How to be a self taught logo designer
You don’t need to study graphic design to become a graphic designer. You can also teach your self logo design, with hard work and discipline. There are many resources to become an expert logo designer which doesn’t require studying at school or college. Discover how to teach your self logo design.
What is a logo?
A logo is a symbol that is used to communicate to people. Made up of text and images, the symbol is an empty vessel that gains value over time.
Why are logos important?
Logo designs are all around us, every day of our lives we encounter many logos just through daily tasks. Logo are not just made to look good, but rather need to communicate a message to its audience. Logos must follow a set of rules in order to be successful; simple, appropriate and unique. Read more about what makes a good logo design.
1. Buy logo design books
The first thought when trying to learn logo design is to go straight to your computer and start designing away. Wrong. The first thing you need to do is purchase a logo design book. Why? There are more bad logos than good logos around us. You won’t notice this until you have a benchmark of good logo design. There are many logo design books that contain hundreds of logo and variations. These books contain professional logo designs, similar to the ones you may be familiar with; McDonalds, Nike and apple etc. The best logo design books can be found here - including an explanation to what the book is about.
2. Create logos daily
After gaining reliable inspiration from logo design books, feel free to grab your pencil and paper! Just like anything in life, practice makes perfect. The best ever logo designers; Paul Rand, Michael Bierut, Tom Geismar and Saul Bass spent years mastering their craft. Creating daily is the first step to get better at logo design. There are many forms and shapes that you will come across when designing a logo, but you may be limited to a few if you don’t practice enough. For example, the logo style of ‘negative space’ is typically harder than ‘cut-off’. This is because negative space logos require you to create a form that works for 2 ideas, such as a ‘house’ and a ‘spanner’. It’s a complex design which can be achieved when you spend hundreds of hours on logo design. Many logo designers have different processes when carrying out logo projects. Feel free to read how to create a logo , which contains a logo design process that may help.
If you struggle to create a logo everyday, there are tools that can assist you such as instagram which keeps you disciplined in posting content daily. Using instagram can be accompanied by logo challenges which sends you daily emails about logo design briefs:
https://www.logocore.com
https://dailylogochallenge.com
http://goodbrief.io
3. Online courses
There are many platforms that are useful when it comes to teaching you logo design. Youtube is a great platform for using software when creating a logo design, especially channels such as The Futur. SkillShare is a platform that is a virtual school. There are many ‘Classes’ you can join, which includes content made by expert logo designers; Aaron Draplin and George Bokhua. Lastly, Domestika is a new platform that is very similar to Skillshare. There are many courses to chose from that has excellent quality from one of the best logo designers; Sagi Haviv.
Please note, YouTube is completely free, however Skillshare has a monthly subscription that you can purchase. If it’s your first time, you will be able to get your first 1 week/ month for free. Domestika is also not free, but you may gain access to each course for a one-off payment - typically £10.99.
In a nutshell, the best way to teach your self logo design is first purchase logo design books. These books will subconsciously integrate a benchmark of logo designs in your head, so you will naturally keep your logos simple, appropriate and unique. You should then start sketching away and experiment with letters, numbers and symbols to create unique logos. Signing up to online courses such as skillshare and Domestika is also a great place to further your knowledge and Understanding. This allows you to correct your work and also learn new things. The Futur on YouTube is also a platform which gives you great resources. you can further you skill, as well as understand the business side once you start gaining clients.