Logo Design Decoded

     What makes a good logo? When you have the choice, shorter is better. Fewer letters means better readability in smaller spaces. Think banners, buttons, little AdSense boxes. Also, when a unique idea strikes you, fewer letters means you’ll more likely pull off a difficult effect. All it takes is one “problem” letter or two incompatible letters together to throw off an entire effect. Random example: “Z” has a strong diagonal, which easily plays off “K”, but not “P”. So if you expect diverse design situations ahead of time, choose your letters carefully. But in this case, “Ferodynamics” isn’t short.
     I wanted to whip up something quick. The easiest thing to do? Start out with a standard font from your favorite photo editing program. I use GIMP because it’s free. Ideally, you want to craft each letter carefully. But this takes a lot of time. If you paid for such a logo, I commend you for supporting the arts! Besides saving time, using a TrueType or PostScript font is forward thinking. Why? What if you need to render your logo in 3D? What if you need a sign, silkscreen, or a laser light show? Seriously. You never know. The easier it is to recreate your logo from scratch in a jiffy, the better off you are in a bind.
     Why the red dots you ask? They help you remember the name. One dot for “Fero”, one for “dynamics”. If you read a lot of library books, you know that people draw little marks above or below the first letter, of names, titles, whatever. It’s a memory device. I stole the red dots from my latest project. Each dot represents a unique query from a search engine. I love web metrics, and this logo plainly says that with a clickable mini-chart underneath it. (Edit: Had to disable the chart, it was slowing down the server.)
logo-d     Surprisingly, getting the red dot balanced above the “d” was the hardest part. It’s 5px wide and was either too far to the left or too far to the right. My solution? I ran a filter effect on just the dot. This effectively moved the red dot 1/2-half pixel to the right, directly over the “d”. Yes, I’m serious. Half a pixel. Sometimes you gotta wing it.
     The tilted “F” is from another font. I think the angle gives it some speed or momentum, like a classic car fin or Road Runner tail. The rest of the font has a rounded feel, so I rounded the upper-left corner of the “F” to tie it in with the other letters. Positioning the “F” was also tricky. I didn’t want a huddled “F“, or an anti-social “F” either. Think visual weight. Balance. Center of gravity. The “F” holds it together.
     Scale is an issue too. You want a logo to “fit” the website. And color? I wanted a color blue to match the theme, gentle on the eyes, but dark enough for emphasis.