Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a bit more logo work than I can really remember doing at any given time. That may also explain why I have been writing a of logo related posts, too! Over the past few weeks, I have written articles entitled “6 Quick Lessons from Logo Galleries” and “Would Your Logo Fit on the Moon?” both of which were a lot of fun to research and think about. Well, today’s article is another one of these logo-based pieces.

Last night, I was actually at a meeting with the board of an organization for which I am currently doing some work. The point of the meeting was to go through some logo revisions so that I could get feedback directly from the board. The meeting actually went better than I could really have hoped for, since we ended up settling on a finalized design. One of the main things we were looking at, however, was a discussion of colour.

As the meeting progressed, I found myself explaining my reasoning for having originally designed the logo in a simple greyscale. On my way home from the meeting, I got to thinking about this discussion, and I realized that this would make a really great topic for an article.

So, today, I want to talk about why I generally choose to do my first, digital rendering of a logo design in greyscale.

Focus on Shape & Space

Ultimately, the reasoning comes down to the power of shape and and space. When I start a new logo project, one of the things that I try to focus on the most is working to create a meaningful and interesting mark that will represent a business or organization in a unique, interesting and meaningful manner. Obviously, a big part of this effort is the careful use of both shape and space, and this is one of the key reasons why I like to work in greyscale.

Basically, doing using an all grey palette helps me simplify the early stages of the design process. By stripping away all the concerns about colour, knowing that I will bring that into the equation later in the process, I am able to concentrate more on those key elements of shape and space.

For instance, in one recent logo, I created a simple geometric shape that repeated in a circular pattern. During the process, I spent a lot of time carefully adjusting the size and proportion of the shape, as well as relative spacing between each repetitio. The whole thing involved a lot of working and reworking in order to achieve a mark that I felt had just the right weight and balance (some of my initial efforts felt very heavy and bloated).

Working in greyscale helped me concentrate specifically on these areas.

As an example, here is an old logo concept that I created for a client a little over a year ago.

An old logo concept done in greyscale (with the company name modified, of course)

Obviously, for the purposes of this article, I have removed the company name in replaced it with the generic “Lorem Sorem”. Still, even this simple geometric design done in greyscale really helps focus the attention more on the shape and spacing, without being distracted by issues of colour.

The Power of Colour

And make no mistake–colour can be very distracting. You may not think that it’s all that important, but colour can completely change the way that we see and understand something. Just take the following colour treatments of the same sample logo that we saw above. First, we have the logo in dark blue.

The same logo, but set in a dark, calming blue

This particular colour is certainly a very safe selection, and perhaps the sort of thing that we would see in a big corporate logo (or The Gap…). That being said, it is also a very calming, subdued colour. It speaks to a silent, unwavering strength that, though perhaps somewhat somber, is also dependable and enduring. Contrast that against this variation.

The same logo again, but set in a bright, energetic pink

Clearly, the colour here is much bolder than what we saw with the dark blue. It brings a significant vibrance and energy and passion to the whole design. In the proper context, the colour could also bears strong cultural connotations of femininity, unlike the blue, which is more strongly masculine.

There are likely a number of other comparisons that we could explore, but the point is simply to understand just how strongly a choice in colour can impact a design. If we start with colour right away, then the various concepts, connotations and ideas implied by a particular colour may start to work on us in exactly the same way that they work on anyone else, potentially influencing the decesions we make in terms of shape and space.

On course, on the other side of the coin, it could certainly be argued that this is not necessarily a bad thing. A predetermined palette could certainly help inspire and dictate the direction of a particular design, through the very type of connotation that we have already looked at. That’s why I classify the recommendations of this article as being a general sort of methodology. It is certainly not something that is an absolute requirement, but rather something that has worked well for the projects that I have been working on recently, and for my own particular design style–which does tend to emphasize shape and space.

Progressive Enhancement

I know, the term progressive enhancement is something that is almost exclusively used in the world of web design and development, but I want to borrow it here to underscore another important reason why I find starting in greyscale to be a valuable exercise. The clients that I have worked for thus far have been exclusively from that small-to-medium class of enterprise or organization, most of which tend to have smallish budgets.

As such, it’s not all that difficult to guess that there will be circumstances in which these clients may need to print something that’s not in colour. Maybe their invoices or other business forms are being printed on a simple black and white laser printer. Maybe they are running a small, black and white advertisement in the Yellow Pages or some other directory. Maybe they are just doing something where colour is simply not an option.

Whatever the reason, there is always a good chance that the client will need the logo in a simple black and white format, and part of my design process is to make room for this contingency, by supplying clients with a simple black and white version of their logo as part of the final package that I ultimately deliver to them.

