What is more useful for a logo graphic designer- learning calligraphy or sketching (objects. landscape, humans etc) to generate ideas?
I think you need to define âLogo designer.â Because, except in the small, low-end sphere of crowdsourcing, a designer who designs logos does far more than draw pretty pictures from sketches.
The generation of ideas should come from talking to the end client then researching and analyzing their market demographic and competition. The âtoolsâ like calligraphy or sketching are secondary to that.
As to which is better to learn? Learn both. There is no âbetterâ given the choice. Why would you need to draw landscapes for logo design? You want to be distilling down the idea of a logo to its most simplistic form in a manner that will work for the entire branding campaign of the company you are doing work for. While landscapes as art and practice will give you practice in the ideas of perspective and scale, the complexity involved in a full landscape is beyond what youâll need to sketch ideas.
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I am afraid, your question exposes your lack of knowledge of the field. The only real way to rectify that is to get an education â a proper one at a proper university. As PrintDriver says it is not just about âprettyâ. It is about communicating core values, emotive associations, directing messages to intended audiences. It has become, in recent years, the playground of amateurs who think it is easy to make sweet little logos and sell them on line. That is like wishing to become a doctor and buying a first aid kit. Never going to do it.
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Canât sketch or draw or do calligraphy⊠but somehow⊠Iâve had okay success in this field.
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I wouldnât assume the OP has no education.
Just maybe a wrong definition of Brand Design as âLogo Designâ
Sketching is meant to be quick. Get all the ideas out, especially the bad ones. Get past those and sketch some more. Like Smurf said, no intense skills are needed. Where the skills come in handy, especially art skills, are with perspective and hierarchy theory. As long as you understand the theory and can implement it in your final pieces, mad art skillz in the hand-drawing arenât a requirement.
I do believe though that a graphic designer should be able to draw, at least to some modest extent.
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Not needed.
25 years and going strong.
Had to look up a tutorial on how to draw an ice cube in Illustrator the other day - it was for something here too just for fun.
I donât normally do any illustration work - gotten lazy with stock images I guess.
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People: We seem to have forgotten the âBikabloâ method.
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Good logos are simple and easy to recognize:
It has nothing to do with being privileged.
There are plenty of people out their with no formal education in what they do for a living and make millions and millions of dollars every year.
If youâre good at something you will succeed.
I worked with a guy before that was able to recreate photos by tapping his pen on the paper and creating dots over and over and over again and get the photo recreated with dots using just his skills.
You donât need a formal education. But you do need to recognise that unless you are exceptionally talented that a formal education can be dismissed as necessary - then you have to realise you are in world filled with consummate professionals with a good educational background that will have a leg-up on you no matter how good you are or claim to be.
Itâs getting increasingly competitive in this world - and the ones with the certificates beside their name are the ones being considered for the roles.
Sure. Itâs a wondering towards Caligraphy vs sketching and whether you should go to college or start working on the computer straightaway. Then I wondered if there was a way to encompass everything, so I drew an umbrella as that seemed to fit, then I had a thought (lightbulb), what about TARGETS! Then the sun came out here and I thought about ice-cream and the beach, but realised it was too cold and went to get a hot beverage. I heard a bus go by and thought maybe the exhaust of the bus could be thought bubbles. And then I figured I better throw some business attire in there. I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection and wondered if a wizard hat would look good on me. On my desk is a pair of scissors, my watch, my mouse, and I donât have a cat but cannot draw a dog.
In essence - itâs completely a joke and doesnât mean anything.
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Sorry to be such a fool and posting silly things.
I know youâre serious about this - but thereâs really not a lot to add.
A formal education will do you wonders.
If you canât go that route - then consider doing some courses somewhere - whether itâs online with LinkedIn Learning or with Udemy or somewhere.
If you want to make it in this business then you have to know what youâre doing - and you canât get that from youtube videos.
My main bear-bug with youtube videos - or anything posted by anyone that is not an accredited trainer etc is that they are usually making huge mistakes.
Iâve seen so many YouTubers claim to know how to do it all but their tutorials are riddled with errors and bad advice.
You can learn a lot from posting on these forums.
