What makes a good logo?

[Sosu]

I have been thinking about a logo, and was wondering what makes a logo stand out? What makes a good logo?

-------------- Edit-
I was originally thinking about what makes a good logo, and not just mine. But with the great ideas in the followup posts I wanted to explain more. I'm working on building a community of like minded entrepreneurs. I myself, have done everything from flipping houses to flipping domains. I even owned a cigar shop for a few years. So I'm going to welcome everyone, including but not limited to, IM, MLM, actors, editors, designers, DJs, shop owners, investors, singers and bands. Sosu is sauce in Japan and... SOSu as in help you. And everyone knows its the sauce that makes everything better. Freedom, financial security, and happiness are the sauces for an entrepreneur.

[piotrusgliwice]

Photoshop...

[M4UNow]

LO? not sure what until i see it. But i know one thing my designer makes damn good ones. LOL
Gina

[Scott Ames]

Simple, clean, attractive, related to your business, and most of all memorable.

I've seen some logos that could not be read by man nor beast.

[William Graham]

A good logo is one that truly represents the nature of your business. For example a landscape gardener could have a logo incorporating a tree or bush somewhere. Its one of the first things potential customers see when evaluating your business so it needs to be crisp, clean and professional. Something that looks like you've spent a small fortune on.

piotrusgliwice is correct that Photoshop is a good program to design a logo in, but it is not the most user friendly to start from scratch on. You need to know exactly what you want your logo to look like in your head before you start using photoshop, otherwise you could spend 4 or 5 hours in there and come out with nothing.

Another good alternative is Adobe Illustrator, it's very good for vector graphics, something that is used a lot in company logos. Check out some of the vids on youtube for Logo creation with Illustrator....they're pretty impressive!!

[Sosu]

I hate that logo. I do like Firefox, but is Firefox too busy? Is simple better?

[thenewevilisgood]

I was looking for a good logo for a new venture and was actually going to have a designer design one and then decided to pass on it.

I went to pixellogo.com and if you click on the "3D Logos" on the front page, you can see some pretty awesome logos.

I think having some visual in the logo that connects with your niche is essential as the symbol has to make the visitor/viewer have a visual of what your company may be able to do for them.

Type in "technology" at the site above and look at the one for InfinitiWorks, like it!

[loginname]

Logo is good, but isn't it better to use plain text, like h1?

crawler cannot crawl images, but they can crawl text...

[Dan C. Rinnert]

Originally Posted by loginname

Logo is good, but isn't it better to use plain text, like h1?

crawler cannot crawl images, but they can crawl text...

The ALT tag is your friend.

[Killer Joe]

Well a good logo is not a clip art image with a text line added.

If you're in PV as in LA send me a PM, I lived there for years and always enjoy helping a neighbor out.

I do logos, and if you know what you're looking for we can throw some ideas around.

KJ

[Dan C. Rinnert]

I think you also need to consider that a logo needs to look good in black & white too, or at least have a black & white version that matches and evokes the same style and feel as the color version.

This is especially true offline. Not everything will be in color. You may eventually find a need to have your logo engraved or embossed. You might run an ad in a publication that doesn't offer color printing. You might want to do a simple watermark of your logo on some things. There will be times, too, when it's simple not cost-effective to have something produced in full color, but you'll still want your logo on it.

Look at top brands like Coca-Cola, IBM, Apple, McDonald's, Citi, HP, Sony, Honda, Pepsi, Oracle, Ford, Nike, UPS, Canon, Pfizer, Kellogg's and MTV. Many of them have color logos, but they all have a black & white version of their logo that is as distinctive and recognizable as the color version.

Many people think of color first and having lots of colors and such to stand out. But, it is not the colors alone that make a logo distinctive. Relying on color alone will many times result in a logo that is an unrecognizable mess when reproduced as a black & white logo. And, sometimes, people don't realize until they've already invested a lot of time and money in branding their logo that it just doesn't work in a single color version, and they've essentially backed themselves into a corner: either they'll need to pay the additional expense of color for everything they do or certain branding options will be unavailable to them, or they'll need to start with a new logo design and go through the process of getting it recognized again.

[Lance Johnson]

For logo inspiration try hitting up Logo Pond. They've got some great stuff.

Photoshop isn't generally used for logos. You're going to want to slap your logo on pretty much whatever, so it's got to be in vector format. NEVER let a designer talk you into a raster (pixel) format logo.

Illustrator is generally a logo designer's weapon of choice because it's a completely vector tool (think paths in Photoshop).

Help that helps,

-Lance

[Sosu]

Yes, logopond looks great. Thanks

And yes KJ, I'm in PV aka the hill. I can see Los Angeles from my back yard.

I'm not sure what kind of design I want yet. I have tossed around the idea of a crest to a splash.

Thanks,
Scott

[mmurtha]

I think Scott is spot on with his statement here:

Originally Posted by Scott Ames

Simple, clean, attractive, related to your business, and most of all memorable.

I've seen some logos that could not be read by man nor beast.

[whaldorf]

I don't have a high enough post count to drop a link but this page is a great resource featuring quick access tools as well as links to comprehensive tutorials.

www dot designvitality dot com/blog/2007/09/logo-design-tutorials/

The key factor is usually simplicity. A clean design defines all the most memorable logos, think Mc Donalds, Volkswagon, Mercedes Benz.

[Sosu]

Originally Posted by mmurtha

I think Scott is spot on with his statement here:

And I have seen some logos that are just like a plain star. They should mean something.

[actionplanbiz]

I think people like what they are use to or can relate too.

like the theory of the "catholic churches Founder, Constantine dreamed of uniting all the Roman religions into one (hence "UNIVERSAL") with a simple symbol, the Cross. mainly because all the religions of room had a cross symbol in their favorite religion.