The Logo Brainstorm Book

A Comprehensive Guide for Exploring Design Directions

Jim Krause

• Publisher: HOW Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781440304316
• eBook ISBN: 9781440324956
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Web Design

Don't Wait for Inspiration to Strike

Whether you're facing a new logo project or you've reached a block in your current work, The Logo Brainstorm Book will inspire you to consider fresh creative approaches that will spark appealing, functional and enduring design solutions.

Award-winning designer Jim Krause (author of the popular Index series) offers a smart, systemic exploration of different kinds of logos and logo elements, including:

• Symbols
• Monograms
• Typographic Logos
• Type and Symbol Combinations
• Emblems
• Color Palettes

Through a combination of original, visual idea-starters and boundary-pushing exercises, The Logo Brainstorm Book will help you develop raw logo concepts into presentation-ready material.

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Symbols

Symbols are visual shorthand—pictorial abbreviations for creatures, places, things, expressions and ideas. Companies and organizations often include a symbol as part of their signature (another word for logo). An effective symbol snares the attention of its target audience in a positive way and bolsters the image of the company it stands for.

Does every company need to be represented by a signature that includes a symbol (as opposed to going with a purely typography signature)? No, but certain benefits do arise when a company includes an abstract or pictorial icon as part of its logo. For one thing, studies have shown that a company’s icon can be recognized far more quickly than its typographically rendered name. Also, a company’s icon—once it has become familiar to its audience—can be used to personify a company without the help of type (Nike’s swoosh is a good example of an icon that is able to perform its duties without typographic assistance).

If you haven’t done so already, now would be an excellent time to read this book’s introduction and its first chapter. These sections describe the importance and the how-tos of gaining an understanding of the client’s expectations and the tastes of the target audience before beginning a logo project. The intro and first chapter also offer suggestions about getting ideas flowing once you have established a sense for where the project is heading.

The following pages are meant to aid the process of producing effective and attractive symbols. Take a look at the chapters ahead if you’d like to explore type-based icons (also known as monograms), if you want to investigate type-only logos, if you want help brainstorming for ways of combining symbols with type, if you are thinking about combining symbolic and typographic elements into emblem-like structures or if you are seeking eye-catching and timely color combinations for any kind of signature design.

Expansive thinking

In terms of possibilities, the seventeen variations of the square shown on this spread are just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, compared with the number of ways in which the essence of a square can be visually portrayed, these designs are not even the tip of the atom on the sharpest dendrite* of the tiniest snowflake at the edge of the most remote iceberg in Antarctica. Infinite—that’s how many different ways there are to visually interpret any shape, object, theme or concept. This is very good news for designers because it means that there are a whole lot of potential solutions for any logo project, and all that needs to be done is to develop three or four of these possibilities into presentation-worthy designs.

Take the lesson illustrated here to heart: If a shape as simple as a square can be so readily converted into such a wide range of interpretations, imagine what could be done with the much more intricate and interesting subject matter you’ll be dealing with on your next logo project.

Building icons from basic shapes

An excellent place to begin the search for a non-representational symbol design is through associations between basic shapes. The familiar geometric forms of circles, squares, triangles and ellipses can be merged, trimmed, warped, intersected, multiplied or divided in order to create simple icons that are capable of delivering complex connotations in eye-catching ways.

On this spread, basic geometric forms have been used to build a varied series of icons. Use these samples—as well as those featured throughout The Logo Brainstorm Book—to prompt avenues of exploration as you brainstorm for logo solutions. And remember, all of this book’s samples are intended as mere starting points for creative discovery: If you see an idea that appeals to you, register the idea in your mind and then let your own preferences, ideas and goals lead you wherever they will.

A simple arrangement of line-rendered squares. Investigate your options whenever you are developing a linework-based design.

Patterns built by rotating solid and translucent shapes around a center point.

A symbol created using several different weights of line, multiple colors and a variety of Adobe Illustrator’s transparency effects.

How about a free-form collection of shapes? What about wrapping your ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Beginnings
• Symbols
• Monograms
• Typographic Logos
• Type + Symbol
• Emblems
• Color