Current logo design seems to be mostly about an Icon on the left and a dull sans serif font on the right ( open spaced of course ), Youtube is full of this stuff.
Is this driven by the off the shelf logo design packages or just a boring trend of the moment.?
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Both? And a lack of creativity of or willingness to take an effort by the designers.
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Itās probably because Iāve been watching a lot of youtube logo critiques recently ā¦ but itās an endless formula .
Depends what you mean by logo? Are you referring to the ālogoā used in the main traditional navigation?
By Logo - I mean the image, icon or text that represents a business or organisation.
There are some very good design presentations on youtube as well. Iām not just having a general pop.
IMHO Most business or organisations either donāt have such a thing or they have something that is decades old and was created for some type of printed material and is unsuitable for use in a web design. I guarantee that they will not understand this.
What you refer to as a logo can be multipe things on the same site. So it may be an icon on the left with a ādullā but legible text description. That icon needs to be small enough to maintain definition on the small navigation space and have a transparent BG. The text should be proper text IMHO. No reason not to create 1 or more larger and different icons elsewhere. That āiconā doesnāt have to really mean anything or have a connection to the business and just needs to look websitey enough to give the youtube critics something to bang on about.
I do agree -
Logo designed with no story Ā£50
Logo with an hour of high brow explanation and half a dozen mock ups Ā£2000
This is the most common style of logo that I see now.
Anyway thought it might open an interesting thread :)
Excellent logo.
So out of interest ,what makes it excellent as opposed to another generic layout, thatās over used or repeated.
There are two different things here, though. Symbol on the left and name on the right is practical for the web because it has visual impact without taking up much vertical space (and thus can fit in a menu bar, for example). The consensus these days is to have logo on the left, hamburger and search on the right, but whether it goes on the left or right of the screen, the lockup of symbol left, name right, is a natural arrangement for those who use LTR scripts. (In physical media we used to use the ācentered blobā ā symbol top, name beneath ā much more, and would have called this L-R arrangement a āranged versionā for use in limited spaces. Now it is the norm.)
So much for the positives. Look at the posters on the platform on the London Underground and every one will be in a dreary sans-serif font ā mostly the bastard children of Proxima Nova and Open Sans. Weāve been living through the most incredible typographic renaissance, with type designers around the world creating brilliant types, yet commercial typography in the UK and North America is about as low energy as Iāve ever seen it ā in advertising, branding, digital and print. āBoringā is a favourā¦
Boring surely is a standard these days. But it doesnāt have to be. And you donāt have to be a pro illustrator to create your own logo. Even if you use aiding tools, like an excellent Logoist, you can imprint your creative idea into your logo design. Being a web developer is an added bonus, because you already know (or should know) what characteristics a proper web logo (as opposed to a print logo) should consist of.
I make a living fixing those design issues. The problem these days (and Iāve been doing this for more than 20 years) is that consumers thinks that a tool like canvas or a service like build your logo dot com will be perfect for the branding of a company they will invest their life on.
The first thing I asked them is the information of the company identity, and they donāt even know what that is or even worst, they donāt care. I always explain it is not about the logo, Nikeās logo for example (or Appleās logo) the reality relies on the identity design of the brand. When you get all the related things in harmony, you will get a great representation for your business.
Just go to a professional in commercial and branding design and let that team or freelancer do that awful work for you. You will never regret it. It works.
I agree that boring is not inevitable, and that one doesnāt have to be a professional to create a logo. Itās like cooking: some people are good cooks, and itās nice to be invited for a meal at their home. But there is a big difference between being a good cook and being a great chef. And if the high profile work is done by people who are simply taking stuff out of the freezer and putting it into the microwave, it will affect standards all the way down. What is lacking these days are enough Michelin-star logo designers ā and enough respect for their work ā to inspire everyone.
The difficulty for the amateur logo designer is not to do with ability to use the tools, but to do with their eye (just as the difference between a good home cook and a Michelin starred chef has to do with their palette). A good designer knows what to leave out; the amateur will usually try to make the logo do too much. Everyone knows āless is moreā, but it difficult when every instinct you have is to add a bit more of this and a bit more of that. But above all a good designer knows that there is a āsweet spotā in the relationship of sizes, positioning, colors and stroke widths. The professional will iterate until they hit that sweet spot; the amateur will go with the first thing that looks half decent to them. To go back to cooking, pretty much everyone can cook scrambled eggs ā and many do so regularly. Very few, though, take the trouble to learn how to scramble eggs perfectly. The Michelin 3-star chef knows exactly how to do that, but the home cook is still scrambling hit-or-miss after 40 years.
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