Doing competitive research when you're designing a logo is essential because
you want to look at what other companies are doing and, not that you're going try to rip off
what they're doing obviously, and not that you're even going to use anything
they're doing as inspiration. It's just good to be informed and see what the
market is like and the more educated you can be about that industry the better.
So in this example I mean, you can look at huge players and the online
retail like Amazon. Really nice logo. They're one of the top logos I think out there.
Shopify even though it's a third party type thing where people can set up their own
businesses. When I think of online retail that's another one I think of and that's pretty simple.
Well done with the shopping bag and with the S on it. Slightly 3D but not in
like a cheesy way. It's just a subtle way with the different shades.
And half.com is another one. I think the Amazon one logo is a little bit better than this logo but
it's good to see what other people are doing. Now if this was just a local company
that you're not wanting to expand beyond a certain region. Obviously when you're
dealing online, online retail, you want to try to reach as many customers as possible.
When you're local you would look up competing companies or organizations
in that area. You could look outside of the area for inspiration but say you
were designing a logo and identity for a pizzeria in Los Angeles for example.
Well, then you can just google pizza Los Angeles, bunch of hits come up and you
can click on some of those and see what they look like. Alright. Not to get
necessary even ideas but just to see what people are doing, what kind of logos
are they designing? What are they appealing to? What kind of color schemes
are using and so on. Besides competitors you can also look up similar
names like I looked up enterprises and I found some that's got the E, the F and the E,
kind of runs together but it's just some company I'm not familiar with but I just had
enterprises in the name and then this next one here can has this 3D look with
the gradient on the top and this one, interesting also, is 3D. It's got almost
like an H or an I on the top. It's kind of unclear but the N and the E are pretty obvious.
right there so that's pretty interesting. Just some corporate traditional looks.
Whenever they had the word enterprises in it, I would assume a lot of them are
going to be you know, pretty traditional corporate looking and that's what my
client is actually preferring as far as a logo for his parent company.
So just look at competing companies
and similar companies too. Maybe if you're not even competing with them and just
similar in scope and mission, just for inspiration in some ways, but in other
ways just to see what other people are doing and to be more educated about the
imagery and the logo design in that industry. So in the next lecture we'll
go over why you want a design brief which is a result of your meeting with
the client, doing some background research and coming up really with a
blueprint that the both of you can discuss and go over and agree upon.