sHelpful Hint : Make your initial logo high resolution (300 dots per inch or more), otherwise your logo will look pixellated when you print it. You can always create a smaller, lower-quality version of your company logo design for the web.
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A logo is a simple, abstracted representation of a corporate or individual
identity. It is a constructed icon that is meant to immediately both denote
and connote its bearer.
A logo is often the first thing to which the eye is drawn. It is meant to
be associated with the product and retained. 
Some points to remember:
*It should maintain its clarity in many different sizes (from your business cards, to a billboard, to letterhead it needs to be clear and sharp).
*It should look good in both black and white (at some point you will need/use it in both)
* It should show up well in different media (paper, RGB---on screen, etc.)
More Logos:
By Saul Bass
More Logos:
United Biscuits is the
corporation behind many top food brands in the UK and elsewhere. After much
design work and market research, this symbol ended up as a simple evolution
from its predecessor.
subway system logos:
Logo Making with Analogy:
Analogy: 1. [n] similarity in some respect between things that are otherwise dissimilar: "the operation of a computer presents an interesting analogy to the working of the brain". A comparison.
A visual analogy adheres perfectly to the definition above, but strictly using visual forms.
Creating effective visual analogies can be approached in three steps:
1. Identify similar shapes contained in unrelated objects or images (object
A and object B).
2. Create a single shape (object C) from objects A and B.
3. Verify that the viewer can clearly identify both objects in the visual analogy.
ex. 1
The shape of a sun
can be compared to the shape of the dot in a lowercase "i".
a visual analogy blends the two.
Logo Making with Lines and Shapes:
Lines come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Play with making lines. Vary
the thickness of the lines.
•Make lines of dots, dashes, or combinations.
•Look at the patterns that a series of lines make.
•Use lines to direct eyeflow.
•Use lines to form barriers.
•Use lines to indicate connections.
•Use lines to show movement.
Be aware of what the shape of lines can convey. Sharp edges could indicate
tension, crispness, hardness, formality, or high tech. Soft edges and curves
may be softer, flowing, more casual, or more personal.Even small changes
in line thickness, endings, or shape changes can alter the look and feel
of a design.
Shapes
Everything has a shape but the basic shapes of circles,
squares, and triangles can be very effective in logo design, in part because of their simplicity.
These shapes have certain sub-conscious meanings as well.
•The circle is protective or infinite.
•The square denotes stability, equality, and honesty.
•The triangle suggests tension or conflict or action.
There are so many things you can "draw" using only circles, squares,
or triangles. Group several together to form interesting patterns.
Replace letters in a word or name with shapes that suggest those letters. A triangle for A or V is obvious. Less obvious is the E made of squares or perhaps two stacked circles for an S or a pair of triangles (one up, one down) for an N.
Logo designs don't need to be elaborate -- and usually work best when they are kept simple. So simple shapes work beautifully.
More on Making Logos:
Most company trade marks have some little visual trick that turns a type face into a distinctive logotype.
Let's look at the logos of some successful hi-tech companies and see what we can learn from those. Take Microsoft, IBM, Canon, Sony, Apple. They are all fairly simple, with the exception of Apple's ‘apple' symbol, all are just the name of the company written in a distinctive way.
‘Distinctive' is the important factor here. These are not ordinary typefaces bought from Adobe or downloaded from a free font site on the Web. They have all been specially designed and hand-drawn so that they are NOT the same as any other typeface.
There is very little value in copying somebody else's logo - unless you deliberately want to look like a me-too. A logo should ideally be as different from every other one as you can possibly make it. It should also communicate something about the company or product other than just its name. You have an opportunity to add some additional values subliminally through your choice of typeface and color.
Most corporate logos need to work across a wide spectrum of usage situations - signage, stationery, packaging, promotional items and mainstream advertising. They probably require different sizes and versions for different applications too.
Tools
Many great designs start out on a piece of paper. It is important to arrive at a concept without being lead down a particular path by the tools. A computer can become a barrier to creativity and will force you to think in a way that is in the style of the software you are using. You should have an idea in mind before sitting down at the screen and then use the computer to implement that idea, not generate it.
When it come to drawing up a logo, it is better to use a vector graphics program---Adobe Illustrator. The reason for using a vector graphics program will become clearer later.
Tip: In a simple logo the finer points of spacing and kerning are more important than ever. Never trust a program to get the kerning right, it can only be done by eye. If it looks right, it is right!
It is always easier to spot uneven letter spacing if you turn the logo upside down!
