Best Logo Design Books for Your Graphic Design Library

Best Logo Design Books for Your Graphic Design Library Logos, you see them all the time and the average person doesn’t spend much time thinking about them. As a graphic designer, especially if you are doing freelance graphic design, a big part of your brain will be focused on designing logos. For a lot of designers, logos are the bread and butter work. You may get requests for just the logo, but often it will come along as a whole identity package request. Either way, you need to plan that logo out so it will look great on anything - business cards, letterhead, signs, envelopes, on products….. Often, to the non-designer, a logo seems like it would be pretty easy to do. As a graphic designer you know that trying to encapsulate the whole essence of a company into a tiny image can be damn well impossible sometimes. That’s why we constantly look at all the logos around us hoping for inspiration, trying to figure out what the logic behind some other designer’s creation was. The Internet is great for that too, but really, every designer should also have at least a small collection of logo design books to help inspire and offer thoughts and tips for logo designs. Here are a few books you should consider for your logo design book collection. Really Good Logos Explained: Top Design Professionals Critique 500 Logos and Explain What Makes Them Work I came across this terrific book recently and thought it was great. There are some really fantastic logos included, and for each, the authors explain what it is about the logos that makes them work. There is also a fun section on logos where the writers list bad logo designs and list some techniques that you should stay away from. I think the explanations and thoughts of the author could be a bit longer, but still thought it was good reading. Design Matters: Logos 01: An Essential Primer for Today’s Competitive Market (v. 1) The Design Matters series of books is fairly popular and is a staple for many designers. This volume of the series is all about logos and is really an exceptional book. The book doesn’t just look at successful logos. It really goes in depth into the logo process. Also, as a designer who has spent more than one all nighter making up for too much procrastination, I found the section on planning to be particularly appropriate. This is a book that should be in every designers office. There is good info in it for even the most seasoned designer. While you’re looking at this Design Matters book, I think the others in the series are good as well: Design Matters: Packaging 01: An Essential Primer for Today’s Competitive Market and Design Matters: Brochures 01: An Essential Primer for Today’s Competitive Market (v. 1) Logo Design Workbook: A Hands-On Guide to Creating Logos Although this logo design book is not really intended for the experienced or intermediate designer, this book has a lot to offer the graphic designer who is starting off and doesn’t have much of a logo design proces background. The first half of the book is about the logo design process and the second half of the book goes through many logos to show what works. If you are just looking for one book, this probably wouldn’t be my choice. It is good for the entry level graphic designer though or the freelancer who has been doing other types of design work but now wants to learn more about the logo design process. Identity Crisis: 50 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities into Successful Brands If you are interested in identity design in a more holistical sense, then you should definitely also consider picking up a copy of Identity Crisis: 50 Redesigns. This book transformed Stale Identities into Successful Brands by Jeff Fisher. He’s a friend of the site and both a nice guy and a brilliant designer. His book is excellent and there is a lot in this book for every designer who does identity work.