I come from a technical (software focused) background - rather than a creative/artistic one. I’ve had a ‘crazy idea’ - and I wondered if people familiar with graphic design could offer me any advice.
I am interested in the prospect of creating credible original logos/trademarks from scratch… by writing software that generates them - using a programming language rather than an interactive tool with a GUI. I’m thinking that technologies like SVG might be relevant - I’d be flexible about the programming language that would generate SVG output. Python perhaps? I’m imagining geometric designs fused with text.
Is this the sort of thing a professional might consider as an approach? Are there any good books on this topic that would be worth reading?
Will your software sit down with a client to discus branding and marketing strategies and how the right logo fits in as the centerpiece of those effort?
Will your algorithms ask clients about their hopes, dreams, setbacks, and what they envision for their future?
Will your software do background research on the cient’s market segment and competitors and what’s worked (or not worked) for them?
Will it analyze a client’s customer base to find if there’s an aesthetic personality that appeals to them and might be incorporated into a logo.
Will your software examine potential customer groups that might be attracted by the logo and general visual branding.
Will your software negotiate and educate clients about what does and doesn’t work and why?
Will your software do research on whether similar logos exist elsewhere?
Will it prepare vector files, as well as raster art in PNG with transparencies. How about B&W, grayscale, and spot color versions?
Or do you think a good logo is mostly just a cool little bit of simple artwork that an algorthim can produce?
Since @SteveTxt deliberately chose to inquire with graphic designers, who usually know less about programming languages than graphic design, I assumed that we might be approached as users rather than programming development consultants of such a product.
Maybe the plan is to replace graphic design software in a niche.
Erm… There’s a big miscommunication here. I am not interested in writing software that can create any logo. I am interested in writing software that generates specific logos for a very specific client - one that wants logos that have both aesthetic appeal and an elegant programmatic definition. I know that there’s at least one potential client for such logos… because that would be me. I don’t know if any professionals would entertain designing logos this way… and I don’t know if someone like myself would be capable of pulling off a world class result. I’m prepared to try ideas and find out - the worst case scenario is that I’d better understand what I’d need to commission.
I’ve commercially commissioned (and purchased) 3 designs this month - and have been very happy with the results. I have a new tentative requirement… and I feel it sits outside the traditional logo design services that are available commercially. I intend to experiment.
Perhaps it depends upon what the logo says to them - doesn’t it? The logo and the algorithm to draw the logo are, in some sense, one and the same.
No, but I have been known to talk to myself. This interaction on your forum is background research - of sorts.
No the software will just draw the logo. The author/designer of the artwork might do that analysis. Market research, of course, is an area in which good software can provide significant advantage over mandraulic approaches.
This software would not. Each program would only be intended to draw one logo. Of course, if you’re interested in objective analytic strategies to establish the effectiveness of candidate artwork… I do have ideas for how this could be achieved using specialist software.
No. I don’t believe in strong AI.
Funny you should mention that. I’ve written software (in another context) that, if re-purposed, could (in principle) help do this. My objective here is different. I want to implement elegant programs that draw interesting, elegant, images - using vector graphics. I don’t imagine it will be easier than designing an image in a conventional tool (e.g. Adobe Illustrator -etc.) but I do expect to be able to implement software that generates interesting results. This is my objective.
I intend the program to output SVG representations. I can trivially script transformations and renderings (to meet all my requirements) once I have an appropriate SVG etc.
I think you’re confused.
I believe a good logo (i.e. one that scales) has a syntactic representation that is indistinguishable from an algorithm to draw the logo.
I believe the best logos imaginable could, in principle, be written as programs to draw the logo - by an intelligent designer who has an understanding of the specific requirement.
I anticipate that those who have considerable aesthetic skill may lack programming skill - and vice-versa. As a first step, I am looking into the possibility that someone with programming skill might be able to acquire aesthetic skills. I’m equally ready to believe someone with aesthetic skills might be able to acquire programming skills… but, if I’m to make progress myself, it’d be the former rather than the latter.
There are a lot of technologies that could help facilitate this. For example:
SVG is an open vector graphics format that most web browsers can render. Any programming language that can output XML can generate SVG,
D3.js is an open toolkit (from the ecmascript toolset) for which many demonstrations of beautiful visualisations exist. This convinces me that the idea I had wasn’t necessarily dumb.
I appreciate that what I’m interested in doing is not mainstream. I was really wondering: from the perspective of those skilled in graphic design… can you recommend textbooks or tutorials which might help me make better aesthetic decisions when experimenting with programmatic generation of logos - hoping to create something I like… even if professionals artists dismiss me as an amateur.
Because SVG is web-based it doesn’t inherently use CMYK or spot colors. The RGB gamut is much larger than the CMYK gamut. Conventional printing might not come close to the colors you expect from your SVG file. Wide format machines with extra inks and wider gamuts might come closer, but there are still limitations.
I can’t wait to have to print these things. Actually, I already do to some extent, but not for logos. We mostly just use SVG to run one of our lasers…
Eh, whatever. You send it, I’ll print it. What color comes out the other end of the machine? You get to pay for it whether you like it or not.
Buy the proof first.
If by “professional” you mean a seasoned, experienced designer that understands logos and branding, that would be a hard no. You’ve come up with a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
If by “professional” you mean one of the tens of thousands of “designers” working for pennies on the dollar using free software in hopes of winning a design contest on some POS crowdsourcing site, then maybe. But they won’t want to pay for it.
