Logo design can be a tricky job. Sometimes it’s hard to satisfy the customer and in the same time stay web 2.0 alike. Since the introduction of web 20 technologies the face of the web designing world has changed. Designers tend to be more KISS and less bold. Microsoft-library like graphics are no longer welcome. The sign of “under construction” held by a bear, who in return, moved his feet is obsolete. Fresh colors and usage of multi-level font size has been of great importance to any logo, header, or banner design. The web is striving to become a real-life place where typography really matters.

Here, I will try to introduce seven of the techniques used by web 2.0 designers to create a neat, nifty, and attractive logo.

Color Contrast

This technique has been used ages ago by cloth and wear companies. No longer though. It’s becoming a trend. Using sans serif fonts, you can now create a logo that can be read easily. The trick is that you have to make the colors contrast; meaning “differ” - so that words that form part of your logo can be easily distinguished. Little additions like a vertical line separating words can give the impression that it’s mirrored - yet different. Here’s an example of our logo made as a “color contrast”:

Spotlight Effect

Instead of playing on “words”, you can also play on “letters”. However, this should carry a meaning, for example, should your company be called “Sorcerism” you can separate the “Sorcer” and the “ism” and create the required effect. This is very useful if your name is composed of one word that contains two syllabuses. A good example of this is the famous “flikr” company. Here’s an example of “nada” with the spotlight effect:

Colors à la Google

Pretty much says it all, each letter would have it’s separate color. It is important to mention here that web 2.0 have a very common palette colors; that is, cheerful colors. Nobody uses teal anymore. Nobody uses dark blue anymore (yes, the one that you see with the default hyperlinks). Nobody uses black anymore - it has to be dark gray, not black. Sometimes it’s a good idea to make the character spacing as close as ever, makes it look nice; something like this:

Handwritten

Yep, handwritten. Although not a very popular one, but it gives your website a very personal look. People who wants to make websites where their name is the logo; they should go this way. Because as I said, web 2.0 is trying to move into a more realistic look of the web - making your personal website with a handwritten logo will make you look more friendly! (note: here personal isn’t the web 0.1 version; rather the personal blog/gallery of yours that’s usually seperated from your company’s website and starts with “Hello, my name is X”). Example:

Bold yet normal

The good old serious look: mixing bold and normal font weights can make your website look very serious. It is also very recommended that you pick two contrasting colors from the web 2.0 palette and mix it good with your logo, here’s a good example:

Mirror Glass effect

This was, and still, the big-bang of web 2.0. The glass effect and the mirror effects has been [over]taken as an example of how web 2.0 logo should look like. even though a lot of people, including web 2.0 activists, try to stay away from this, but the simplicity, elegance, cheerfulness of the effect made it very hard to kill the trend. Here’s an example of the all famous glass effect:

Power to the logo

I have noticed that as of late lots of companies, personal portofilios, websites, portals, and blogs have given the image logo more importance than the text logo. After all, the image in your logo; or the symbol, represents a 80% factor of the success or failure that would make your people remember or forget your logo easily. For example: Apple’s successful delicious apple have invaded the web. Another failure example is Adobe Photoshop’s. Their new Macromedia based styles for their products are far from being called attractive. A square with a Ps inside, I mean, come on! An example of a symbol that weights the same as the text is this:

That’s about it, here are my last 5 advices:

• Stay away from dark colors, we’re web 2.0 for heaven’s sake!
• Use sans serif fonts and stay away from star-wars like fonts.
• Find inspirations in dingbats
• Be unique, don’t steal others’ logos
• Remember that web 2.0 is “faster and more fun” than web 1.0!