Ultimate Corporate Logo Design Inspiration

What makes a strong corporate logo? The graphic must be powerful, able to convey a positive and memorable image for the company. The image must be recognizable, the goal is that subconsciously the consumer recognizes your brand before they even have time to read any of the information.

Corporate logos tend to be plain, in order to establish a feeling of stability and confidence. But that doesn't meant they can't be creative.

The E-trade logo still has the simple quality, but notice how the asterisk also forms two arrows pointing different directions, very indicative of the stock market. The purple arrow pointing forward is more prominent, signifying success.

More corporate logos for your enjoyment.









The more you look at the "loc" the more a very creative creature is revealed.

The FedEx logo is a classic corporate logo in its simplicity, but the engious quality is the hidden arrow created be the "E" and the "x".

Logo Resources:

• Creating a Rockstar Brand, Logo & Styleguide in Illustrator
• How to Create an Identity Package in Illustrator
• Logos for Print Versus Online – Identify Your Audience and Design Accordingly
  

Deversify Your Skills

My first contribution to the corporate design community is to advise you to diversify your skills. When I graduated from college, I went through all the normal theory classes, and decided to specialize in web design because that was the big up and coming thing at the time. I have continued to expand that knowledge, but I never forsook my print design base. Not only did I educate myself on blogging, search optimization, pay-per-click advertising and email marketing, but I also eagerly took on work that involved billboards, screen printing design, vinyl vehicle wraps, anything a little less common to normal print layout.

Image Property of steveclaus.deviantart.com

Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

When you diversify your skills it adds value to yourself in the minds of your employers. Boss' don't like to take risks, they want someone that has experience when they assign projects. If you're the only designer with experience in vinyl design and the boss has been envisioning some nice vehicle wraps for the company cars. You then become more valuable in their mind than the other designers.


Bonus Tip:

Sometimes taking on freelance jobs for friends can be for the experience rather than money. Continuing the illustration above, if you had no experience working with vinyl but a friend needed it but didn't have any money, gaining that experience could be more valuable than the actual income earned from the project. In your corporate job next time the boss has a need for vinyl, you can chime in with "I have experience with that!" Brownie points! Leave out the fact you just did it last week, and it was a freelance job on the side, for some reason boss' aren't too keen on you thinking about anything other than "The Company".

Hello Corporate Graphic Design Blogosphere!

I've decided to begin this blog as a resource to the common, every-day graphic designer that works for a corporation. Sure, there are tons of design blogs out there like www.abduzeedo.com and www.gomediazine.com but these websites generally create information that appeals to the designer themselves and isn't really real-world information to help us in our every day lives as designers for normal corporations.

I will be sharing from my personal experiences, dumping useful links and inspiration, and hopefully inviting guest bloggers to contribute to this resource.

I began my career working for a small financial accounting software company that was pushed out of business by Microsoft, I also designed for a University, a Retirement Community, a Real Estate Company, and now for a start-up Marketing Agency. I also dabble in freelance graphic design supplement my income.