Nice post. THOU SHALL CONSIDER CONTEXTS OF USE many logos are designed in a vacuum without considerations for contexts of use.

Very nice! Brilliant!

It couldn't have been said any better... Shout-out to all my clients

nice one here

OkaNaUbe:
Thumbs up, OP. I remember using CorelDraw to create graphic jobs such as logos. That's back in the days of humble beginnings.

Oga pls I need your help o. I still use corel draw for design. I don't know how to go with this Illustrator and co. I really want to be enlightened. Thanks.

Nice one

11. Thou shall not steal other people's work

Every Tom, dick and Harry today want to become a graphic designer. They feel its something easy to delve in. All I see are crap-half-baked "designers" who have little or no foundational knowledge of the elements and principles of design. Just some basic knowledge of Coreldraw, bOom you see "Mathias graphics design studios". What rubbish

AndyAustin:

Oga pls I need your help o. I still use corel draw for design. I don't know how to go with this Illustrator and co. I really want to be enlightened. Thanks.

Watch YouTube tutorials in Adobe illustrator. With time you'll develop the likeness. You constantly gotta move up

The only thing I understand is "thou"

Coral Draw is good but outdated

Photoshop is good and it comes with unlimited possibility

Illustrator is king in vector images but I still use Photoshop cos it has unlimited possibility.

Contact me for your logo or Graphic Design

For ya book cover designs..

And thou shalt not forget your days of humble beginnings.

OkaNaUbe:
Thumbs up, OP. I remember using CorelDraw to create graphic jobs such as logos. That's back in the days of humble beginnings.

I need a logo design for a MEATLOT, a livestock (goats, sheep and cattle) and farm venture. Anybody?

Codyt:

Watch YouTube tutorials in Adobe illustrator. With time you'll develop the likeness. You constantly gotta move up

Thanks much. I really appreciate, but I really have a lot of questions. Please would you let me msg you about some of them. Please.

08. Thou shalt use vector software
It is possible to design a logo in Photoshop, but it’s not a good idea. This will mean creating your logo as a raster object, which can’t be resized without loss of quality.

Instead, you should use a vector graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer. This way, your logo will be a vector object that can be scaled up or down without any pixelation.

Just to buttress the Vector Software idea, if you are a freelancer you will know that most client will prefer their jobs done using Adobe Illustrator. Though, there are other vector softwares out there to use.

For acceptability and popularity stick with AI to please more clients.

chuks34:
graphic design is life
I wish go expand my knowledge to AI

I'm not even a graphics editor but a video editor but I'm furiously learning AI so I can do animations

erad:
01. Thou shalt research the brand
Like all commercial design, a logo doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and is not just about creating something that will look pretty on your portfolio. Brands pay for a logo to be created to fulfil a business need, and you will have to understand that need fully for your design to succeed.

Sometimes, you’ll get an articulate client who can explain where the business is coming from and what the logo needs to achieve quickly and simply. But at other times, the client won’t really understand the business themselves, and you’ll have to do a lot of that work yourself.

Either way, it’s up to you to fully research the company, understand what it’s trying to achieve, who its competitors are, and why the previous logo (if there is one) is being replaced.

Some of that research may take place on the internet, or reading corporate documents, but much of it will depend on meeting the client and asking the right questions.


02. Thou shalt respect brand heritage
When it comes to creating a new design for an existing brand, you want it to look updated, modern and forward-looking. But there’s a danger of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Logo design history is littered with examples of companies that released new logos that were totally disconnected from their brand heritage, only to watch them crash and burn.


03. Thou shalt choose the right kind of logo
Some logos are made entirely of type, while others exist entirely as a symbol, and yet others combine text and graphics in the same design. So before you start designing, it’s important to decide what kind of logo you're setting out to create.

This key step will help focus your mind and get you moving in the right direction, before you waste your time going down a series of blind alleys.


04. Thou shalt keep your design simple
A logo needs to be scalable to small sizes (printed on a pen or appearing on a mobile device) and huge ones (for instance, a billboard or an IMAX cinema screen). It needs to be instantly recognisable by consumers, as well as powerfully memorable. It needs to work in any colour. And it needs to be versatile enough to be consistently reproduced in a range of print and digital media.

For these reasons and more, your logo needs to be as simple as possible. Try shrinking it to a tiny size on your screen: does it still work? If not, it probably needs simplifying further. So keep editing, removing and simplifying. Purge your design of unnecessary graphical elements. Simplify shapes. Remove unnecessary shadows, gradients, textures and backgrounds. Reduce the number of fonts to the bare minimum.

This process can be psychologically difficult: we all hate to discard details we’ve worked hard to create. But at the end of the process, you’ll usually end up with a logo that’s simpler and much more successful as a design.

