A logo is the essential design element of a brand, and while is common to hear people who never worked in the design industry boast how they could create internationally recognised logos in just about five minutes, most designers are keen to admit the exact opposite, creating a good logo is one of the most difficult tasks in the world of graphic design.
A good logo is not just a matter of quickly drawing up a symbol to match a business, but instead, is a long and thoughtful process in the pursuit of an aesthetic pleasing icon that—at the same time—appropriately represents what the brand is meant to portray, while also respecting a set of guidelines and good practices in brand identity design.
So, to help you have an idea of the many processes behind the creation of a logo, we have compiled this list with some of the best logo design tutorials from around the web. The majority of these are focused on design techniques, but they still give you some great insights to the brainstorming behind their creation. Enjoy!
The Tutorial for Brainstorm #9 Logo Process
Excerpt from Abduzeedo:
The first thing when designing a logo, is to understand the context, history and what’s the image it has to deliver to the audience. Asking Carlos about the meaning of the logo, he explained to me that the logo was, of course, related to “brainstorming”.
Creating a Hand Lettered Logotype from Beginning to End
Excerpt from The AGSC:
For this tutorial, we are going to create a fictitious client; Hopscotch Brewing Company. They want a sweet logotype for their beer labels. We’re not going to delve into the client relations / business side of things for this one (we will cover that later on), just creating the logo.
The Amazing Spiderman Logo Design Tutorial
Excerpt from Design Stacks:
Start working by finding a kind of carpet texture having 1280×1024 px and 72 dpi, the one from below (I used this texture from cgtextures.com).
The Drawing the Volkswagen Logo Tutorial
Excerpt from Republic of Code:
This tutorial is going to show you how to draw the legendary Volkswagen emblem logo by using Layer Styles, Radial Gradients, and the Polygonal Lasso selection tool in order to do the tracing part. The image below show our end result.
The Making of a Metallic Transformers Logo Tutorial
Excerpt from 10 Steps:
We will use an image of the Transformers logo, cracks Brushes from Falln Stock and texture set from Krakograff. With all of that, and there you go! You have just done up a metallic Transformers logo on your own!
Logo Design Process and Walkthrough for Vivid Ways
Excerpt from Spoon Graphics:
I recently finished up a project with Scott McIntyre of Vivid Ways and Jon Phillip of Spyre Studios. My part in the project was to work on a new logo design for the Vivid Ways website and brand. Here’s my design process and a walkthrough of how the final logo is created in Adobe Illustrator.
David Dache Logo Design Process for WebMynd
Excerpt from Web Designer Wall:
This case study (written by David himself) provides full creative brief and progress images from start to final. Read on to find out how David got inspired by Wassily Kandinsky‘s art (one of the most famous 20th-century abstract artists) to create this fantastic logo.
How to Design the Firefox Logo in Photoshop
Excerpt from Smashing Magazine:
This tutorial will go through how you can create the Firefox logo in a scalable Photoshop format. It has been published back in 2008 on Henry Hoffman website.
How To Create An Epic Metallic Band Logo
Excerpt from Media Loot:
This tutorial will guide you through techniques in Photoshop that will create an atmospheric, grungy logo, perfect for industrial, rock or metal bands. And the techniques you will learn are applicable to many more subjects, the most obvious ones being movie and game titles.
Creating a Crazy Cool Logo Design Tutorial
Excerpt from Abduzeedo:
In this post I will show you how we created the logo. I will skip the drawing parts, yes there were tons of drawings before going to the computer, because when they stole my computer and backups in 2006 they took all my photos of the drawings.
Create a Unique Logo Identity in Just 7 Steps
Excerpt from Creative Bloq:
Your logo is one of the most important things you can create. It’s the image that will represent you as a freelancer; an opportunity to embody your brand and separate yourself from the competition. Above all, it’s a tool for immediate recognition.
Logo Design Project Step by Step Walkthrough
Excerpt from Spoon Graphics:
A personal project I’m currently working on with a developer friend is a website called myNiteLife. As part of the overall design process one of the first jobs of the project was to develop a logo and brand for the website, follow this step by step documentation of the whole process of the logo design from conception to completion.
The Umbrella Corporation Logo Design Tutorial
Excerpt from Design Stacks:
The Umbrella Corporation is a fictional bioengineering pharmaceutical company appearing in the Resident Evil series of survival horror games by Capcom and in its film adaptions. In this Adobe Photoshop tutorial we will create Umbrella Corporation logo.
Mentaway Logo Design Case Study
Excerpt from Abduzeedo:
Talking to my brother and Gisele, the creators of the whole idea, they gave me some insights on how they see the service, the goals and philosophy behind it. My role would be come up with the design.
Creating a Rockstar Brand Logo in Illustrator
Excerpt from Tutsplus:
In this multi-part tutorial series I’ll take you through the processes and design I used to create the Rockable Press brand and its many different applications both offline and on. We’ll begin by looking at the creation of the Rockable logo, look and feel and brand.
How to Design a Logotype from Conception to Completion
Excerpt from Spoon Graphics:
This first tutorial at Spoon Graphics covers the process of designing a logotype, this particular logo created in the tutorial is for a fictional business named Purple Lemon, which immediately suggests a modern, trendy, possibly web/internet or design related company.
Hand Fist Logo Design Tutorial
Excerpt from Dry Icons:
This tutorial is intended to benefit both our potential clients, so they can have a fully comprehensive overview of our logo design process and methods; and many of our users, interested in the process of designing and developing a logo.
Zee Logo in Illustrator Tutorial
Excerpt from Abduzeedo:
With the idea of “Stay in the Loop”, I decided to play in Illustrator to create a custom font for it. Also I wanted to make the logo resemble a bit of the Abduzeedo logo. We’re still working on the logo and the tag line, but the concept is this one that I will show you here.
How to Create a Hipster Style Logo Tutorial
Excerpt from Tutvid:
There are lots of “old world” typefaces out there and available, but you can take a font and round all the edges as I’ve done here. I’m using the typeface “Kankin”, but as I mentioned, I rounded all the corners.