The best logos are recognized immediately – Apple, Adobe, Instagram, Leica. They are essential for large companies, but also effective for personal brands. It’s a snapshot of the first impression that conveys your unique aesthetic.
As you start customizing your portfolio theme, don’t forget your logo. Treat yourself like your first customer and pay attention to the overall picture you create. This is about you and your creative brand.
Reading: How to create a logo for portfolio
A logo is the most succinct expression of your brand’s personality. Creating a logo involves a lot more than just writing your name and circling it. As a creative person, designing something different should be a rewarding exercise. Your challenge is to create something that will stand out and hold your portfolio together. A successful logo will tell your brand’s story without words and hopefully stand the test of time.
Here are nine tips for designing a portfolio logo that fits your creative brand:
1 . Get to know yourself
Before you start sketching ideas, you should fully understand your brand personality and its attributes. This is the first step in any logo design process. When the brand is part of your creative identity, it requires introspection. It’s very philosophical. You already know the answers, you just have to find them.
Sit down and write down the answers to the following questions. They should give you an indication of what your brand really represents.
- What is the purpose of my company/brand?
- What are my short-term goals?
- What are my long-term goals?
- What product or service do I offer?
- Who is my target audience?
- Who is my competition and how are they perceived?
- How does my company/brand differ from its competitors?
As you do this exercise, you may come up with additional clues about your brand identity. Add new questions to this list as they become appropriate. It should be a well-rounded survey that’s unique to your business.
If you’re happy with your answers, save this list. You never know when it will come in handy in the future. It will also be interesting to see if your answers to these questions change over time.
Hello Reilly Portfolio
2. Create a Mood Board
Even if you’re a creative person, the hardest part can be getting started. Don’t go out in the cold. Create a mood board with logos you like to capture a mood. If you choose images based on your intuition, you will find that common themes will develop. These images, colors and textures will represent the look and feel of your brand.
Collect images from visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest or search keywords on Google Images. By browsing outside of your comfort zone, you can expand your creative thinking.
For many creative professionals, your portfolio work serves as a mood board. Narrow down your top ten favorite pictures and find similarities between them. Do you prefer bright colors? pastels? The shade? Apartment? layered? Consider these naturally occurring elements when creating your logo.
A really original logo by Pâté
3. Avoid clichés.
After clarifying your brand identity and reviewing inspirational imagery, it’s time to create the first iteration of your logo. Like any creative work, the first draft is just that, a draft. We all want our first product to be the end product, but it rarely works that way. Don’t be afraid to create several different versions as you work towards the best logo for your online portfolio website.
Try to create three very different versions of your logo. Get a little crazy – don’t hold back. You might be surprised by the results. A good starting point is the Three Little Bears approach. Your first logo will be “Baby Bear”, then “Mommy Bear” and then “Daddy Bear”. This development can be related to size, colors or concept.
Whatever you do, avoid clichés. Your logo represents your creative brand, and you don’t want to give customers the impression that your work isn’t original. If you see a lot of logotypes in your creative space, maybe it’s time to change them up.
Share your logo choices with family and friends. Select the people who can give honest feedback. Remember that it is ultimately your decision and you should choose a logo that you are happy with.
4. Be Smart
For some creative brands, a dash of intelligent humor makes the logo more memorable. Discover “visual double entenders” (two things in one) or depict a sentence or illustration like “kill two birds with one stone”.
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Here is an example of a double entender from Designer Von McKenzie:
Creative director and designer Jesse Clayton Conte has examples of subtly clever logo designs on his portfolio site. See how the logo below for Eastern Mountain Sports shaped like a mountain? It’s smart without being cheesy.
Jesse Clayton Conte Portfolio
If puns aren’t your thing, consider playing with negative space for a visually clever effect. It will give your website visitors an “aha” moment when they figure out the image. Here is another example by Jesse Clayton Conte for Scott Sports.
Designing a clever logo will help make a lasting impression and can attract your audience ang It can even make you smile because of their brilliance.
