Logo design?

I have a question. Are there any guidlines to follow when designing a logo? I have someone that wants me to design a logo for them, but I have never designed a logo. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

A good logo would work at any size even if you rescale it. What I mean by that is if your logo has some text that goes with it, make sure that the text is still readable even after you shrink it down. The reason for this is because the logo is going to be the companies identity and it will be reused over and over on a number of items like business cards and letter heads.

Also try to keep the logo simple, logos that have like 8 colors is going to be very costly to reproduce print wise.

Those are basically the 2 most important things I can think of, hope it helps. =)

ahh, cool. very good info. thank you very much. you know I was hoping you would reply! lol, you have been a lot of help. thank you very much.

anything else would be appreciated.

ohhh…also, is there anything I should do b/f sending the images to the client (specifically, to prevent getting my logo’s stolen?)
and…price wise…is that just…depending…or…what’s a good price range?

Well here at my company, we never send out the orginal files until they signed the estimate and recieved an invoice for the work.

If you can, try to meet with your client in person and show them the logo, If you can’t then fax them a proof or email them the proof so that they can look over it and sign it and fax it back to you.

As for pricing, it all depends on your ability and what type of client you’re dealing with. You’re not going to charge a small business for a $2,000 logo and you’re not going to charge a large fortune 500 company a $200 dollar logo.

As far as range go, I’ve seen logos that range from $100 to $10,000 so it’s up to you to set the price. =)

wow…Im gonna quote them the $10,000, lol, no j/k. Man thank you for that info. I seriously appreciate that. awesome. well…off to work on a logo!!:run:

No problem…If you’re really good and your client is Microsoft, go ahead and charge them $1,000,000,000,000,000!! haha =)

I:-) that would be so nice. one logo…set for life

if i can add to what electrongeek has said, i generally have a rule to make all logos in illustrator or any type of vector programs, this is so it is easier to resize the logo to any size and be able to have sharp detail in printing.

I say this because many designers create logos in photoshop and yes this is fine, but i find it limits availablity of the logo, as the logo can lose resolution and turn out pixelated when resized from its’s original size. Yes you can make the logo bigger than you needed originally but then maybe your client wants the logo on a billboard!!

There are many things to consider when making a logo, things like is there a specialty materials used (foiling such as gold or silver, embossing) , where the logo is going to be used, how is it going to be used, what colours can you use (black and white version, monochrome version, 4 colour if needed, 2 PMS colours , 1 PMS colour and black.

Where the logo can and cannot go, what can and cannot be used with the logo… ect…

I can go on and on, yes you can get 10,000 for a logo, but you have to earn it, i had to create a case study for a logo, before it i never knew there was so much to a logo, 40 pages later.

all the best GARRETTDESIGN, hope all works out. :wink:

edit::: then again this is probably guidelines more for a big coporate company, but i dont think you can charge 10,000 for a logo to a small business.