STRATEGIES ON PICKING THE BEST LOGO DESIGNER
BUDGET
A logo design is an investment in both your time and your money so anytime a design company offers a money back guarantee try to bear in mind that they can not refund the time you invest which is eminently more valuable than your money is.
PORTFOLIO
Many designers talk a good game but ultimately a designer can only be determined by the quality of their design work, if the work in their portfolio doesn’t contain real world examples odds are they won’t be able to produce a quality logo design.
VISION
A logo’s objective is to be understood and be unforgettable, and it’s purpose is to mirror your unique vision for your company. If a logo designer is not focused on realizing your vision, the thing they are really focused on is how soon they will get paid.
Lompoc LOGO DESIGN
For over two decades ImageCo has been helping entrepreneurs develop memorable brand identities. We’ve undertaken brand identity design work for builders, schools, diamond miners, party planners, restaurants, retail stores, and virtually every other kind of business you can imagine. What makes ImageCo unique compared to our contemporaries is that our background is rooted in the electrical sign industry so we approach every logo design project as though it will be used as an electric sign. Because of our sign first technique our identity designs can, and have been employed in everything from garment labels to neon signs. Our sign first approach insures that our logo designs are equally reliable whether they are used in television commercials or web headers, they are consistently identifiable, understood, and remembered no matter of scale or application.
American Made ★ Design
The one difference that really sets ImageCo apart from many of the design agencies that you might have stumbled upon in search results, companies like Thumbtack, Design Hill, Upwork, or Crowdspring is that absolutely every project we are contracted to perform, we do in-house. No matter the kind of project we undertake, logo, website design, trade show banners, or retail sign, we do not, and never will farm out our client’s work to agencies located outside the US. When you contact us at 1-855-IMAGECO the party that answers the phone is ImageCo’s owner and designer, not a broker that increases the price of your design project and imposes the conditions of how we conduct business.
CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE LOGO DESIGN
- Simplicity: simple logos don’t require scrutiny, they can be comprehended in just a glance.
- Scalability: from business cards to store signs a scalable logo design will stay legible and equally emotive at virtually any size.
- Versatility: logos which operate on any device, in print, on packaging, on a mobile phone, or on a ball cap.
- Suitability: they are appropriate, they feel personal, and they are suitable for the item or company they represent.
- Relevance: a business logo should be lasting and should feel equally relevant today, tomorrow, and twenty years from today.
understanding branding
Brand – It’s a verb as well as a noun, it is an identifying mark and the process of denoting something to make sure that it can be distinguished, its genesis originates from the mark burned onto livestock. These days a brand signifies practically anything with a motive, whether it be profit or politics, a brand is an innate aspect of defining the value of a specific thing in the consumer’s mind.
Branding – Is kind of like marketing and advertising’s attractive sister, they are all from the very same family, the difference being that marketing and advertising are about making a promise and branding’s objective is to deliver on that promise. Branding is also a calculated popularity competition directed at a target audience, it’s goal is to produce a mental image that the target market will likely relate to.
Brand Image – An image planted and nurtured by advertising and marketing as well as identity design. When somebody mentions the brand names Porsche or Mustang what we think of is their brand image, it’s a picture that exists in our minds. That image isn’t an image of a vehicle with 4 wheels that can deliver us from point A to point B, the image we have (or at least I have) is of freedom, elegance, of something dangerous and sexy . That is brand image and brand image is what makes people buy those brands. Brand image is why people identify with specific brands, from Nike to Adidas Chevy or Ford, Democrats or Republicans … all driven by brand images that we can identify with.
Branding Firms – If you reflect on the origin of most branding agencies you’ll find that they are frequently re-branded marketing and advertising firms. When somebody states they are in advertising most individuals will likely have a preconceived notion about what they do. But when somebody says “I am in branding”… it simply seems much more attractive, maybe it’s since lots of people do not recognize what it implies to be in branding so it comes off as more mysterious and perhaps even sexy.
