10 Logo Design Basics You Should Learn As A Beginner
Creating an amazing logo can be challenging at times as there are certain logo design basics that you need to understand first. Let’s find out! 
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Looking at the logo and memorizing it might sound pretty easy. From the audience's point of view, a good design can mean more to their memory and actions. That is why the uses of logo design are a pretty common practice for companies and businesses. The reason is to establish motion, memory, and visual communication skills. But is it something easy to learn?
For some beginners, everything can be a bit harder to follow, especially for how complex the project process is. Most professionals will highlight and tell some logo design basics that every beginner or learner needs to understand. The basics are more than just developing a fancy visual identity; and it has more to pay attention to.
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In the highly competitive world of today, several innovative logos state their solid presence in the market. It makes beginner entrepreneurs or designers need to stay calm, strong, and more creative. Even though creativity is endless, some of these design basics for logos should be the underlying models for every beginner in creating the project.
The Fundamental Of Logo Designs
Some essential logo design fundamentals mentioned in this article mostly help beginners to structure and plan their projects. Working with a company and trying to stay in the market can be a bit of a challenge. That is why some basic principles should be part of the design and logo creation. Here are some of the most needed basics beginners should learn.
1. Memorable, Simple, And Timeless
There is a common purpose of creating a logo, which is to communicate with the audience through visual objects. In this case, the basics of design that should be part of the process are to maintain three principles. The practice and its logo design basics principle should include memorable, simple, and timeless design. What does it mean?
A logo represents the company and industry to a certain degree. In one and many cases, you can find that the logo and its design are the visual identities. It has a huge role in being part of the audience's mind. And to realize that mindset, one should design the model with a memorable idea in mind. How to do it? By appropriating the business and staying simple.
The idea is pretty much relying on how the logo becomes an effective tool to build trust in the brand and bring brand identity to mind. It comes with basic principles, which create one logo design considered unique to another. Being unique on a good side can help the design stay in mind, even for a long time or in the more innovative era.
Created by Antonio Stojceski | https://www.behance.net/gallery/139213383/Dropterra
Creating a memorable design itself is a challenging basic. One should take examples of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or McDonald's as one of the most memorable works out there. Being memorable also relates to having a timeless basic model. The plan is to make a design that will stay fresh from overcoming the everchanging years and development.
For business, having frequent changes in the original logo design will only alter people's perceptions and hinder the memorable aspect. There are many ways to nail the basics of timelessness, which include making it simple and not too nuanced with hot components. This is where beginners need to take highlight not following too many contemporary ideas.
One thing that needs to be remembered is the easily identifiable logo design basics. It goes along with the timeless and memorable ideas, which highlight the use of non-complicated works but still deliver something unexpected. Take an example of Starbucks design; the logo has a unique quality and meaning with its green and mermaid character.
Created by Mateus Araújo | https://www.behance.net/gallery/146841789/JIMMYS-PIZZA-DELIVERY
2. Choosing The Style Carefully
One of the basics of design is style. It is not a surprise that one can find many logo models with unique drawing styles, approaches, and personalities. In this case, beginners need to highlight the style as locally-oriented details, which cover many aspects such as particular time, subculture, or model. Some of the examples are art deco, Victorian, urban painting, pop culture, or letterforms.
In this part of the logo design principle, the key is to pick one that best expresses the brand's personality and values. Remember that one company might nail the classic western style, but it can look completely different with a modern take on the logo. It is also worth mentioning that each design style might come with a different mood, personality, and characteristic.
A logo design style that is pretty basic is the classic style that showed its bygone era. There are also retro and vintage styles that embrace memories. Each comes with its characteristics, such as basic hand lettering form, soft palette color, and more daring imagery. The key takeaway is to stay loyal to the company's personality and brand values.
Created by Saul Osuna | https://www.behance.net/gallery/94321823/tradeer-Brand-Identity
3. Make Sketches and structure your work
As a beginner, one of the logo design basics should master, starting from sketches and structure. The initial reason is mostly about experiencing, brainstorming, and finding the best-suited imagery for the project. Being unique, trying different ideas, and making revisions will be made easier with the help of sketches.