The first thing you have to consider is the typeface. If you don't have the skills to create your own typeface from scratch, then you can start with an existing one. The choice of typeface is very important because the basic letterform establishes the overall character of the logo. Sans serif faces suggest modernity whereas serif faces say something about establishment. Script faces can either be formal or very informal and then there are all kinds of weird and wacky typestyles - if that is what you want to communicate about the company.
Having chosen a suitable typeface, look at it in different ways. Caps, lower case, upper and lower. Look for interesting letter pairs or combinations that can be exploited to make the logo more distinctive and memorable.
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Selecting individual anchor points and nudging them with the arrow keys allows fine adjustment of letters.
One trick is to join up certain letters in the word.
Natural candidates to join in this word are the 't' and 'y' which can be run together very easily. This is where the vector program comes into its own. It is just a matter of selecting two anchor points and nudging them sideways with the arrow keys.
'Outline stroke' converts a stroke to a filled area that can then be merged with the original type body.
Almost any logo will benefit from being 'beefed-up'. Here, a stroke has been added to the basic fill outline giving a bolder, stronger, feel to the logo. I've increased the stroke width gradually until the letters 'kiss' but be careful, too much, and readability can be compromised. Never underestimate the value of negative space.
Having established the optimal stroke thickness, the stroke and fill are merged to produce a single vector outline version of the original typeface. It is now no longer editable from the keyboard but can be further modified by adjusting anchor points.
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Tip: Use colors that are appropriate to your message.
Tip: Before you start to design a logo, make a simple word list of the attributes that it needs to communicate - dynamic, modern, established, traditional, friendly, monolithic - then keep comparing your design to what you have written.
TYPOGRAPHY
History
•The design of type began with early cuneiform images carved into stone or painted on cave walls.
• The tradition expanded into blackletter calligraphy in the middle ages, then flourished in the industrial age with the development of Roman (serif) and then Gothic (san serif) letterforms.
The German inventor and printer Johann Gutenberg (ca. 1398-1468) was the inventor of movable-type mechanical printing in Europe (1450).
Gutenberg used hand-set type cast in molds to print multiple copies of manuscripts. Whereas scribes copied manuscripts by hand before Gutenberg's invention, copying became mechanized and much faster after the invention. The invention of movable-type printing facilitated an easier exchange of ideas throughout Europe and helped spread the ideas of the Renaissance.
• Now, with the advent of PCs, anyone can create a typeface; there are literally thousands available.
Styles
Anatomy
http://counterspace.motivo.com/
serifs: A serif is a little extra stroke found at the end of main vertical and horizontal strokes of some Letter forms.
san serif: The letters have no serifs
Leading (line spacing)
Spacing between letters
• Tracking or letterspacing applies to whole lines of text. Add or subract tracking to give text a looser or tighter feel. Letterspacing is not possible with HTML, but this example shows how letterspacing is done with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Letterspacing may be controlled in all graphics programs.
• Kerning applies to the space between individual letters. Certain combinations
of letters typically leave too much space between the characters, such as capital "A" and "W." These
examples have already been kerned, bringing the letters closer together:
Rules to live by:
1. Do not use every font you own in one document.
If you're a designer, it almost goes without saying that you own fonts. Lotsof fonts. Maybe even thousands of fonts.
When you start using many of those fonts in one document, the message gets lost in the jumble of fonts. That doesn't mean that you have to stick to the tried and true two fonts rule (one for headings and one for text), just make sure there's a reason why you're using the fonts you choose.
2. Serif type is easier to read than sans serif.
The theory goes that serif type is easier to read because the serifs draw your eye from character to character. Therefore, sans serif type is best left to headings and short amounts of text.
3. Do not put two spaces after a period.
4. Do not use all capital letters
People read by the shapes of words, not letter by letter.
That doesn't mean you can't ever use all capitals. Short phrases or headings can work well in all caps. Sans serif tends to work better in all caps than serif type; the serifs can actually detract from the readability of the text when set in all caps.
5. Do not center large amounts of text.
When you read, you rapidly scan one line, then your eye has to go from the right side of the page back to the left side of the page. When text is centered, it can be harder to find where the text begins again on the left side of the page, and actually all too easy to skip down lines of text
emigre
emigre.com
Emigre, Inc. is a digital type foundry, publisher and distributor of graphic design related software and printed materials based in Northern California. Founded in 1984, coinciding with the birth of the Macintosh, Emigre was one of the first independent type foundries to establish itself centered on personal computer technology. Emigre holds exclusive license to over 300 original typeface designs created by a roster of contemporary designers. Emigre's full line of typefaces, ornaments and illustrations is available in Type 1 PostScript and TrueType for both the Macintosh and PC.
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