Looks like Yarra Trams will have a new logo design to coincide with the new takeover of Melbourne’s public transport systems. Personally I really liked the old logo, it symbolized the tram network with the tracks forming the ‘y’ I always thought it was quite clever and easily recognized.
The new logo is clear and well defined and bright, but conveys little meaning. It’s just words and colours. I notice they kept the green and blue and they way they meet together in the middle, but whilst that may convey a little continuity, it still looks quite pedestrian by comparison. Could be a logo for almost anything, says nothing about trams or transport. What do you think?
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
Lately I’ve been working on a couple of business card designs for the more spiritual type of businesses with colour synergy, meditation and counselling/healing. With this first one I created a soft effect in the background with Photoshop, and incorporated her ideas of lotus flower, and new growth leaves. The client also specifically wanted to use a salmon colour in the background, so I trialled a few different colour schemes to compliment the salmon, this seemed to be the most soft and feminine colour scheme to suit it. I didn’t want anything to bold or harsh.
After completing this card, her good friend was referred to me so I needed to set up a card for colour synergy and balance, with a specific request to use a marrone colour and to feature ‘chakras’ with an aura in the logo. The main challenge though with this card is that the client really wanted to see an ‘old gold’ effect on her logo. She had these very specific colours in mind, as I suppose colour synergy is her business after all! For the back she also wanted to see a yin yang symbol in gold and marrone. So this is what I came up with..
I achieved the old gold effect in Photoshop using layer styles such as colour overlay, texture, shadow, gradient and pattern. Generally I would always set up logos in vector art/Illustrator, but the only way I could get this effect was in Photoshop, so I set up the logo at a really large size in case it needs to be used later in larger print, the reduced it for the business card.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
In the last week I set up a new logo, business card and A5 flyer design for MyOfficeCleaner. The client wanted to make use of just two spot colours: Reflex Blue and Pantone 322 (an aqua colour) and she wanted a modern look to the logo, utilising the style where regular and bold fonts are next to each other to separate the words, rather than using the space bar. So this is what I came up with for her A5 flyer in 2 colour..
and this is her new business card front and back to compliment the flyer:
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
During the current economic downturn, it can be more important than ever to maintain a strong visual identity for your company.
With petrol prices at an all time high, interest rates skyrocketing and mortgage payments crippling the household budgets, people look to the companies they can trust with their business. A strong visual identity is not just a nice thing to have, it is a necessity, to maintain a strong presence and stress the good value you provide. It shows your unfailing consistency in hard times.
If you don’t already have a strong visual identity then you need to create one, and keep it consistent across all your advertising and materials so that customers and potential customers can recognize your image at a glance. You need to have an image that stands for something in people’s minds.
Have a look at companies like ANZ, Coca Cola, Dove – they all maintain a consistent identity that people know and trust, and they strive to send a message with their image about what they represent. ANZ – representing small businesses and they average homeowner; Coca Cola – their image instantly calls to mind refreshment on a hot summers day, relaxation; Dove – representing inner beauty on the outside for the average woman.
Through graphic design, creating a visual and corporate identity for you, along with the right marketing campaigns you too can have an image for your company that people instantly recognize and trust.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
If you are creating a logo for a website only that is unlikely to be used in print or signage then you can go about this in a different manner to a regular logo. I recently created one for Best Looking Websites.
For most logos you need to use vector art format, in a program such as illustrator, so that the logo can be utilized at any size and in any format. With websites they use a fixed pixel size and there is no need to worry too much about using vector art. You can go wild in photoshop if you wish and use photos and other images to incorporate into the logo.
In this case he already had a basic website template already designed, so I had to do something to fit in with that style and colour scheme. As per usual I did up a few design options for the client to choose from. He really wanted to feature the BLW initials so I took that into consideration too.
Once the logo design was finalized I needed to find out the exact pixel dimensions of the allocated space for the logo in the header and create a photoshop file in those dimensions. With websites you also need to be wary of how large the file is. The smaller the file the faster it can load the page. This is quite the opposite to print, as in print you need high resolution for better print quality and higher resolution equals a larger file size.
Of course many times when you create a logo you will design it in Illustrator and then resave it in various formats so that it can be used in both print and web.
Best Looking Websites built my website for me based on the photoshop design layouts I provided. I’d recommend them as they offer some great prices and service.
Lisa is a graphical and pre-press designer with more than 15 years experience. She runs her own agency Twilight Emerald from Ballarat, Victoria Australia.
