Have you ever thought about the secret behind the powerful logos of famous brands? 🌍 What makes them so memorable and effective?
The answer often is in a key design method called a Logo Grid. This approach is a main part of graphic design and might help you understand why some logos are so appealing.
Logo Grids are a framework used by designers for making balanced, beautiful logos that are easy to remember. 🖌️
They are made of intersecting lines and shapes that help in placing and sizing logo parts. They are like the unseen structure that keeps the design in order, making sure every part of the logo is well-aligned and symmetrical.
But why is this important for you, and how can it change your brand’s identity?
Using Logo Grids isn’t just for making a nice logo; it’s for making a symbol that tells a story, shows your brand’s values, and connects deeply with your audience.
Read our article to learn about the amazing world of Logo Grids and see how they can improve your brand’s look. Let’s discover the art and science behind these amazing designs! 🚀
What Is a Logo Grid?
A logo grid is a tool that helps in achieving geometric harmony in a logo. It is helpful to comprehend the structure for the reconstruction of a logo.
In other areas of graphic design, logo grids are often referred to as construction guides.
A logo grid is simply a geometric design approach when used appropriately in a logo design. It can take a business’s visual identity from zero to hero in branding.
What Are the Purpose of A Grid System?
The Grid system is not a new concept. For many years, photographers, illustrators, typographers, and architects have used grids to solve visual issues.
Books, magazines, brochures, logo designs, and all other forms of design are created using grids by graphic designers since it drastically simplifies the process.
An excellent technique is always digging into the markings and asking why they look so contemporary, innovative, impactful, and timeless.
How did they do it? What techniques did they employ? What standards did they use to reach the perfection mark? The main purpose of the grid system is-
- Ordering system: The design is structured using a grid system.
- Design Simplification: Grid systems are used to simplify work.
Griding is important but not required. The aesthetic balance of a logo is reinforced by griding. Once you get the fundamentals nailed, you can easily break the grid to meet your specific requirements.
A brand’s logo will be used in all aspects of design. The logo grid vastly simplifies this process by offering an ordering system
Advantages and Disadvantages Of Using a Logo Grid
Advantages of Using a Logo Grid
- 1 Organization: A logo grid in a table can help organize and present multiple logos in a structured and systematic manner. This is particularly useful when dealing with a large number of logos.
- 2 Visual Comparison: A grid allows for easy visual comparison of different logos side by side. This can be helpful when evaluating logos for design consistency, aesthetics, or other criteria.
- 3 Space Efficiency: A logo grid can efficiently utilize space on a document or presentation slide, allowing you to showcase multiple logos in a compact format.
- 4 Clarity: Using a table can provide a clear demarcation between different logos, reducing the chances of confusion or misinterpretation.
- 5 Easy Editing: Tables in digital documents can be easily edited and updated, making it convenient to add, remove, or rearrange logos as needed.
- 6 Consistency: A logo grid can help maintain consistency in logo size, spacing, and alignment, ensuring that all logos are presented uniformly.
Disadvantages of Using a Logo Grid
- 1 Limited Creativity: Tables and grids are not well-suited for creative and artistic presentations of logos. They may not allow for unique and visually appealing arrangements.
- 2 Lack of Context: A grid may not provide enough context for each logo, which could be a disadvantage if you need to convey additional information or a logo’s significance.
- 3 Size Constraints: In a table, logos may need to be resized to fit within the designated cells, potentially compromising their visual impact or legibility.
- 4 Potential for Clutter: When too many logos are presented in a single grid, it can become cluttered and overwhelming, making it difficult for viewers to focus on individual logos.
- 5 Not Ideal for Detailed Analysis: If you need to conduct an in-depth analysis or critique of individual logos, a grid may not provide enough space or flexibility for detailed commentary.
- 6 Limited Customization: Tables may not offer as much customization in terms of layout, design, and styling compared to other presentation methods.
Steps to Creating A Logo with A Logo Grid
Step 1: Define Your Brand Identity
Before you start designing your logo, you must clearly understand your brand’s identity, values, and target audience. This information will help you choose your logo’s appropriate colors, shapes, and symbols.
Step 2: Gather Inspiration
Research other logos in your industry and beyond to gather inspiration. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and try to identify common elements or themes that you might want to incorporate into your design.
Step 3: Choose a Logo Grid
There are different types of logo grids to choose from, such as the golden ratio grid, the rule of thirds, or a custom grid. Select the one that best fits your design concept. For this guide, we’ll use a basic 3×3 grid.
Step 4: Sketch Your Ideas
Start with rough sketches on paper to brainstorm and visualize your logo concepts. Use your chosen logo grid as a guide to creating initial shapes and elements. Don’t worry about perfection at this stage; the goal is to explore various ideas.
Step 5: Create a Digital Workspace
Transfer your selected sketch to a digital design software like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW, or even free tools like Inkscape or Canva. Set up your canvas with the logo grid as a reference, adjusting its opacity if needed.
Step 6: Build the Logo
Begin by creating the basic shapes of your logo using the logo grid as a reference. Make sure the elements align with the grid lines to achieve symmetry and balance. Experiment with different combinations until you find a composition that works.
Step 7: Add Typography
If your logo includes text, carefully choose a font that complements your brand identity. Ensure that the text aligns with the grid and is legible. You can also customize and modify the typography to make it unique.