As working with sketches allows more changes, it also helps beginners to understand the basics of grids and negative space in the design. Playing around with grids and negative spaces can be one of the keys to creating proportional and professional logos. It does need time to learn, but it will help to learn and utilize other elements crucial to the process.
Created by Nikolay Nyagolov | https://www.behance.net/gallery/135925153/Husk-Alcoholic-Coffee-Beverage
For grids, paying attention to them will help understand every basic as a proportional and memorable visual value. It can help a lot when working with software, providing different sizes and compositions, thus bringing up the quality of the drawing. At the same time, many logo design creators will also play around with negative space.
In design, negative space is something that is considered more than just an empty area. When properly utilized, it can be the best-supporting value on the work, especially for simple and minimalistic design. This is where beginners will be forced to balance positive and negative space, thus creating unique imagery and fully optimized design on the logo.
Created by studio le_m | https://www.behance.net/gallery/92910675/ACC-Brand-Experience-Design
4. Always Compare To Competitor's Logo
Given that one of the logo design basics during the creation is to analyze a competitor's logo. In general, the idea is to cope with the rapidly growing competitive industry. Many small businesses and big companies are working their best to please their audience, and one of the ideas is to work with the project. This is where the designer needs to research the market.
Understanding a competitor's logo and market helps create the best core visual identity. It mainly highlights a different visual through the logo but also makes it more efficient than the competitor. In this case, the basics of comparison can include analyzing the design, ideas, uses, typography, elements, and industries.
Most industries will come with unique aspects, including their characteristic imagery. At one point, many similar products and services come with particularly alike elements. But there are also potential to be differences with visual identities, such as pinpointing the basics of the company's personality.
Created by Lili Köves | https://www.behance.net/gallery/139122877/Moe-Oat-Dairy
5. Avoid Being Too Mainstream
One of the reasons why many logo design basics will specify to not follow the trend is due to its unbalanced effects. Joining trends can either be good or bad for the overall result, considering some trends only last for a short time. It is contrary to the main basic principle of being memorable and timeless.
The idea comes along with the mindset of whether the audience likes or dislikes the style. If following the trend, the logo might come to its end and favorable point only in a few years. That is why professional designers use basic designs that mainly highlight simplistic imagery. It does not need to follow the current styles, fonts, or colors.
Avoiding trends and popular models also help reduce the chance of redesigning the logo. Most of the time, making frequent redesign only detaches your audience from work emotionally. Highlight that the project is the core identity, which is why changing images too many times will not help retain your audience.
Created by Rami Hoballah | https://www.behance.net/gallery/110274385/The-Camel-Tours
6. Get To Know The Target Audience
Along with the idea of avoiding trends to retain an audience, one should take basic learning on understanding the proper target audience. It is basic and part of many other marketing visual identities. The way the logo design basic will affect the target audience is mainly by providing the most appropriate imagery for the audience.
It is similar to the idea of analyzing competitors. Being different and unique can enhance the basic ideas into a more approvable, memorable, and long-lasting idea. But having proper research on the target audience helps define the best niche market, elements, and characteristics that hit the mark. Something that is ideal and brings a solution to the proper target.
In this case, most designers will work with marketers to learn about the tricks. One of them is to understand who the people are or the demographic of the market. The result should enquire about every possible different background of the ideal customers, including education, economic, and social background.
Created by M — N Associates | https://www.behance.net/gallery/112403463/Ruco-International-Clinic-Rebranding
With the background in mind, designers can use the basic information to develop certain imagery for the logo. Take an instance of a young teenager as the main audience of Instagram. The idea mostly pinpoints modern, simplistic imagery of cameras. It fits with the function that provides varying image and video sharing content.
As time went by, the company changed the logo design with slight additions to its basic idea. The change includes adding colorful and splashy hues that increase the taste of fun, quirky, and youthful elements in its identity. It unifies with the younger audience, attracting their attention with color, and creates a message through a well-maintained basics logo on its design.
Created by Alejandro Gavancho | https://www.behance.net/gallery/128788275/Starrytale-2
7. Understand the Color System
Fitting the ideas with the industry, personality, and demographic can include playing around with color. This is where designers need to learn about color wheels to get the best color matching and appropriate selection. One thing is for sure; color can emit emotion, add mood, and create attraction. A miss collaboration can ruin everything.