Brand Identity – Is an inclusive term that describes the visual components of a product or company that influence understandings. This mainly includes the name, the logo design, the packaging, the different colors used however can likewise consist of audio, illumination, texture, signs, really anything that can be seen, touched or listened to are part of a brand identity.
Brand Identity Designers – A brand identity designer is a designer that specializes in a type of visual design which helps shape the public image of a firm, a product or an organization. Brand identity designers produce logo designs, signage designs, product packaging, and collateral products such as cards, stationery, as well as sales brochures. Some identity designers also develop websites as well as user interfaces. The vital role of a brand identity designer is to develop the visual cues and also a psychological tone with the objective of affecting actions, end results as well as understandings.
select SIGNS & LOGOS
Ferry Street Coffee Company | Logo Design | Retail Branding
This fledgling coffee roaster and cafe were actually opening in an older part of the area and wanted to visualize a nostalgic vibe without appearing as stodgy or low energy. I achieved both jobs by creating a business logo design that incorporates a man on a high wheel bicycle (aka The Penny Farthing), it is old-fashioned, higher energy, and is a ageless business image.
Mid-Valley Pathology | Logo Design
Pathology is the scientific discipline that investigates the root causes and consequences of diseases, especially the branch of healthcare which deals with the laboratory evaluation of specimens of body cellular material for diagnostic or forensic objectives.
The Mid-Valley Pathology logo I came up with is the only instance I recollect in which I was in a position to integrate a bacteria-laden microscope slide right into a logo design.
Typically I try not to be overly literal with a concept and to a degree, this design approaches the company it represents fairly literally, however it does it in a way that integrates the slide as part of the name so it doesn’t serve so much as an explanation of what Mid-Valley Pathology does so much as acts as an enhancement to the name that makes it more interesting, more interest grabbing and much more memorable.
Cool Springz | Logo Design | Retail Branding
The Cool Springz Trampoline Park was a very cool project to work on, most likely because a trampoline park is all about fun. It’s additionally a project that is way out of the norm of the types of projects that come my way, I’ve produced dozens of logo designs for surgeons, dental offices, and attorneys but Cool Springz is without question the only trampoline park that I have ever had the privilege to work on.
Given that the full name of the business has the word springz in its name the clear choice would have been to include a handful of springs into the concept but Cool Springz is a fun destination to go and spring doesn’t actually reflect an environment of fun does it. My thought process on this logo project went from springs (boring) to what jumps around, kangaroos … but kangaroos are cute and this place is cool, inevitably I landed on a green tree frog and a dimensional treatment of the name itself to give the logo a better lively high energy feel.
In the end, Cool Springz ended up loving my brainchild and named the frog Jax and featured him in to everything they utilized for advertising. I also believe this is the only time that a logo I did was made into a mascot when they had an employee costume fashioned to look exactly like my frog design.
Travel Don’t Wander | Logo Design | Website Design
Travel Don’t Wander was a logo design project I took on for a travel photographer, which is a rather specialized field of photography and I believe it is a niche field because travel photographers tend not to capture places or things but rather communicate emotional experiences through the photos they record. The idea behind this logo composition was to utilize negative space to communicate more than what was visible upon initial view, which I think is quintessential of most good photographers in that they oftentimes share entire stories through their photography.
It’s said that a picture is worth a 1000 words but I think that some photographs convey significantly more than that because their photos often have an emotional resonance which can’t be conveyed with just words. I made an effort to do something the same to this logo by utilizing the positive space in the design to say one thing and then at the same time using the negative space to expand upon what was conveyed through the first impression. I think, in hindsight, that my goal was to both brand this photographer with a memorable Lompoc logo design but also to show the depth in her work and in the way that she views the world through the lens of her camera.
