Best Tips To Make Sure Your Logo Is Flexible

I receive many questions from both clients and other designers asking me “What makes a good logo?” Instead of focusing on what makes a logo look good (because we all know we can argue that point for days based on personal taste), I thought it would be best to focus on what makes a logo work well – a better question to ask yourself while designing a logo is “How flexible is the logo?”

Below are 5 tips and attributes your logo should have in order to work well, increase its flexibility and help it work better in more situations.

1. Works well in black, reversed-out and full color

A good logo should be created to work in black, reversed-out (white) and color. Many of times designers start to create their logo by introducing color right away. This often takes away from the concept because your mind is more focused on the “pretty colors.”

2. Works well in various sizes

Logos should be scalable and work well both large and small sizes. Try to avoid logos and marks that are overly complicated. As the old KISS saying goes, “Keep it simple, stupid!” Especially with logos being implemented favicons, on signage and business cards, logos need to be size flexible.

3. Ambidextrous

Logos should be able to work both horizontally and vertically. Typically, in most cases, I provide my clients with two variations to their logos, especially if the logo design was intended to be vertical – horizontal logos seem to work well on websites. It’s always good to make sure you’re logo is a switch hitter :)

4. Flexible logos are vector-ized

When creating a logo, you should be using vector-based software, such as Adobe Illustrator. This will give you the ability to provide various file formats and scalable logos. Typically I like to provide clients with various types of file formats, this way they have different files to implement into various programs they use.

5. Readable

Not only does a logo mark need to work well at various sizes but so does the text. When creating the mark at a smaller size try increasing the character spacing. This will help improve readability, especially when shrunken down and viewed from afar. Are you able to scale your logo without losing clarity?
Is your logo flexible? What other tips would you add to the above to make your logo work well in more instances?