So, in a way, I think of colour as a form of progressive enhancement for the logo. It is certainly important, and something that needs to be carefully considered, but it’s we also need to approach the design from the perspective that not all situations (like browsers) will actually support colour. A well designed logo will have a good, black and white fall back as a contingency plan for such situations.

Starting in greyscale helps with this, too, because it forces me to rely extensively on those concepts of shape and space that I’ve already talked about in order to bring detail and meaning to the design. It can be easy to start doing this by using complimentary or contrasting colours, but what happens when we pull all of the colour out in favour of something simply black and white, like this?

Three simple, white divisions easily prepares this particular logo for black and white

In this particular case, making the transition was simple, since I could use thin white gaps to suggest the same division that was created by the subtle gradients. As such, the design retains much of its inhrent personality. But, what would happen if the logo used a lot of colour to establish these details? They would either be lost in the transition to black and white, or the designer would have to make some significant adjustments in order to suggest the same details in a different way.

By starting in greyscale, and thus keeping my mind firmly focused on shape and space, I can avoid some of these problems.

Conclusion

As I’ve already mentioned, this is by no means an absolute, written-in-stone, ignore-at-your-peril kind of rule or methodology, and I’m sure there are all kinds of designers out there who are a heck of a lot more talented than me but don’t use this greyscale concept at all. Still, I have found it to be extremely beneficial in my own work and, after my client meeting, I thought it might be interesting to share it with you.

If anything, I hope that it gives you something to think about the next time you site down to tackle a logo design project!

How about you? Have you ever tried beginning a logo design in greyscale? How did it work for you? I would love to hear your thought, comments or own methodologies!

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Alright everybody, time for some inspiration. Today, I have collected over 30 different logo designs that are clearly inspired by the concept of CMYK colour. Most of these logos just use a combination of these colours, but some actually make more use of a fuller colour spectrum in which Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are all prominently visible (though one logo uses red instead of magenta).

Obviously, these logos are also mostly associated with and/or from companies (or imagined companies) somehow related with the print and design industries, whether that be through inks, actual printing or just colour and design in general.

You will also notice that there are four logos for a company called “CMYK Print Services”. There are actually a TON of different logos with this same name out there, so I don’t know if there was a contest or some spec work going on… regardless I only chose four of what I felt were the strongest of that crop.

Anyhow, let’s take a look. Here are the logos, in no particular order (except I saved on of my very favorites for last).

Colorfull

Inkake

Anuyog Design Process Print

Inksect

Inksie

Toucink

CMYK Today

Express Press

inKing

Colour Synergy

CMYK Garden

Inkline

Soluções Gráficas

Inkspector

Castle Print

Inkcut

Inkstruction

Royalnova

cmykserwis.pl

Seraprints

Digital Printing & Media Solutions

CMYK Print Services

CMYK Print Services

CMYK Print Services

CMYK Print Service

Speedy Print

ANS Printing

Copy Print

Cosmoprinters

imitacion

Cardinal Prints

As you can probably tell if you follow any of these links, I found most of these at LogoPond.com and a few at LogoSauce.com.

Now it’s your turn to talk! Which ones were your favorites? Or do you just cringe at the use of CMYK in logos? Do you think that this colour concept has any validity anymore, even in the colour-saturated print and ink industries? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one!

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A few weeks ago, I posted Texture Pack 2 – Wood, my last texture freebie. In that post, I noted that I had some other texture packs in the works. Well, I’ve released another one, and I have to say – this one was a lot of fun to create.

Introducing Texture Pack 3 – Colours. I created this pack over the course of several months, by taking my camera on walks through my hometown and taking high-resolution pictures of any interesting coloured texture that I came across. In fact, some of these textures had been planned months before I actually got around to photographing them!

Texture Pack 3 - Colours (Downloaded 856 times)

I actually did a bit more post-production work on these images than I have for previous packs, because I really wanted to bring the colours out. On one of the nights I went shooting, it was getting a bit late and the lighting wasn’t as good as I might have liked. As a result, some of the colours came out a bit dull. Fortunately, I was able to use Photoshop to make some adjustments and really get the texture I was looking for.

You can download these textures by clicking on the preview image above. Feel free to use the textures in your designs. If you do, shoot me an email or leave a comment. As always, I’d love to see these textures in action.

Also, I definitely took more than just these 5 pictures. I just chose these because of the variations in texture and colour. I have many more sitting in a folder on my Mac, so you can expect to see another colour texture pack at some point! Keep an eye out.

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