Logos like those of Mercedes and Woolmark have become priceless assets for their companies Below designer David Airey offers his 10 golden rules of logo design to help you do just that. The job of designers is to distil the essence of a brand into the shape and colour that’s most likely to endure. Only if that’s enough to hold our attention do we start to read. When we look at something, we see shape and colour before we read. Before anything else we see shape, we see colour, and if that’s enough to hold our attention, then we’ll read David Airey When we look at something, we don’t read first. The aim of logo design should therefore be to create something that people can easily picture when they think about their experiences with a product, company or service. And a logo acts as a brand's face, allowing people to connect with it and remember it. When you think about a person who’s made some kind of impact on your life, you can probably picture what they look like. Brand identity design can include everything from uniforms, vehicle graphics, business cards, product packaging, billboard advertising and coffee mugs and other collaterals to photographic style and the choice of fonts. With hundreds, even thousands of brands competing for our attention, brands need to differentiate themselves visually. This is achieved through brand identity design – a range of elements that work together to create a distinctive picture of the brand in our minds. And it takes a special mix of design skills, creative theory and skilful application to execute a logo design that's truly unique, appealing and memorable (see our pick of the best logos for examples). We're not saying that logo design is the only element in successful branding, but it's one that needs to be got right from the outset because it's often at the centre of the whole brand strategy. When consumers connect with a logo design, they're often more inclined to invest their time or money in the company or product. A logo can tell us a lot about a brand, including (sometimes) what a brand does and what it stands for. A logo is usually the first piece of branding that a potential customer sees and the piece that makes the biggest impression on us and stays with us the longest (if it's successful). Let's first recall just why logo design is so important.

Logo process layout