Logos, Logos, Logos!

Designer’s Blog by Vic Roman

What’s our vector, Victor?

I know I need to design a poster at 12x18 inches, or a business card at 3.5x2 inches, but a logo needs to have the potential to be used at all sized, on all sorts of print material. This all comes down to designing a logo in the correct format. Hearing about someone designing a logo in Microsoft Paint just doesn’t cut it for me. You might think that Adobe Photoshop is the right program to use, but I’d beg to differ.

Adobe Illustrator would be my weapon of choice, but any program that is used to create VECTOR images will suffice. The problem with Paint, or even Photoshop, is that everything is designed in pixels - something designed to 12 inches wide will lose quality if you size it up to 24 inches. In Illustrator, everything is created as vector images. A vector utilizes lines rather than pixels, so it always recognizes the same mathematical path. Does that make no sense to you? Well don’t worry, all you need to know is that a vector file can be sized to ANY size without losing quality, is ideal for apparel printing, die cut decals, or for adding gloss or foil to your printing.

Every major company, sports team, etc., have a logo designed as a vector file. It is the ideal way to design a logo and a must if you plan on doing some serious printing!

Some FloPrint Designed Logos

SaskAlta Environmental Solutions Inc. is a residual management company committed to environmental protection in both Saskatchewan and Alberta. It was important to Tim at SaskAlta to create an image that unifies Saskatchewan and Alberta. Tim also wanted the logo to be fresh and new, but still attract to corporate minded players. I made sure the logo met all these needs.

For this logo I combined the elements of Alberta (Blue, hand written font, and mountains) with those of Saskatchewan (Green, serif font, and the red lily).

We have done tons of printing for Tim at SaskAlta including: business cards, program covers, banner stands, vehicle decals, helmet decals apparel printing and embroidery.

The Owl, formerly known as The Lazy Owl, is the bar on campus of the University of Regina. The Owl had a massive makeover before the beginning of the 2010 Fall semester. Tyler from The Owl approached us about the logo. We have done a lot of designs and printing for Tyler through other U of R groups, so he was pretty comfortable handing this logo over to me.

If any of you were at The Owl prior to the rebranding you’ll definitely remember their MS Paint clipart style logo. They really wanted to class up the place, looking at some of the new, modern, and classy look of alcohol as inspiration. I made sure the look was simple, clean, and that the owl image was playful, classy and memorable. I also needed to get it done quick (within about two days if I remember correctly) so that they could use the logo as a reference on how to paint and style the bar.

As a past U of R student, I know that The Owl is always a great place to go. Now they finally have the logo to suit the bar.

Nest Coffee & Gifts is a shop you’ll find if you ever stay in Hotel Saskatchewan. Cody from Nest approached us about logo design and we made sure to cater to his budget.

This logo became a bit of a risk for me when Cody brought in some very specific and detailed notes on how he wanted his logo and I decided to not follow them very carefully. I started out following his notes, making a very old style classic logo, but it just wasn’t working for me and I thought I could do something that ultimately would make his business look better. I wanted to keep the old, classic style, but I also updated it with some of the soft swoops and motions you might see on a Dove soap bar. I made extra sure that the word “Nest” and the coffee cup were easily visible so that nobody walking by might be mistaken as to what kind of shop this is.

I was very happy, and a little relieved to find out that Cody loved the logo. We have since printed business cards, sandwich boards, coffee cup stickers, and other printing for Cody’s shop!

If you’re ever needing a logo, or have questions on the topic don’t hesitate to give us a shout!

Thanks for checking out my 2 cents on logos.

- Vic