Coastal Wireless | Logo Design The bulk of custom logo design jobs that I take on I honestly enjoy and the Coastal Wireless assignment was one that I really felt good about, but the customer didn’t quite share my enthusiasm for it. I felt really good about the idea of using the seagull silhouette as a stroke in the letter A but the customer, even though he liked the concept, really did not care for my choice of birds. This particular guy seriously loathed seagulls, which he referred to as the “rats of the sky”, luckily the rest of his friends and family did not share his scorn for this specific kind of sea bird. When I turn a concept over to a customer I urge all of them to discuss it with friends and colleagues and family as well as with people that they don’t actually know so as to get objective opinions on the merit of a concept. Fortunately, he discussed it with his family members and they loved the concept and were able to persuade him and get him to sign off on it, but not before he worked me over to include every other seabird he could think of … ultimately I was able to talk him out of his preference of a pelican and he went with the original design. Business logos are a strange creature in the design world because the people that tend to hire a professional to create their business logo realize how vital a logo is for their organization so they are much more vested in the result. Every logo design project possesses it’s allotment of challenges, however the largest challenge is finding that sweet spot in a design that works really well at the task it’s needed to do in branding a business and also giving the customer the identity they see for themselves.
Red Panda Publishers | Logo Design
The book spine is a cramped parcel of real estate to work with, however it is the most necessary part of a published book since it is in most cases the very first thing a person sees in the book shop. With respect to a publisher, it’s the optimal opportunity that they will likely ever get to publicize their brand and get their logo design in front of the individuals that shop for actual books.
This 3 color design is vibrant, colorful and eye-catching and it gives plenty of space for the title and the author’s name.
Air LA | Logo Design
Airlines come and go nevertheless it seems like that in many instances one of the aspects people often tend to recall the most are their logos. The Air LA logo design was done for a young start-up commuter/shuttle air service situated in LA and although I’m not certain it really “took off” their custom logo didn’t ground them. The bookend A’s in their name lent itself well to conferring a sense of airline flight and it was definitely a victory.
Vintage Case | Logo Design
Vintage case specialized in brand-new cases for musical instruments, that appeared to be older cases. For this business logo design I sought to come up with a logo that possessed a fluid retro feel to it and could easily be utilized for anything from a web page to an insignia on brand new cases that seemed like they were from another era.
Kujak Orthodontics | Logo Design | Sign Design
Dentistry logos can be one of the most challenging logo projects due to the fact that it seems that every single dental professional features a smile, a tooth, a smiling tooth, or a toothy smile in their design. Dentistry logos are one of the most cliche ridden careers when it comes to company advertising, if restaurants approached their branding in the very same way dental professionals do every one of their logo designs would be a picture explaining something they served, McDonalds would most likely include an image of a potato and a cow.
I understand the thinking behind incorporating an illustration of something mouth associated to a dentist’s logo design but it has to be performed subtly or it will just look like every other clipart dentists logo that litter the branding landscape of the dentistry industry.
I really love doing dental care business logos simply because it challenges me to come up with a design that implies dentistry or a certain field of dentistry like orthodontics without resorting to the clichéd approach that so many dentists settle on.
Kujak Orthodontics delivered such an opportunity and ultimately I created a layout that doesn’t have a single smile or a tooth in it, but even though they aren’t overt, they are still suggested in the concept. When I turned this concept over to the client the only smile that was apparent was the smile on Dr. Kujak’s face.
William McNally | Logo Design | Branding
The William McNally Family Foundation contacted ImageCo to help them come up with a brand identity design that would be illustrative of the devotion that William McNally had for the people residing in his city. The majority of logos with the name “family” in them tend to contain portrayals of a happy family, a cliche heavy approach to any logo design is to be far too literal pertaining to what the name says or the industry it represents. I’ve discovered that the best concepts are the ones that are downplayed and don’t hit the viewer on the head with what the business or organization hopes to communicate.
The McNally Foundation’s name presented a distinct opportunity to do a logo that conveyed that they were about families without being overtly corny about it. The intention of a logo design is to be remembered and recognized and if the designer attempts to use the logo design to explain specifically how people ought to think or feel they don’t understand the purpose of a logo. If you have to ponder a logo to understand what it means, it has fallen short, a logo needs to be immediately comprehended and a logo that explains itself won’t have the chance to be understood.
