Watch me go over an old logo of mine from my first design portfolio when I was 16 years old and transform that logo into a newer, more modern and simple-looking logo design that will have longer staying power and look clean and simple for years to come. Let me know if you enjoy this video!
If you would like to submit your logo for a potential re-design, drop me an email using the contact form here on the website and I’ll see if I can include it in a future episode!
Tags: logo design, logo, logo redesign, design a logo, make a logo, design, how to design a logo, design project, graphic design, logo design process, logo critique, logo illustrator, illustrator, logos, adobe illustrator, logo design illustrator, how to make a logo, graphic, logo design tutorial, logo tutorial, tutvid, nathaniel dodson
Recording notes:
Intro that you’ve seen others doing similar videos and thought they were cool
These videos can be scary because I always feel like I’m about to be exposed as a fraud, but that also kind of makes these pretty fun.
Speaking of fraud, we’re going to be redesigning an old logo of mine from my very first portfolio. If I can even call it that.
I have no shortage of terrible logos I create when I first got started. They’re terrible when I look at them now, but they were beautiful to me when I made them. You can’t let the possibility of looking dumb in the future stop you from doing things now. You’ll never get anything done.
That being said, they’re really bad. I’m picking this one today to redesign for a fake company called StopIt! And they make a sort of ad-blocker, privacy protection, internet security suite of downloadable softwares.
My logo design process begins with a sheet of questions I send to clients to get an idea of what styles they like, what kind of competitors they have in their field, and brand guidelines, color schemes, all the good stuff. Usually stuff the client has no idea how to answer, but it gives us an excuse to jump on a skype call that lasts way too long, but it lets me still feel productive while not actually getting much work done.
Once I have the info, I start sketching. It usually takes me a few hours and I like to do at least 3-4 pages of sketches.
I do my sponge work before sketching. Sponge work is where you actively look for inspiration by looking at other people’s work. Jump in a pool of other people’s work to both soak yourself full of bits of ideas, but also to humble you and make you sure that you’ll never be as good at designing logos as everybody else is.
After your sponge is full of shards of things you’ve seen just let go, don’t think, and start sketching whatever comes to mind. When you press, you can’t be creative. Creativity lives in those moments of freedom when you let go and fly dreams for a little bit.
After you get about three initial sketches, you’ll be convinced that it’s enough. It’s not. Keep sketching.
Sketch so much you get frustrated. Sketch so much you almost want to cry. When you get that point, still keep going because you’re only halfway finished.
Remember these moments next time a client asks you to design a logo for $50 and you feel tempted to start slashing your prices.
This stuff is painful and the best art is forged in the furnace of pain and suffering.
Anyway, once I have some sketches, I photograph the pages with my phone and transfer the images with Dropbox or AirDrop. I used to scan my sketches, but then I got an iPhone and my scanner… well it’s not even my scanner anymore. I got rid of it somewhere around 2009.
Then you play in Illustrator. Much like the sketches which take the organic, flowing ideas bouncing around your head and transfer them through the pencil, you want to adopt the same kind of playfulness in Illustrator and trace and experiment and use grids, pathfinder, strokes, curves, the golden ratio, and whatever else feels right in that moment for that project.
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