Before you start designing logos in Illustrator, we need to actually sketch
a bunch of ideas out. It's a lot easier to do this with a pencil and paper or some people prefer a
journal or some kind of notepad. You can also use a pen but you won't be able to
erase most likely. So the idea is that you're drawing a bunch of squares and they're
called thumbnails and you just draw out ideas in them.
So this allows for more ideas more quickly. So one tip is to look at composition.
How are the elements in these logos going to be composed? So are you going to
use some kind of rule of thirds? Are you going to put some things up top and
something centered, have a symmetrically oriented logo. Are you going to use
mostly letters and shapes and so on? So it helps you to start composing the elements.
Second tip is to try initials. So a monogram style logo you might try to
send to the client as part of your services. Not one that just says spelled
out but also a monogram or maybe even just one symbol, so try that out and
try different shapes of these letters together, just the initials of the
company and see if you can come up with something unique and creative.
And the next tip is to sketch shapes. So think about different shapes that you
can draw but this is much easier and quicker just to do with a pencil and
paper instead of just trying to right away draw something in Illustrator.
So think of different shapes that you incorporate. Maybe replace a letter with some kind of shape
or add a shape to a letter or the entire word or enclose it in a shape around the
edges and see what you can come up with.
The next tip is to look at negative space. So is there blank space on the edges up at the top or at the bottom?
Is there blank space even in the middle, kind of like in the FedEx logo creating that arrow.
So just look at different compositional elements and principles
and you're just coming up with ideas almost like free writing, but you're just
drawing and again just sketch a lot. You wanna go for quantity as you'll get
quality out of quantity. So come up with a bunch of different ideas and then once
you have a couple that you like, you can move onto Illustrator.