5 Dust off your color wheel
Remember t Colors convey meanings. The shades you choose can be an important factor in conveying your brand’s personality. Brush up on your color theory because it will come in handy when determining the optimal palette for your logo design.
In general, here are the emotional cues for color:
- Red: power, passion, aggressiveness
- Orange: warmth, energy, excitement
- Yellow: happiness, optimism, sunshine
- Green: calming, natural, prosperous
- Blue: clean, loyal, calm
- Purple: royal, creative, supernatural
- Pink: floral, feminine, loving
Using bright and bold colors in your logo design is a surefire way to draw attention.
If you have a wide range of products and services to offer, consider using multiple colors in one layer to use or blocked style. This communicates diversity and inclusivity without having to spell it.
Your logo design should look good in a variety of colors, including grayscale. Versatility at this level will help you achieve a timeless logo design that can be refined over the years.
6. Custom Type is Key
Much like the psychology behind color choice, fonts evoke a variety of emotions. Typography plays a crucial role in your logo design and can be as impactful as a graphic.
For example, if you’re a wedding photographer and want to portray your business as traditional and respectable, nothing says regal like a serif font in yours Portfolio logo design.
Here is an example of an elegant serif font on Caitlin Worthington’s portfolio homepage:
Alternatively, if you’re a graphic designer and want something more modern, you could work with a sans serif font.
Check out the fancier Flash Blesst portfolio logo below:
Whatever style suits your look, keep it simple and stick to one font. There’s nothing worse than a typographic mishmash.
For your portfolio, consider what your font says about you and whether it suits your design – this will avoid a visual disconnect from your logo.
To make your portfolio stand out, make sure your logo design has custom lettering. Custom fonts ensure that your logo design remains unique in the market and that nobody rips off your work.
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All you have to do is make minor adjustments to existing fonts. Add a curve where there was no curve before, or change the aspect ratio, you can even remove some elements from the font. This will make your text your own and fit your brand better, and can even be another element to add to your portfolio.
7. Keep it simple
Simplicity allows for greater versatility.
A successful logo design delivers all the meaning in just a split second, and your logo design for your portfolio should do the same. A well-crafted logo design can accommodate multiple uses and is easily recognizable on any platform.
Think about where your logo will be featured. Does it work on your website and business cards? Does your logo design work on mobile screens? Make sure it looks good in different sizes and media.
Melvin Galapon’s portfolio logo design is a throwback to the 8-bit era and a perfect example of how a simple and versatile logo can be should look like:
Melvin Galaphon Portfolio
Keeping your logo design simple can future-proof your image and add a touch of sophistication to your portfolio.
8. Find the balance
A balanced composition is one that feels right and is easy on the eyes. You will know when you see it.While some of its elements can be focal points to draw your attention, the overall logo design should feel stable and aesthetically pleasing.
The human eye naturally creates order out of the things we see. Symmetry can explain how the mind structures and arranges visual data.
If your portfolio logo appears to have a balanced, harmonious quality, viewers will like it.
Have a look Check out the Nadia Von Scotti portfolio logo below. Can you spot the symmetry?
Nadia From Scotti Portfolio
On the other hand, asymmetry can be unexpected and tends to convey excitement and risk. This is an idea that Robert Hold’s portfolio logo design plays with:
Robert Hold Portfolio
Although the eye longs for the natural order of symmetry, the visual impact caused by asymmetry is also significant. Symmetry conveys consistency and integrity, while asymmetry carries elements of intrigue and individuality.
It’s like yin and yang, these seemingly contradictory forces are interconnected and interdependent, but it’s up to you to determine exactly how to develop your logo design.
9. Be meaningful
Your logo design is a visual extension of your brand and, if executed successfully, will tell your brand’s story consistently without using words. This is really powerful.
Any logo design should be full of meaning and symbolism, both obvious and hidden. This goes far beyond a simple pretty sketch. Give your audience layers of meaning to unravel and discover the deeper inspiration behind it.
By creating a unique narrative, your logo design will be seen as more than just a work of art or a pattern of lines and text.
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