Monday, January 28, 2013

The Logo Design Process from Start to Finish

A logo is an important aspect of the company’s corporate brand identity. Its colours, fonts, shapes and images define a business philosophy. A logo is the centrepiece of any brand and an effective, professional logo creates a lasting impression on the customers’ mind. An appropriate logo design makes the customers recognize the company immediately. It inspires the elements of trust, admiration, respect and an implied superiority.

A great logo is distinctive, unique, simple, and easily identifiable and is able to convey the business message effectively. It builds brand equity and recognition over the passage of time, yet it looks fresh for a very long time.

To design an appropriate logo, designers follow a proper process, which is described below.

1. Design Brief

In this step, the designer conducts a questionnaire or a brief interview with the client to find out about their business, requirements and preferences. Once the client provides the information about their requirements, the designer has almost all the information they need to start on the logo design.

2. Research
In the research step, the designer performs thorough research on the client’s industry, their business and its history. They look at the client’s competitors logos and other popular logos in the industry.

3. Reference
Next, the designer also conducts research into the successful logo designs, current styles and trends that may be relevant to the client’s design brief. Research is an important step in the logo design process as it helps to come up with an original and distinctive design that sets a business apart from its competitors.

4. Sketching
In this step, the designer actually starts working on the client’s design. Design concepts are developed as per the brief and results of research. This is when the designer brainstorms, sketches the ideas, uses their creativity and skill with the designs.

5. Reflection
The sketches made in the previous step take their form in this step. The designer chooses the best designs, generates them on the computer and further develops them. Different fonts, typefaces, colours, styles and layouts are experimented and initial concepts are generated.

6. Client’s Feedback & Approval
Once the initial concepts are created, they are sent to client for the feedback. Based on the client’s feedback and preferences, the chosen design is amended and improved. The design is revised until the customer is happy with it.

7. Delivery
The final logo designs are delivered to client in the file formats they require e.g. EPS, JPG, PNG and TIFF formats.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Web designs that increase customer retention


For an interactive user-experience, a website should possess multiple metrics such as quality content, relevant and adequate information and an outstanding design. Here are some important elements that enhance the overall look and feel of a website:



An outstanding logo: The first thing that any user will notice as the page loads is the website logo. So it’s important that the logo should be clear, visible and have a strong tagline just below it. The best place for the logo on a website is the top left corner of a website. Website logos in the centre of the page are not as effective as those on the top left. 



Plain Header: The top right portion of the website should be spacious and should have important information such as the website phone number, contact options, etc. 


Clear navigation: Navigation is one of the most important elements of a website. It allows the user to easily visit different pages of the website. If the navigation of the website is complex, it will become difficult for any user to browse their desired pages and they may even close the website. Hence it is very essential that the website should be designed to provide a clear distinction between different navigation tabs. 

Consistent design: Consistency is one of the key elements of a high-quality website.  A sudden change in design disengages the user and may confuse them. Therefore the website design and colour should ideally maintain the same theme throughout.


Simple yet creative design: A website design, if simple yet creative, can draw a million eyes.  A cluttered, colour-rich website serves to only confuse and baffle the visitor as they do not exactly know where to focus. No wonder, some of the most visited websites have a simple yet effective design. 


Use of images: Try not to use many images. This will make the website very heavy and will not load quickly. 

Text format: The font used on the website should be clear and readable. Avoid using too many different colours in font and headings. Keeping the website font consistent helps to give it a balanced look.