Weâre an odd bunch, but weâre honest, and we can help you. But youâll need to be willing to take it on the chin and build yourself up.
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That explains why I was looking up YouTube for âBrain Transplant Surgeryâ.
I think the ability to draw and sketch is helpful with almost any kind of graphic design. I wouldnât say itâs essential, but it helps in at least a couple of ways.
First, sketching out ideas (especially for logos) can be helpful for quickly getting ideas down on paper and being able to quickly alter and experiment with those ideas without the mechanical aspects of a computer drawing application getting in the way.
Second, the ability to draw requires the ability to see whatâs actually there. When drawing a cat, for example, thinking in terms of symbols that represent a head, legs, body, tail, etc., is counterproductive. Instead, itâs helpful to think of the cat as an arrangement of positive and negative shapes, plains, curves, shades, edges, textures, etc. Even many artists who specialize in cartoon-like drawings are skilled at seeing whatâs there before reducing those elements to the symbolic essentials that suggest a cat.
The practiced ability to see, mentally rearrange, think abstractly, and translate also comes in handy for graphic design. Drawing ability isnât equivalent to design ability, but the parallel mental skills that go into one translate quite nicely to the other.
Again, I donât think the ability to draw is essential in graphic design (including logo design), but itâs a valuable tool to have in the toolbox.
As for calligraphy, Iâm not too sure thatâs important for logo design unless youâre designing calligraphic logos. Mastering the use of typography would be more helpful.
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Hello, new here but canât resist this kind of good old topic 
And sorry Iâm not english so my words might be weird, Iâll post a short presentation later.
Anyway Iâm a graphic designer for 12 years but began to draw as a kid so I obviously agree, and I think whatâs most usefull for âthe eyesâ, conception, typesetting, complex relationships between forms and understanding graphic design principles is to learn to draw letters and fonts, even if not âprofessionnalyâ, but with a pen before the pc.
Iâm biased but I see it as the true fondamentals at least for logo design, the other part being the culture & curiosity for the field.
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Iâve known amazing graphic designers who work in illustration that canât design a poster or a book for that matter.
If you can draw well I can see the advantages.
I get by with what little skills I have in drawing. But I wouldnât touch an illustrations job.
Iâm quite handy with magazine, book, page layout, etc, something I see many struggle with.
I do sketch ideas and trained in college to hand draw page layout, even drawing the type by hand to scale using a pica rule.
I never fell into a more drawing role
After college I was a prepress operator for 5 years, a far cry from design work. After that I did graphic design for about 10 years, but this was book publishing, magazines, posters etc.
I think the journey dictates where you end up.
If someone had hired me as a sketch artist or other illustrator like skills perhaps Iâd have gone that way
As it happens I just never landed roles that had heavy requirements for drawing of illustrating.
But I had basic knowledge and maybe with practice couldâve made it.
Who knows.
Iâm definitely more technical than designer. But I like page layout and thatâs what I focused on.
As I said I know brilliant designers who canât layout a book. And I know brilliant designers who canât design a logo.
Should you have some knowledge, yes.
But know your strengths and outsource if you have to.
And again, Just-B hit the nail right on the head. Soak in every word that he said. There are other good answers on this post as well.
As for me, my career began long before computers came about. Nevertheless, when computers did come around, with apps like Adobe CS, I still would hand draw most of my logo designs before I ever went to my computer. The reason is simple. To get a really good logo design sometimes requires 10, 20, even up to 50 designs before something clicks and the magic happens. That would take forever to do each design idea on a computer. Most of my hand drawn designs went into the trashcan. But when the magic happens, you know it ! Thatâs when you can take the time to really finish it up on illustrator.
I also had very little education as far as design goes. That is because when I was young, I first went to an advertising arts school but only stay one year before it finally hit me that to be a great designer I had to have a broader education because the best ideas come from a multitude of thoughts and images from many different disciplines. Typography. Illustration. English. History. Even mathematics and geometry. Thatâs why I eventually went to the University of Kentucky to get my education. But even there, they thought nothing of logo design or even great commercial design for that matter.
So do you need a great education in design to be a good designer? No. But it wouldâve been a heck of a lot easier if I had had someone or some classes to teach me the basics, which even the universities back in the day did not have.
