Design do’s and design don’ts

As designers, we’re often asked if there are rules that you should follow in order to make something look good when it’s printed or put on the web. Sadly, we have to say that if there are any rules, we haven’t found them yet. In fact, we’d go further and say that often, it’s when you break the supposed ‘rules’ that you actually get a better return.

Loudhouse logo and watermark

One fairly easy and obvious rule might be, ‘don’t make your logo too complex, and always make your name the centre of attention.’

Sound logical?

Well, not always. This is a version of the logo we designed for a market research company called Loudhouse. They wanted to have not only a simple mark that would serve as an identifier, but they wanted too, a mark which would be used as the front cover of all their research reports – which is what you see here.

The design itself reflects the ripples that spread outward from any simple act – like asking a question of clients. On subsequent pages of Loudhouse reports the ripples were used – without the company name – as a watermark. So it was always obvious who produced the data.

Or take this, the mark that we designed for Vintage Wine Gifts.

Our logo for Vintage Wine Gifts

It is in two parts for a reason. Our client wanted to emphasise their traditional quality by using a modern version of a classic typeface, which was fine. But they also wanted to reproduce an identifier by some rather specific means – through a stencil onto wine boxes, for example.

So Wild West invented the button which is at the top of their identity – a simple mark that could be stencilled or indeed used as a ‘action button’ on their web site, or anywhere else that only basic reproduction methods could be used.

Sometimes of course, a logo isn’t a logo at all, but a composite development of the corporate logo to support something else – a sponsorship arrangement perhaps, or a joint venture.

This simple but really stylish mark is one of a number we developed for the British technology supplier Okana. Okana build free-form search devices – which means they can search text and numbers or speech or music or web sites or email or pretty much anything else that is part of the way we communicate. Okana wanted to give others the opportunity to build devices based on their own licensed technology, and at the same time to show that their technology was at the heart of the device.

The 'On Okana' logo

To recognise different types of device, there are different colourways, and of course the black background makes this an ideal mark for display on a computer screen too, which is the natural habitat for a mark like this, and where it will be most often seen.

Logo’s and identities are just a part of the design work we do for emerging and established companies in all kinds of fields. If you go to our main site (www.designwildwest.com) and download or print our credentials document, you’ll get a much better view of the things we help our clients with.

Reputation, in our view, is built on design, and reputation is often what makes good things happen.