How will the logo be used?

- [Instructor] Before you can design your logo you need to consider how the logo will be used, on a website, business cards and letterhead, in ads, promotional items, uniforms, maybe t-shirts, billboards, app buttons, as small as a Twitter or Instagram thumbnail. And all the while throughout all these different usages it needs to be consistent. So how big should it be? The answer to this question is as elusive as the answer to the age old question how long is a piece of string. The fact is, the logo needs to be scalable. Scalable so that it can be used as big as a billboard and possibly as small as an icon on a smartphone. Of course to serve so many different usages it needs to be simple. Consider this picture of a swan, it's a beautiful picture of a swan but it contains way too much information to be successful as a logo. Here we have a depiction of a swan achieved with just a few graceful curves, much more successful as a logo. Sometimes you'll need to send your logo to other designers for them to incorporate into an ad or co-branded item. So as well as being simple, it also needs to be flexible. You'll want a color version, a black and white version, and a reverse version. Because there are so many things competing for your potential customers attention your logo needs to make a strong first impression, and it will do so by being simple. If we look at the evolution of famous logos over the years we see a move towards increased simplicity. Of course achieving this simplicity, capturing the essence of your brand with just a few economical marks isn't easy. And it is this quest for simplicity that is the real challenge of logo design.