That doesn’t, however, mean every logo you create has to be ultra-minimalist to the nth degree. Consider the Firefox logo as a good example of how a logo can be simple, versatile and scalable while still evoking a unique visual personality.


05. Thou shalt make your design readable
It should go without saying, but so many logo designs fall down on a fundamental basis: their readability. Conversely, many brands work hard over time to make subtle updates to their logo to make it easier to read. Some of these can be extremely subtle, as when Google moved its ‘g’ one pixel to the right and its ‘l’ one pixel down in 2014. But the fact that brands indulge in that level of tinkering just goes to show how important legibility is, and how it should be at the heart of any logo design or redesign.


06. Thou shalt be original
One side effect of the need to simplify is that it’s very easy to end up creating something that resembles an existing logo. There are countless examples of big brands getting caught in this trap, from the debacle of NBC’s 1976 logo to the short-lived Tokyo 2020 Olympics logo.


07. Thou shalt not slavishly follow trends
We all love watching trends, and logos are no different. In fact, we’ve already written a post about 2017’s biggest logo trends ourselves. But in no way does that mean you should slavishly follow them.

A successful logo can potentially stay in place for decades, so if you try to be too hip and modern, your design will only date super-fast. Focus on the classic principles of logo design and think about long-term durability rather than short-term trends.


08. Thou shalt use vector software
It is possible to design a logo in Photoshop, but it’s not a good idea. This will mean creating your logo as a raster object, which can’t be resized without loss of quality.

Instead, you should use a vector graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer. This way, your logo will be a vector object that can be scaled up or down without any pixelation.


09. Thou shalt be appropriate
What works as a logo for one brand may not work for another. A logo for a web startup may be fun, cartoony and tongue in cheek, but that’s unlikely to work for a traditional high street bank, which needs to project an image of authority and reliability.

Like it or not, the style of your logo will instantly convey what a company stands for, so make sure it’s appropriate and that it’s aligned with the overall brand identity. Again, this goes back to understanding the goals and values of the business that’s employed you as a designer.


10. Thou shalt consider thy typography carefully
Using original typography is often key to creating a logo that stands out as original and distinctive. So try to avoid commonly used fonts, and play around with different styles of type – serifs and sans-serifs, italics and bold, as well as custom-made fonts – in order to find that unique look that helps your logo become memorable. Just don’t sacrifice scalability or legibility in the process.


Source:
https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/10-commandments-of-logo-design

See also:
https://www.nairaland.com/4421345/nairaland-portfolio-logo-designers-2018

how much is the idle price to charge for a logo

UzuNagato:
how much is the idle price to charge for a logo

There’s really nothing like an ‘ideal’ price.
Different designers possess different skills and levels of experience.
Plus clients differ in financial strength.
You also need to put the economic situation at the time into consideration.
You have to consider many factors to help decide your own professionally/personally ideal price.

AndyAustin:

Oga pls I need your help o. I still use corel draw for design. I don't know how to go with this Illustrator and co. I really want to be enlightened. Thanks.

@bolded, ask OP. As for CorelDraw, you just need someone to put you through. It isn't that hard to learn.

AndyAustin:

Thanks much. I really appreciate, but I really have a lot of questions. Please would you let me msg you about some of them. Please.

Of course. Floors always open bro

ebby9z:

I'm not even a graphics editor but a video editor but I'm furiously learning AI so I can do animations

Nice one
AI is a dope aoftware

Codyt:

Of course. Floors always open bro

1. Which program does one need to learn in order to be a graphic designer?
2. What is the difference between a graphic designer and an illustrator? (I've searched google but I don't quite get it).
Thanks much...anticipating your response.

AndyAustin:

1. Which program does one need to learn in order to be a graphic designer?
2. What is the difference between a graphic designer and an illustrator? (I've searched google but I don't quite get it).
Thanks much...anticipating your response.

Hello AndyAustin,
Thank you for reaching out. In response to your questions;
1. On the professional side, before you can become a graphics designer, you'd need to learn core aspects of design itself. It allows foundational knowledge of design and its applicable areas. Having this in mind, few vector - based design softwares like Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape & CorelDraw are the best when you're just starting out. With constant practice with the use of these softwares, you get better at what you do overtime.

2. Both terms are quite related, although distinctly different. A graphic designer projects his or her ideas with textual and visual content, i.e its more about communicating with a target audience, while illustration is concerned mostly about a creative interpretation. An illustrator provides a visual representation of an associated text or idea.

I'll give you insights -- An illustrator creates images. But these images do not require attention from the viewers, while a graphics designer makes the images with the sole purpose of bringing the focus of the viewers to the drawn object. Graphics design is all about planning and projecting experiences and ideas. An illustrator moves around and does drawing and painting in sketchpads or other mediums.

I hope you can see how these two job descriptions differs greatly from each other?

If you need more clarification, I'll be glad to help.

Chao