Car Logo Theft on the Rise

If you thought car logos meant nothing, think again! A series of incidents in Mumbai have set the police on their heels. One a fine day, Rohan Desai’s 11 lakh silver Chevrolet emblem went missing. He was disappointed and shared the news with his friends. Imagine his surprise when he found that his friends, too, had faced such incidents in recent times.

Car logo theft is the newest activity making inroads in the crime zone. What makes matters worse is that the thieves are actually young college-goers and even school children.

In January 2009, police arrested 3 schoolboys in Dadar who stole car logos for pocket money. In a similar incident, two teenagers were arrested in Chembur early in February while in May 2009, police nabbed two college students who were stealing a Mercedes car logo in Powai.

“Logos of big cars are often stolen and then sold at Kurla for a decent price like Rs 2,000 to 4,000,” senior police inspector Rajdoot Rupwate said.

Even car showrooms are reporting a surprising trend where the logo maker actually manufactured more logos with the demand rising by as much as 15%.

Police claims that the stolen car logos are sold at lower rates in the grey market, while some are even sold to the car manufacturers. So the next time you purchase a new car logo, you might be buying the one stolen from you.

Simple Guidelines to Designing an Effective Logo

Logos build up your online identity and as such should reflect your business objectives as well as effuse professionalism. Without these, your brand might sink into oblivion. Over the years, the logo designing industry has been significantly expanding. A good logo designer is one who combines his artistic skill with good business sense.

Designing a logo requires skill and method. An amateur might consider the logo design job as a mere simple one. The task is essentially simple for good artists. Before designing a logo, make sure you have the following:

• Knowledge of the company/organization/business.


• The company name or initials; ask the client whether he needs a symbolic logo or a text logo.


• Check if the company has a tagline.


• Know the color preferences of the client. Many clients prefer specifying the logo color while some leave it to the imagination of the graphic artist. Color choice may also depend on the industry. For instance, an eco printer business will essentially need a touch of green in its logo to emphasize on its environmental aspect.


• Style of the logo- Logo style depends generally on client choice; they might opt for an illustrated logo, a vector logo, or a 3D logo.

This knowledge is enough to proceed with the first draft of the logo design. Once you get the concept right, you can be assured of moving on the right track. The rest becomes easier with client feedback. A good logo designer thus works on a step by step process to design an eye-catching logo.

Cast Your First Impression with a Killer Brand Image

It’s not always product quality that decides the success of a business. More often than not, a brand becomes pivotal towards deciding the performance of a product in the market. Well known brands always have the upper edge as people trust them for their quality.

Every brand needs some time to sink into the minds of the consumers. A corporate identity is ideally an organization/company personified. It is the first medium by which a person views the company. As the saying goes, “first impression is the last impression”, absolute care should be taken before releasing a company’s identity into the market. The impression created by a corporate identity thus decides the fate of a company.

A good corporate identity, aided with quality products, helps to etch its name on the minds of the customers. To create the first impression, a corporate identity should be able to catch the eye as well as effuse professionalism and quality.

Corporate identity is not confined to one element alone- it includes all those means by which a company/organization can be represented. Some of them include- logo, business card, letterhead, envelope, etc. These form a part of your corporate identity and as such should imbibe your company’s essence and objectives.

The task of creating a corporate identity should be always assigned to professionals. An amateur can create graphics but on account of inexperience, often fail to infuse the much required professional look and feel into the designs. Most people think the design companies are expensive but they fail to realize that quality can never replace cost. Design companies having years of experience in the corporate industry can be completely relied upon to come up with innovative yet professional brand image. So expand the strings of your purse just a little more to avoid compromising on your corporate image.

5 Tips On Getting Paid For Your Design

It is sometimes tough to bring the concept of logo designing in the minds of clients. Many had trouble understanding the concept of a "logo". Some people could at least understand the concept of a design or sketch fee, but did not comprehend the concept of separate logo fee.

Over time, I have gathered some information, which are useful in helping the logo designers get paid for the time necessary to create a logo.

1. Give Clients some Tangible
   
   You may have a tough time explaining image and identity to your client, but tell your clients that you will be providing them with a camera ready art and a floppy disk with their logo. All of a sudden they can see the light.
   
   
2. Give them many Examples
   
   Give them a list of other business logos along with theirs. When they see other companies that they know, it makes it much clearer in their minds what a logo really is.
   
   
3. Don't give ideas away
   
   Avoid clients like "Can you show me what it looks like" unless they are willing to give you a deposit. Try to explain your clients that you have some level of education as a designer and that your education wasn't cheaper. You need to be compensated for your experience and education unless otherwise you are selling yourself short.
   
   
4. Time Factor
   
   Designing is such a profession can be a hit or miss when it comes to how long it takes to be comfortable with a design. Sometimes you can visualize before you start designing, then you can bang it out in half an hour. Others you may struggle for hours before you are happy with it. Add to that the time it takes to meet and show sketches, and you have got a lot of hours invested.
   
