LOGO DESIGN BLOG   LOGO DESIGN REVIEW

For every seminar, conference, and annual event held across the world, there is usually a wordy, poorly designed logo to accompany it. It seems that no matter how much the design community does to impress upon people the importance of a good logo design, it seems as though event planners must not hear it.

Every day as I browse the logo news I find at least one article about a logo being launched for some type of event. When I see the design, I am almost always disappointed with the lack of creativity and general skill level. I’m sure that a logo is one of the last things on a person’s mind when they are trying to secure a venue, attract attendees, fill speaker openings, and make sure everything goes just right. But at the same time, having a killer logo for any event makes it more attractive to potential attendees. The event will have better attendance, build more trust, and perhaps most importantly, sell more promotional products.

This is especially important for large-scale, repeated events, such as the Olympics. Everyone recognizes the five interlocking ring design. But most host cities design a logo for their city that becomes the main logo used to promote the event.

Today one of three logos being used for the Beijing 2008 Olympics—known as the “Green Olympics” design—was unveiled, and is a big disappointment as well. I’m sure a lot of time and money were spent to come up with this design, but the logo seems very amateurish and lacks visual balance, in my opinion. I would never buy anything with that design on it. Hopefully the Olympic organizing committee will do a better job with the other two logos, which have yet to be revealed—the “People’s Olympics” and “Hi-tech Olympics,” or they may have a plethora of mugs and hats when the final anthem plays.

For anyone thinking about getting a logo designed for their event, read up on LogoWorks in the Wall Street Journal.

Entrepreneurs looking for logo design now have a few really affordable options. Rhonda Abrams talks about two excellent options, Instalogo and LogoWorks. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer Instalogo has 1000s of full-color, professional-designed icons, shapes and designs that you can use to create your logo, and it’s all done online via an easy-to-use Flash interface. Rhonda says, “For as little as $99, select a logo from their pre-designed selection, listed by industry. You can put that logo on business cards, brochures, etc. However, you have a limited selection of logos, and the logo is not unique to your company.”

If you want a logo built totally from scratch for as little as $299 LogoWorks is going to go a long way on your startup budget.

Read the full article about LogoWorks

Stephen Foster dropped about $4,000 hiring designers to create a logo for his small Benicia, Calif., real-estate development company, Mobius Development Inc. Unsatisfied after several attempts — “they never grasped my idea” — he finally hit the Internet, where he turned up a firm called LogoWorks.

For $385, the company promised to put three designers on the job and offer him as many as eight different concepts. Mr. Foster was initially skeptical. “I thought there was a catch.” But within a week, he had a full package of designs that, he says, “were on the mark.”

Read Full LogoWorks Article