Being part of the logo design basics, the color wheel itself is separated into three models; complementary, analogs, and triadic colors. Each category helps beginners understand the best color mixing and collaboration for the work. It is very crucial, considering you will work with many elements in the creation process.
Created by DEBUT | https://www.behance.net/gallery/121462125/Madewisely
The first color wheel basics schemes are the complementary model. It translated to picking different hues located opposite each other on the color wheel. The best example is green and red. The focus is to bring high contrast to the color, which later brings full saturation with a bright and vibrant look.
The second scheme is Analogous. It is a simple color selection that mainly uses hues located right next to each other. The result of the design mostly appears as a matching and natural-looking color transition, such as red, orange, and yellow. It has enough contrast without being too much, which is pretty efficient and easy to look at.
The last color scheme on the logo design basic is triadic. The name itself explains how the hues are picked from evenly spaced around the color wheel. It generates a pretty contrasting color, dominating each other while still helping create main and accent balance. For the best example, triadic schemes can appear as orange, green, and red.
Created by Leyning Ferraz | https://www.behance.net/gallery/135401971/Letron
8. Picking The Best Font
As important as color and shapes, font is your basic design element that has a huge role in visual communication. Picking the right typography, font, or typeface is as complicated as color. It exudes personality, meaning, and detailing, which can help provide clear visual contrast for the business's focus.
One thing that helps to understand the typography design on a logo is to pick one based on the personality and its mood. The simple serif font is known for its formal and strong ambiance. The more casual company can use sans serif fonts due to their non-formal and friendly appearance. Paying attention to typography also includes considering the size, combination, and structure.
Created by Robynn Gardner | https://www.behance.net/gallery/144812473/La-Palma-Hotel-Spa-Brand-Identity
9. Always Opt For Scalability And Versatility with vectors
One of the undeniable basics in working with logo design is to use vector images. It goes along with the idea of creating a more versatile and scalable design. In this case, the vector image would not get pixelated or lose its quality upon resizing. It will retain its quality in details, color selection, and model even resized into a bigger media.
A vector image will look the same for smaller media such as business cards or on bigger marketing models such as a billboard. This is why one should learn how to design with vectors. Versatility also includes varying types of utilization. Beginners can learn to create color and non-colored versions and to create small-sized files for website or online uses.
Created by Strigy Design | https://www.behance.net/gallery/145651949/Q_ADRO-Arquitetura-e-Engenharia
10. Use the Right Software
At the end of the day, the logo design basics will go back to using the right software. There are many options of software and apps, which are also available on different devices. In this case, picking one that a beginner can fully grasp and uses will help a lot. It does not matter whether the software is free or not; the key is to fully utilize its usage.
It also includes the level of difficulties. Some software is meant for professional users, which has a very steep learning curve for beginners. Forcing yourself to use software that is not fitting with your proficiency, skills, and needs will not do your best. It might alter the best logo design potential, making the skilled workers face difficulties in the process.
Created by Mateus Seifert | https://www.behance.net/gallery/141810023/Avisto
Final Words
To sum everything up, a beginner has to learn some of the design basics. For logo creation, the fundamental knowledge can encompass more than just creating fancy visual imagery. It should be something that represents the company, memorable, simple, but also timeless. And to make it, much basic design planning is put into motion.
You can include creating sketches and fully utilizing the ideas with information behind every move. That information can include ideas about the target audience, the company, the competitor logos, and the proper software to use. As everything is lined up, the logo design process will be started with picking colors, typography, and ideas.
Created by ThinkBold | https://www.behance.net/gallery/137565535/Grahams-Late-Bottle-Vintage
Those aspects and basics can cover a huge number of smaller details, which can also include the use of negative space, types of color, design styling, and the file type. At the end of the day, beginners should understand that the logo design basics they need to do are highlight Scalability and versatility. Thus, the works can be used in varying motions and functions.
If you want to pinpoint everything, it is safe to say that the basics of logo designs are pretty similar to creative work in general. However, the logo has a particular function on business and company. This is why strong support of information can make the result. Thus, beginners need to do more research and brainstorm for such an impactful visual identity.