Last week we posted a video that showed one of our designers (Paul) illustrating a character from the television snow LOST. If you missed it, you can watch it here. LOST isn’t the only show our design team likes to watch. Another favorite is The Office. We gave another of our designers (this time it was Justin) an hour and some recording software and asked him to go wild. His subject is Schrute Farms, the number one beet-related agro-tourism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Justin started with a sketch (this isn’t on camera, sorry), then transfers his drawing to the computer to clean it up, add color, and turn it into a logo. Here’s the result:

Timely, yet shameless, plug: if you’d like to put this kind of creativity and skill to work on your next design project, contact us at Logoworks.com.

Every day we speak with dozens of small business owners who are looking for the right “look” for their business. Whether they need business cards, a website, a brochure, a presentation folder for a conference, or even a vehicle wrap, they want to make sure that the design they get communicates the right message.

As we talk, we often hear that a customer wants their logo to represent ALL of their services. A business owner who provides outsourced technical support, upon seeing her initial concepts, might say, “Well, sure, they’re great logos for a tech support company. But I also provide programming services. This logo doesn’t show any of that. And I sell computer components. Can we show some of those too? I want to make sure my customers know I can help them in more ways than one.” A bakery owner wants to show donuts, muffins, breadsticks, turn-overs, brownies, sandwiches and drinks, all in addition to a loaf of bread—just to make sure people know they can get more than bread at that location.

But “everything and the kitchen sink” is the wrong approach to logo design. Here’s why:

Think about the logos of successful companies. In most cases, their logos don’t picture their products (in fact, most don’t include any icon at all). They likely don’t even have a tag line in them. The Coca-cola logo doesn’t show a soft drink. The Barnes & Noble logo doesn’t show a book (or games, or movies, or CDs). The Starbucks logo does not feature a cup of coffee. The McDonald’s logo does not feature any food. But over time, these logos have come to represent all of these things, just by being associated with them.

There are exceptions to the rule. The Fox Broadcasting logo includes a search light—a holdover from the movie studio days. But note that they don’t include a television, a DVD, a movie screen, and a book—all products that Fox creates and sells. One icon is enough to represent all of the company’s products. The old UPS logo included a package, representing the major business that UPS is in. But it doesn’t include all the package sizes the company delivers. It didn’t represent all of the locations around the world the company delivers to. And it didn’t include all the ways UPS could deliver your package (by truck, by plane, etc.).

When you consider what you want for your logo, think about one simple idea that can be associated with the things you do. It may be an icon (like the Nike swoosh), or a letter (like the golden arches: M), or it may simply be a unique type treatment (like Virgin). Rather than asking your design team to include everything your company represents, ask them to focus on a single idea that will come to represent your company as it grows in the coming years.

Over the past ten years, we’ve had almost five hundred customers ask for logos, icons, or other design projects that feature dogs. Our project list includes: black dogs, yellow dogs, brown dogs, lazy dogs, fat dogs, stunt dogs, hot dogs, sun dogs (which of course aren’t dogs at all), dog houses, dog crates, dog groomers, dog walkers, doggy fitness centers, dog races, lucky dogs, bearded dogs, hot diggety dogs, dirty dogs, and, well you can imagine another four hundred and eighty or so project requests. People love dogs.

As you can imagine, these projects call for a lot of variety, from the artist’s style to the type of dog (the most requested dog is the bull dog, although we are also asked for a lot of labrador retrievers, great danes, and “cartoon” dogs). Here are a few samples I came across browsing our archives this morning. In most cases, I’ve removed the company name, so what you see here are mostly icons, not finished logos.

First up, a highly stylized cartoon pointer. It’s simple, fun, and friendly. Matched with the right typeface, it makes for a pretty compelling logo (only the icon is shown here):

Of course, not all dogs are friendly. Some customers ask for dogs that you might think twice about petting. While we’re not interested in doing logos for dog fighters, we don’t mind drawing dogs with more than a little fight in them. Here’s an example with a “sports logo” look we presented to a skate board company:

Dogs love to chase cats, squirrels, rabbits, mailmen, cars, and just about anything else. Here’s a simple icon we did for a production company…

And, of course, not all dogs are obedient. Some dogs are a bit mischievous. Others more than a little…

Unabashed plug for our design services: If you’d like to see more examples of the variety of artwork our designers create for our customers, check out the gallery at logoworks.com.

Two years ago, the guys at Holy Brew, a small microbrewery, asked us to create a logo for them. They wanted a logo that would become the cornerstone of their brand and product offering, which includes two lagers, Heavenly Light and Purgatory Pilsner. (Rumor is there are more to come.) Specifically, they requested a mark that contrasted heaven and hell. We presented seven different concepts that included gothic script, halos, and tails. After a couple of rounds of minor tweaks, Holy Brew selected a winner, shown here as part of the label on their Purgatory Pilsner:

When it comes to art, sometimes the designer’s favorite concepts don’t end up being the customer’s favorite concepts. We’re cool with that. After all, the customer knows his business and customers better than we ever will, and he pays the bills, so he should choose the logo HE loves. And while we really like the way the final logo works on the brewery’s bottles (you can download a wallpaper for your phone or computer with the design, here), we presented a concept that is definitely one of my favorite logos ever designed by our team. Rather than leave it in the Logoworks archives, I thought I’d post it here.

We aren’t the only ones who like this concept. It was recognized with an American Graphic Design Award in 2008. Let us know what you think.

-rm

A few months ago,  one of our Logoworks designers sat down to do a little illustration. Since the season premiere of LOST was right around the corner, and because he’s a fan, he chose the show as his subject. We were there to record it all. (We’ve sped it up a bit, the whole process took a little less than an hour). If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll appreciate some of the details (like the polar bear). Even if you’re not a LOST fan, you’ll be able to appreciate the talent captured on the video.

To put this kind of talent to work on your logo or design project, visit Logoworks.com.

-rm

Over the past five years or so, this website has had a few purposes. First it was a landing page for our design company (you can visit our custom design studio here, and our do-it-yourself sites here and here). The page has also been a place you could find design resources. And we posted dozens of articles about design on the page as well (now those are parked here). But for the past year or so, we’ve been pretty quiet at logodesign.com. That didn’t seem right to us.

So, we’re repurposing this site for something a little more fun.

For it’s next life, logodesign.com will be a place where we can showcase the incredible talents of the designers at Logoworks and MarketSplash. We’ll show samples of our latest projects and tell you a little bit about them. We hope that this will give you an insider’s view of our studio so you can see the process and the products we have so much fun working on every day.

So stay tuned.

-rm