I think my biggest advantage was that I understood the importance of type in typography. Itâs also extremely important to realize that what you create in a logo design is going to be best when you totally understand your client, their business, their target audience, and the benefits their product or services provide those potential customers.
I wish you the best of success in your efforts. And remember that one of the most important characteristics that you can have is to have a teachable heart.
I think the answers here are true to all life goals.
If you want to be a professional soccer player - you usually have an inherited skill that transcends to your goals. I personally know 5 people who went on to be professional soccer players, and at 13/14 years of age they were streaks ahead of anyone else on their team. At 15/16 they were signed up to professional soccer teams in England.
They had the same training, the same level, as everyone else in their amateur sides that played on the same field.
Yet, they were better. How, they just were. They had the skill and the desire to make it.
Out of the 5 that went to England to pursue their dreams, only 1 of them have made it successfully at the top level.
The point is - out of 10âs of 1,000âs of kids that want to pursue a professional career in soccer - only usually 1 or 2 make it to the top top level, the rest trickle down to the lower tiers.
Itâs not that they are terrible, they are just not good enough. They donât have it to make it at the top.
But they all get the same top level training and facilities.
So what gives?
People usually tend to want to succeed - and you donât have to be the most talented player on the pitch.
Take for example Ronaldinho - who was arguably the most skilful player with a ball at his feet. And then take the Irish man Roy Keane - who was not the most skilful with a ball.
You donât need to know who these are - if you donât follow soccer you probably wonât.
But Ronaldinho said the best player he ever played against was Roy Keane. Of all the players in the world.
Ronaldinho undid himself, he would go to training at Barcelona and not participate, didnât train, and eventually ended up going from most celebrated player on the pitch to eventually just being another player.
Roy Keane on the other hand, one of the most successful sportsmen to come out of Ireland, made it in England at the top team in the World that is Man Utd, the first name on the sheet every day for a match.
Why did Roy Keane, who admitted himself, who wasnât the most skilful player on the pitch. He said it himself, even when he was winning he wasnât happy. He had to work three times harder than everyone else on that pitch to make up in the skill gap.
I started out saying that itâs true for every profession - and I think it is.
You have some people who are outlandishly talented - but if they stop training they do languish. And you have people who are not that talented but they work their socks off and really try - because they want it so badly.
Look at Golf - thereâs apprenticeships in Golf. Not all apprentices go on to the Pro Tours, and a lot end up being semi-pro or amateur golfers - perhaps giving golf lessons.
Thereâs a (soccer player) footballer at Liverpool, Sadio ManĂ©, who is from a small village in Senegal. He ran away from home at 14 to pursue a career in football. He was talented in the village he grew up in, but it was a poor town with no facilities. Yet, he was a stand out talent who wanted to pursue (soccer) football.
He ran away from home, was brought back by his family, only to leave again.
He pursued his dream of playing - and achieved it - and itâs down to pure desire.
If you want it you will go and get it.
Look at tennis - Rafa Nadal, Djockovic, Federer, etc.
These guys have made over $100,000,000 in prize money - yet they are in the finals of nearly every single tournament.
Theyâre not doing it because they need the money - they want the win. Winning is more important than money for them. They truly do not need to compete and put their body through 5 hour matches every 2nd week. But they do it - why, because they love it.
There are other tennis players who admitted that they got to the tournament got knocked out in the the qualifying rounds - took the cheque and added it to their millions.
These guys are not getting to finals, they take a pay cheque for mediocre performances. They could potentially go on to win everything, but they just are not arsed.
All the talent in the world - and they would rather go home early and take the pay cheque of lesser amount, and they are happy with that.
My point here is that you can make it. Thereâs no excuse.
Youâre from a poor part of the world - not an excuse.
Thereâs no college nearby - not an excuse.
You canât afford to go to college - not an excuse
Itâs too hard - not an excuse
You donât have to be the most talented.
Most winning comes from desire rather than need.
If youâre working for money then youâre in the wrong mindset. Money comes second.
If you love what you do you will never work a day in your life and you will make money as a result of what you love to do.
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