Logo design is probably most simple and at the same times most difficult area of design. While a quality logo design combining with a good brand strategy could boost companies’ business the bad one could ruin it. A logo does not sell, it identifies. Many people think that a logo is just a nice picture and forget about creating a meaningful symbol that depicts the main ideas of the customer business through the use of shape, fonts and color. Creating something simple but meaningful at the same time is the real challenge about logo design.

Learn to identify good and bad logos
If you can distinguish the difference between a good and a bad logo you’re almost done ;). Knowing reasons why some logos have succeeded and others have not gives you an real insight for a future work. You can browse resources listed below for this purposes or read some books on logo design.

Think out logo concept
Try to brainstorm and write down any crazy ideas, keywords and synonyms. Use Google image search or Flickr to find a hint. Have a look at famous logos for inspiration. While the subject matter of a logo can be almost anything, don’t forget that a logo must be describable, memorable and easy to read.

Make a lot of logo sketches with a pencil
Try to draw roughly as many concepts and variations as you can. The more sketches you made the more choices you will have at computer later. It is a good idea to start in black and white. Adding color only after the final concepts are ready keeps you more focused on a shape.

Keep in mind clients requirements to logo
Though your fantasy could fly high the client requirements could be strict in color or shape. Some clients have an idea of what they want. You should think where the logo will be mostly used: in the website, billboard or on the paper. Don’t forget that you have to sell your ideas to the client using good logo presentation.  Try to show them the logos in black & white first for approving of shape and add color later to focus on one thing at the moment. Find and deal only with one decision maker since dozen people with different approaches could make a real headache approving of your design.

Use the right vector editor
Try to use Adobe Illustrator or free Inkscape which produces scalable vector formats unlike Photoshop or Gimp. Any logo, even made for a Web site, needs to be scaled for different uses later ( favicon, banner, etc.).

Simplicity is the key in logo design
Your logo should be as simple as possible because it must look perfect even at such small sizes as a site favicon which is 16X16 pixels. Besides this reason, most famous logos were created before web era and all of them are simple. Effective logo should look good at least in two colours.

Test logo in different backgrounds, sizes and colors
Print your logo at different sizes and have a look at it from different distances to imagine how it will look on T-shirt, billboard or booklet. Test your logo in less and more colors starting from black&white. While most of the logos are used in combination with the text test it in different positions and taglines: at the bottom of an ad, in the lower left, center or lower right. Reconstruct logo use in ads, TV commercials, on banners, billboards and even on a truck. Make sure your logo works well with a company name.

Logo inspiration

LogoSauce
LogoPond
FAVEUP
56 Most Creative Logos
Logo Creators Directory
Top 50 logo design tutorials

Logo design books

Designing Corporate Identity
LogoLounge 3: 2,000 International Identities by Leading Designers
Letterhead and Logo Design 9
The Big Book of Logos 4
From Gutenberg to OpenType: An Illustrated History of Type from the Earliest Letterforms to the Latest Digital Fonts