Wild Orchid Studio | Logo Design Project
Wild Orchid Studios required a logo design that conveyed a spirit of ease and elegance for their new hair studio. I created a design that didn’t go the obvious direction of making merely a stylized orchid but alternatively crafted a logo design which suggested a flower in the formation of a swirl incorporated in to the letter O in the title and by placing attention on the logo design with the silhouette of a hummingbird hovering over the logo design itself. The obvious path in creating a company logo is more often than not the wrong course and in this case, the design ended up not being about the orchid but alternately placed the emphasis on the emotion that they really wanted to project to their clients.
Dazzo Arabians | Logo Design
ImageCo crafted a one-of-a-kind custom logo concept fashioned to exemplify the unique physical traits of the Arabian kind of equines. With an identifiable head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the very most immediately recognizable equine types in the whole world.
Las Cafe | Logo Design | Restaurant Branding
Las Coffee shop logo design a tiny dining establishment, style contains a modified script font which hovers above a team of luxuriant lines and dots.
Smart Kernels | Logo Design
A kernel is the key component of an operating system (OS). Typically, the kernel is responsible for memory management, process and task control, and disk management. The kernel connects the computer hardware to the application software. In other words a kernel is {essentially|quite literally a bridge that acts as a bridge in between the software and computer hardware.
The business logo I came up with for Smart Kernels was based on an actual bridge that is located a couple of miles from the offices of Smart kernels. It’s a logo design that doesn’t attempt to explain anything to anyone pertaining to what business they are in or how it relates to their specific location. But it represented something to the owner of the company and in many cases the substance supporting a company logo is equally as important as how it brands the organization it stands for.
Evolv Interior Design | Logo Design | Branding
Evolv Design is a Lompoc interior design company and this logo design is representational of the work that an interior designer does in. An interior designer is a professional who plans, explores, collaborates, and manages such projects. Interior design is a diverse occupation that involves conceptual development, space planning, location inspections, programming, analysis, communicating with the stakeholders of a project, construction management, and implementation of the design.
Advanced Leadership Solutions | Logo Design | Website Design
This Lompoc logo design assignment was carried out for a management consultant that aids business professionals to become more successful at overseeing people, expectations, and productivity.
On The Fly | Logo Design | Retail Branding
With brand names like Cabelas and Bass Pros raking in over 7 billion a year selling supplies and equipment to outdoor sporting lovers the owners of On the Fly recognized the market place was prepared for an outdoor sporting merchant that functions as a consignment firm. Whether or not you are into boating, sportfishing or rock climbing, or even hunting, On the Fly provides a destination for outdoor sports enthusiasts with all kinds of passions, a spot to market their used equipment to other sports enthusiasts.
I created their Lompoc logo design along with an illustration which garners the attention of vehicles and projects an image that calls to mind the passion of the outdoors. With visitor traffic that averages forty five miles per hour I realized it would take more than the average logo/sign to get travelers to take notice, hence the image of a fly fisherman in his natural and calm habitat.
MQ Farms | Logo Design | Branding
The MQ farms business logo concept wasn’t really created for an Lompoc area farm it was in reality devised for a commodities broker, and this brand was one of multiple that fell under the MQ umbrella … MQ commodities was one, MQ trading was another. The end goal was to create a brand mark that projected trust, success, and affluence.
Turning Point Foundation | Logo Design
The Turning Point Foundation was totally open to what type of logo design that they desired, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. Good in that it grants a designer the liberty to explore any concept that comes to mind, bad in that it’s tricky to hit a bullseye in the absence of realizing where exactly the target is. Luckily, in this instance, I hit a bullseye with the first try.
Brewgrrs Restaurant | Logo Design | Restaurant Branding
I have crafted quite a lot of restaurant custom logo designs and business signs for restaurants, diners, sports bars, night clubs, dining establishments, and eateries all over the United States, from cupcake bakeries to pizza parlors and oyster bars, out of all of them I believe Brewgrrs was my favorite. Brewgrrs was a great project in which I worked closely with the proprietor to create a logo design that worked extremely well and did a great job to brand them, it functioned on everything on everything from coasters, and tap handles all the way to the illuminated signage which hung over their doors, and was highly visible and very easy to read from over a block away.
commercial brand identity design projects