   Make your clients realize what goes into a design and the obvious reasons for being compensated for it. Getting their business done isn't a reason to design for free.
   
   
5. Explain the "recreating an existing logo" fee.
   
   It’s a little easier to sell a logo when you explain that if they want you to use their existing design exactly as is, you’ll have to charge them to scan it in and make it “plotter ready”. In some instances, it can take just as long to do this as it does to create a new logo.
   

Try to stress the sheer marketing value of a good logo design from a consumer standpoint; your clients can see the benefits more clearly. As soon as you advise them of a marketing strategy, you are not just giving them advice; you are actually providing them information on how their business can grow.

Striking Elements in a Logo

When it comes to designing a logo, there are five factors that should strike your mind:

1. Is it describable?
2. Is it memorable?
3. Is it effective without color?
4. Is it scalable?
5. Is it appropriate?
   

The first two concerns are interrelated. If you cannot describe a logo, you can never remember it. That’s the reason why simple logos are considered the best option. Complex logos can never be successful as they end up confusing the viewers. The success of text logos can also be ascribed to the fact that these logo genres are self-explanatory. Hence, more and more people can remember these logos without fail.

Colors come second in the designing process. If a logo looks good in black and white, then it can look good in any color. Many designers work on the color aspect at the end of the designing process.

Scalability of a logo is important, especially for office stationary like pens, badges etc. A good logo can match up with any requirement and should look great in all sizes.


Finally, a good logo design never escapes its business objective. Logo lends identity to a business and hence should be in complete sync with its business goals. Ensuring that the business is identified by its logo thus becomes obligatory. This is the only way by which a logo can stand out amidst its competitors.

Essence of a Successful Logo

Every business owner dreams of creating a unique brand identity i.e. the logo. Many of them leave no stone unturned to hire top notch designers so as to achieve results of the highest quality. But in spite of all these efforts, your logo might fail to make a mark. The reason… your lack of participation.

Many business owners fail to realize the value of their feedback and participation in the designing process. There are three basic rules to creating a successful logo and memorable corporate identity.

KISS the Logo: Surprised? Well, the first and foremost thing to remember is to keep the logo absolutely simple, thus referring to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!). Simple logos are easily comprehensible and linger on people’s mind for long. A remarkable thing about good logo designers is that they spend 1/4th of their time creating a logo concept and another 1/4th in simplifying the same logo from its present complex form. A good example would be the logo of Microsoft or Sony which is nothing but simple text with style (italics for Microsoft) variations. What makes them unique and recognizable is the wise use of typeface.

Proper Choice of Colors: Every industry is symbolized by a particular color. A fruit juice company can be represented by the colors of fruits like oranges while the logo of a gardening business can be drawn in fresh green color. Besides, the colors you choose will also be used on your business cards, letterheads, and other media of corporate identity. So choose only those colors that would go well with every section of your corporate identity.

Allow Flexibility in your Logo: A good logo design is always flexible so that it could be reproduced not only in multi-colors but also in black & white version. Flexibility is desired because the logo might not turn out quite well in every media. Hence, the logo should be scalable to look great in all sizes.

Wrapping things up, you should remember that your logo design mirrors who you are and what you do. Hence, there should be no compromise with its design. A logo should send the right message across to its customers. Therein lies the essence of a successful logo.

Guiding the Way to a Successful Logo Design

Designing a logo for your business might sound a child’s play to most of us. But for a logo to be successful, you need the right concept, the right skill and the right creative brains. For those who aspire to create cutting-edge logos, here are a few tips for creating a successful logo design.

1. Right concept: There is a perfect t concept for everything but the toughest part is to locate it. Do everything possible to come across the right concept- Google image search, mind mapping, brainstorming etc and pen down everything on paper.
   
   
2. Sketching Wins: Many designers just flop down on the chairs to design on their computers. But they overlook the benefits of sketching. You can sketch your ideas whenever they cross your mind. On the other hand, your ideas might fly away by the time you begin sketching on your pc. 
   
   
3. Analyze Clients’ Requirements: It always pays to know every requirement of the client beforehand. Ask whether the logo is to be put just on stationary, or on billboards, banners etc. In this way, you can refine your logo to look beautiful in multiple forms.
   
   
4. Use the Most Professional Program: While many designers prefer using Adobe Photoshop during their starting days, it is best to go with Adobe Illustrator and its pen tool. The Illustrator carries a vector format which can be used to vary the size of the logo with no loss of quality.
   
   
5. Simplicity Rules: A simple logo design can never go wrong. Test the logo using its 16x16 pixel favicon. If it looks good, then there can be no better choice. You can also test the logo in various sizes by printing. Hold the print from varying distances to see how it looks.
   
   
6. Multiple Color Testing: Test the logo using multiple colors. A good quality logo quickly adapts to changing colors and still looks great.
   
   
7. Testing a Logo using Surrounding Text: Logos hardly occur alone. Most of them have a tagline or some text written either beneath or near them. While preparing the draft, make sure to include few logo design samples with their text occurring in various alignments or positions.