| BIG BRAND TECHNIQUES
Chime in Online
Join the conversation on the blog!
|
 This section is short this time around. I am sharing juicy professional secrets in the "Design School" section below, and I want to leave enough room to cover everything.
Have You Dropped in on the Big Brand System Blog Yet?
The Big Brand System blog has been live since the beginning of the year. We're in the middle of the first ten posts, which are a series called "Design 101." They cover the basics of design and marketing.
If you haven't visited yet, please stop by and leave a comment. I'll be looking for you there!
 PAMELA WILSONBig Brand System
Please share this newsletter with your friends:  |
DESIGN SCHOOL
A Quick Technique to Build a Logo
 Not all logos are symbols, and some of the most memorable logos are word marks. The FedEx logo is a well-known example of a word mark that's simple and memorable.
Even though I was sworn to secrecy when I was inducted into the Royal Society of Graphic Designers* back in 1987, I'm going to share a few tips for creating a memorable word logo. (Don't tell anyone where you learned it from, OK?)
To create a memorable word logo, start with a bold, unique typeface. Look for a typeface that can be reduced and still be legible. It should be unique, too. Avoid the standard computer typefaces. It's too hard to be memorable with Times Roman or Arial!
This post from the Big Brand System blog has some good sources for unique (and no-cost) typefaces.
Once you've found a good typeface, open up your word processor, set your page on landscape view (horizontal) and type your company name. Make it as large as you can on the page.
Here's the secret designer technique that will make it look more professional:
To make your typed-up words look more like a logo, tighten the letter spacing. Letter spacing refers to the white space in between each letter. Tighter letter spacing makes a word "stick" together as a unit. Most typefaces use letter spacing that is designed to make them legible at text size. When you enlarge the type, the letter spacing is too spread out.
 To do this in Microsoft Word, select all the text. Navigate to the Format>Font menu, and select the Character Spacing tab. The Font dialogue box will be displayed. Use the Spacing option "Condensed" to decrease the spacing between letters one point at a time.
How much should you tighten the spacing? Each typeface is different. The letters should be pretty close together: they can touch, but they shouldn't overlap so much that one letter blends into another.
Judy wrote in with a question about logo formats. She wondered what format would allow her to re-size her logo easily.
The best format for creating logos that can be resized as large as you'd like is a vector format like .eps. Bitmaps tend to lose resolution when you enlarge them, so they should be avoided. The average computer user doesn't have a program that creates vectors, though, so the next best thing is to use the technique above, and save the result as a PDF.
Voila! You have created a word logo. This file can be used to create a .jpeg or .gif version of the logo for the web, or you can use the PDF to print from.
----------
*I made this organization up! The closest thing to a Royal Society of Graphic Designers is the American Institute of Graphic Art, whose website is here.
|
 What's Bugging You?What's most confusing to you about design and marketing? Send me your question, and I'll cover it in a future issue of the Big Brand System newsletter. Send your question. |
