How To Design Your Own Logo So you want to design your own logo and you actually want to do a good job and not have your branding make children cry in the street?… Well then you need to become a designer. But what does reaching this mythical and somewhat pretentious designer status entail? How can you get to design your own logo without the end result making you look like a whacky street preacher? Lucky for you there is a detailed how to coming right up. 1. Become emotionally invested. First up, so that you don’t give up on the steps that follow too easily you must become emotionally invested in the idea of becoming a designer… Start by forgetting your old, non-creative friends. Next time you are down the pub, go and sit next to the bare foot guy in children’s shorts and braces and offer to buy him an organic scrumpy. Don’t talk to anyone for six weeks to increase your social awkwardness. The more socially inept you are the more it will look like you have skill. Start getting all of your news about world events from the Apple retail website. Watch all of the different versions of Bade Runner and tell people you liked them. Sell your country house and use all the money to rent a bed sit in east London. Become androgynous. This will help you look like a person that thinks, designers are thinkers. But don’t forget the beard. 2. Learn some design rules. Don’t bother going to university, I can sum up what they will teach you about design… Nothing. That’s right, zip-o. What makes you a designer is too broad and complicated to be described in a couple of hundred handout sheets, so universities teach you how to teach yourself, that way your whole #life becomes one big learning experience. They do this by setting you pointless projects like making letterforms out of old pottery (I went to uni in Stoke) or decorating the studio with oat cakes so by the time you reach the third year and realise you know absolutely nothing you run scared to the library to flick backwards through its books, you fearfully stare at food packets in the supermarket trying to understand what makes them good and in a cold sweat you watch the adverts on the telly (which all look rubbish) and you mouth to yourself “But why do people like them?”. Here’s how to study… Buy lots and lots of pretty design magazines, these will make you feel like a real designer and a part of that clique. But under no circumstances should you ever read one. After twelve years designing, I once read part of one and I realised that the people talking in it were absolutely ridiculous. Buy lots and lots of coffee table design books, the best ones are the ones that are filled with pictures of lush work. They will help you understand what you like and give you inspiration. BUT, never read it. Chat to your new friend with the bare feet about leading and kerning and ask him what Gaussian actually means. Tip: When you do this in public you will get a sense of superiority, but enjoy it while it lasts as you will feel like an arse later on. Go to some exhibitions. Again, this is more to make you feel like a creative than to help you learn as it is the research equivalent of looking at a not very helpful book really slowly. Get an empty shoe box and then every time you find a piece of tat, put it in. 3. Fill your brain up with information about everything. One of the best ways to get people to remember stuff is to deliver a message in a lateral way. This works because the message can pass through the recipients bollocks barrier more easily and once it does the endorphines released to congratulate the recipient for working out the message act as an anchor in their mind advertising ‘feel good stuff here’. But to come up with good lateral ideas you need to have a brain full of copious amounts of information for your subconscious to chew on… Get curious about everything: adopt “What’s that?” as your catchphrase. Don’t speak when someone finishes speaking so that they have to elaborate to fill the awkward silence. Take a wind-sailing for pirates class. Buy a book filled with fonts and stare at them until they start to make friends with you. Experiment… Try serving guests tea in unusual receptacles such as an empty toilet duck bottle or on a spatular and note how they react. Get a girlfriend who talks a lot so that you can syphon information off of her. Pick up floor treasure and take it back to your bed sit for inspection, pop it in the shoe box. 4. Become a massive snob. It’s inevitable i’m afraid, you have to start rejecting 90% of the stuff the world spews out so that you can develop a sense of purpose for yourself. Remember though, don’t do it out loud or you’ll look like an arse. Just snidely comment and sneer in your own head and maybe offer out the occasional breathy chuckle while still smiling sincerely. Some good things to frown upon are… Any times you see the words ‘High Quality’ written in Brush Script. The unattractive shapes people crop their Facebook profile pictures into. Any design ideas a non-creative suggests. Denim hue. And don’t participate in the whole Ariel, Comic Sans font snobbery debate because you are above such studious missinterpretation… If used correctly (say for a child’s birthday party invitation) then Comic San is perfect, if used incorrectly you will look bad… For example to advertise a garage sale, so either suggesting that the garage sale was organised by the guy who had a bit of his brain eaten by hannibal lecter or suggesting that if you go to the advertised garage sale you will feel like you have the brain of a cat. One final though -Be careful- make sure you get this whole snobbery business right or you will end up writing on blogs trying to backhandedly explain why designers are so important. 5. Enjoy your new skills. Well done, if you have made it this far you are now a designer and you can now set about designing that very important logo and with your designers mind that you have crafted, it’s sure to be perfectly thought out, communicate effectively and with finess and look better than at least 90% of all the other stuff about… a true belter! One last thing you should know: Please be aware that as a talented designer… You will never be happy with any logo you ever design for yourself(oh the irony!). If you are having second thoughts and feel that all this faffing may be too much of a wasted effort but you still want an amazing logo, may I suggest you take the easy route and ask someone else to do it for you. More from me at Waterfall Art Zine... waterfallzine.com