Logo design and article by Johnnie Walker of TheCoffeeShop Co.

1. Logo design considerations

When setting up any business you should have a clear idea of both your goals and your customers’ needs. For ecommerce sites in particular, brand recognition is vital to both stand out from the crowd and give your potential customers or clients the right ‘feeling’ about your business.

The web is more visually oriented than ever - just look at the popularity of Pinterest!

2. Only use images and graphics that are royalty free, don’t steal them!

However tempting it may be to right-click on that lovely image or graphic and just download it, you must respect the rights of the owner of that image.

Unless you actually pay for your images and graphics, then you must only use royalty free images. Often you need to check the licence details for any image. Look for ‘allowed for commercial use - no link required’, as some images are for personal use only.

3. Revise and Simplify

Designing a great logo isn’t easy. It requires a great deal of thought. It needs to be simple, elegant, easy to reproduce on a wide range of print and media, and it needs to convey the purpose of your business to potential customers at a glance.

4. You don’t need to be a Photoshop master!

There are lots of places to find high quality images & graphics, a few of my favourite online resources are:

• www.sxc.hu, great for stock photos. 
• www.iconfinder.com, all kinds of graphics & icons with a really user friendly search function.
• www.smashingmagazine.com, an excellent resource for free icons, graphics and logos. They regularly list free downloads, often in PSD ( photoshop ) format which makes editing and tweaking the images much easier.

Johnnie Walker owns and operates the Coffee Shop Co, in the UK. He is on a mission to banish instant coffee in the office by delivering freshly ground coffee - and all necessary equipment - wherever there is need.   

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