback and apart from adding a 'S' onto the end of production, there is nothing I am going to change to my logo.

Now having a logo, I can move to using my logo. My next steps are to create a business card with my logo and create a showreel of my work using my logo at the end.