Step 8: Choose Colors
Select a color palette that reflects your brand’s personality. Make sure your chosen colors harmonize with each other and evoke the right emotions. Apply these colors to your logo elements while keeping the grid in mind.
Step 9: Refine and Iterate
Review your design, seeking feedback from peers or professionals if possible. Make necessary adjustments to improve the logo’s overall look and feel. Fine-tune shapes, colors, and typography to achieve the desired visual impact.
Step 10: Export and Save
Once you’re satisfied with your logo, export it in various formats (e.g., PNG, JPEG, SVG) to ensure compatibility for different use cases. Save your design files for future editing or scaling.
Step 11: Test on Different Media
Test your logo on various backgrounds and sizes to ensure it remains visually effective. Consider how it appears on business cards, websites, social media profiles, and physical signage.
Step 12: Register or Trademark (Optional)
If your logo is a critical part of your brand identity, consider registering it as a trademark to protect your intellectual property.
What Are The Basics or Fundamentals of The Grid System?
Continuing with the logo design learning grid system, you can use various grid types.
However, these are essentially combinations of a circle, square, and rectangle, or occasionally, they involve adding an angle from a certain point. Designers typically use 45° or 90° angles because, in their opinion, they appear more natural.
Designers find mathematical ratios like the Fibonacci series or the Golden Ratio helpful for creating balanced logos.
Actually, grids are not all that significant. The Grid System is similar to a tool in your geometry toolbox. You can also make a visually appealing logo with balanced shapes.
There isn’t a set principle that every designer must adhere to. Using it might sometimes result in a poorly designed logo as well. This is where skill and experience come into play.
Let’s explore the basic steps that usually comprise the process of Logo designing using a Grid Structure-
Step One: Compile Supplies
We’ll start by gathering our supplies- Pencil, Graph Paper, Ink, Laptop, Adobe Illustrator (or your favorite design software), and Ruler Stencils.
Step Two: Graph Paper Varieties
There are various types of graph paper available. However, the top three are Dotted, Multi-Line, and Isometric Graphs. We will focus on multi-line graphs since it’s the most prevalent and adaptable.
Step Three: Pre-Sketch
It’s useful to sketch freehand for 20 to 30 minutes before starting to work on your logo to ease up your doodling fingers and get you thinking creatively.
Gridding should be considered as a guide, not a prison. It shouldn’t ever make you feel confined to specific shapes or aesthetics; its sole purpose is to help you create harmonious and balanced designs.
Step Four: Select Your Topic and Emotion
Select your subject and your feelings ( these can be gathered during the intake stage of your project). What makes a logo genuinely excellent is how emotion and subject work together to convey a direct and logical message.
When sketching, we advise using rounded shapes, uneven lines, and non-standard compositions. Also, consider how your subject would seem in grid lines and how you can think creatively.
In fact, you can always make optical tweaks after you’re in the final phases of designing your logo when you’re drawing.
Optical correction is when your logo design is tuned by your eye and looks perfectly aligned but is not always in line with the exact dimensions of your graph. There is always room for ultimate optical adjustment.
Step Five: Configure Your Grid
Open a new file of any size in Illustrator to utilize a gridded background. After selecting a view, go all the way down to “Show Grid” and check it.
Using the drawing as a framework, start creating your unique grid. When constructing a shape, it snaps to those lines separately if you choose the Snap to Grid option.
Pressing down the ‘Shift’ key while drawing a shape will help you maintain the accurate dimensions of a circle in Illustrator. There is a lot of copying and pasting, so keep in mind the shortcut keys (command+C and command+V on a Mac or ctrl-c and ctrl-v on a PC).
Step Six: Trim and construct your shape
Remove the grid lines you don’t want and attach them to the lines you wish to keep for your end logo design with the Cut Tool.
The result will be a single, streamlined shape of your original sketch. Once you’ve finished, you can add any more colors, gradients, or effects you want.
If you’re having trouble getting your lines to intersect properly, choose View > Outline to streamline your logo design to just outlines so you can see where your lines start and finish. This will maintain the neatness of your logo’s design.
Note: It is best practice in logo design to copy and paste your work as you go so that you can always return back to a previous version and, therefore, copy/paste.
Step Seven: Complete the design of your logo.
When you’re satisfied with your logo design, with its lines connected into a solid shape, just delete any unnecessary gridlines and make any final cleanup, coloration, and features like shadows, gradients, or accents.
If people instinctively look for and discover emotion in objects and logos, it could often be vital to intensify that feeling to deliver the message effectively.
As a logo designer, you can decide how much dramatization is needed for the specific logo you are creating with the help of time and practice.
If you’re stuck and don’t know how to include emotion in your next logo design, seek that expression and emotion online and take some notes on how it appears in humans.
It could be as basic as a head tilt for curiosity, a brow raise for sarcasm, an arm motion for grief, or a spine bend for welcoming.
You can use this strategy to break down your next project into a simple feeling and a simple topic and then combine them and see what happens. You’re probably only one or two changes away from hitting the emotion you wish to achieve through your work.
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Marketing | Branding | Blogging. These Three Words Describe Me in The Best Way. I Am the founder of Burban Branding and Media, a Self-Taught Marketer with 10 Years of Experience. Helping Startups/ Companies/ and Small Businesses to Enhance Their Business Through Branding and Marketing. On A Mission to Help Small Businesses to Be a Brand.