All my questions were rhetorical and intended to imply that designing logos is intimately tied to branding, marketing, psychology, intuition, focused creativity, talent, education, and experience. I didn’t expect you to answer them, but thank you for doing so. My last question was meant to rhetorically clarify the design of logos and visual branding is far more involved than making cool-looking symbols, which many amatuer designers and cients believe to be the case.
I’ve been in this business for over 40 years and still regard logo design as the most difficult task that good designers face, despite most wannabe designers thinking it’s an easy starting point. This difficulty isn’t due to ideation or production challenges – ideas are a dime a dozen, and most logos are simple to draw. The difficulty is finding and perfecting the best possible mark that checks all the boxes for its intended purpose (some of which I mentioned). I would need to experiment with your software application before forming an opinion on its usefulness.
To sum up my main point: it’s a tall order and I’m skeptical that professionals would have much use for anything that fell short, although do-it-yourselfers and amatures might tinker with it for crowdsourcing purposes.
I suspected this would be the answer. I didn’t expect that what I want would be easy to commission - hence wondering if my only option would be to do it myself. I believe in innovation - even if this involves falling flat on one’s face several times in a row.
I think you’re telling me that I’m right to assume there’s no point in contacting a professional graphic designer - as they will not be interested in the brief I could offer. I respect this - but am looking for alternatives to giving up.
I am under no illusion that design is easy - and I recognise that… by rejecting typical approaches - and imposing dramatic additional constraints… that this only makes it more difficult to generate a result. I am, however, aware that extreme constraints can often provoke distinctive designs that have qualities that could not be achieved otherwise.
A misunderstanding remains. I have no intention of competing with products like Adobe Illustrator. I am not intending to write software that implements a tool to be used for graphic design. My idea is that a logo design IS nothing more than a program to draw a logo. I want to explore the idea that logos can be implemented as programs… where their visual appearance is a direct consequence of the program structure. Just as good logos are difficult to design, so too are good programs. As programs and logos are both about creativity and structure - I think there will be resonances between these two domains.
A misunderstanding. If I can write a program - it’ll draw me a logo. The logo will stand or fall depending upon whether it is perceived in the intended way… there’s only one way to test that.
I continue to think that there must be good books exploring rules of thumb for logo design… despite me not already knowing of any. I definitely intend to “think outside the box” - and see where it takes me.
I suspect you could do that, but it won’t be the ideal logo for the job. However, you don’t seem willing to listen to the professional designers whose views you solicited.
I would love for you to prove me wrong.
If it were that easy, I could have skipped my undergrad and graduate studies in design, in addition to all those low-paying internships. However, since you seem intent on moving forward, check out David Airey’s book titled Logo Design Love and his new one, Identity Designed: The Process. They’re quite good, but somewhat akin to learning to play and write music for the piano by reading a book, while skipping the thousands of hours of practice. They’re starting points, though.
If it could generate - say - 20 designs to spark an idea for me to then go on to develop, to suit the clients needs, then maybe. But I can already do that with google images.
In addition, a logo is not one thing. You need variations for different uses. Two full colour ones in CMYK and RGB for print and web use. A black and grey one for NCR duplicates. A mono black one for low cost printing. A white one for use on coloured backgrounds.
Each of these needs to be prepared in a different shape. A Square one with the icon above the company name. A long one with the icon to the left of the company name. The Icon on its own for social media and phone apps.
In addition, each of these will need a vector version and a jpeg version for use in Excel, Word, etc.
That’s 30 different files for one logo. There may be more depending on the client’s specific requirements.
As others have made clear, that completely misses the point of what a log is as part of a cohesive brand identity. It is a very one-dimensional viewpoint.
I’d love to prove you wrong too - only time will tell.
An advantage I have over professionals is that I am the client… whereas professionals usually need to accept direction from clients that are not themselves.
Many thanks for the recommendations - I’ve added them to my (ballooning) reading list.
I realise that I’ve ruffled some feathers by arrogantly assuming I might be able to achieve something on a par with a professional - without having dedicated my entire life, so far, to developing this skill. I don’t think I should be considered a threat to pros. My project (for which I’m the only stakeholder that actually matters - at this stage, at least) does not look like a bread-and-butter graphic design challenge… though there is some overlap. I’m not opposed to paying fees to access talent… but I am of the opinion that I need to understand what I want to commission. A great way to gain insight is by attempting to do something comparable - and learn from the challenge.
That’s a very easy question to answer. All those attempts are intended to be a single program to generate a wide range of supposedly bespoke logos. What I want to write are programs that generate a single logo… I want to implement logos whose representations have very particular properties.
I am interested in logos with small definitions… i.e. logos with constrained “Kolmogorov complexity” (This is defined in Wikipedia… apparently I’m not permitted to post links.) I don’t want an answer from a solely computational perspective - and I don’t want an answer from a solely artistic perspective. I’m interested to discover interesting cases that strike a balance between the two.
The deliverable will be logos with very small definitions (as programs) where I find the appearance of the render compelling and see beauty in the definition when considered as a program - itself a work of art.
I don’t have any other client to whom I need to pander. I am not interested in designing a logo for a cafe… that’s the sort of work I’d leave to professionals.
If I understand you to be saying that you want to create a program that reduces the file size of vector graphics, I wish you the best. It’s a noble effort.
And it seems like the program will be designed to create logos that appeal to your own aesthetics, and you don’t need to consider the input of clients or end users. That certainly makes the task much easier.
The only distinction I’d make is that I’m not intending to start from a vector graphics representation of a logo - then try to compress it, to make the representation smaller. I want to write a small program that creates “interesting” vector graphics output… and, for me, the output will be interesting if I think it could be a logo for something… I’m happy to pick the thing it’s a logo for after I have the output from the program.
