Course description

A good logo does a quiet, practical job. It tells people the van, the sign and the label belong to you, it looks different from the business down the road, and it still works at 25 mm on a rubber stamp and at 2 metres over a door. A logo made from a template, a stock icon and a favourite font rarely manages all of that. This course shows you how to design one that does, step by step, without needing to be good at drawing.

It's a full course, not a quick tour. There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, and every lesson ends with a practical task for your own logo. You follow Desislava, a newly self-employed upholsterer opening a workshop in Kidderminster, from her first false start with a template to her van, sign and woven labels on opening day: researching customers and competitors, sketching 64 thumbnails, simplifying an over-detailed first version, choosing a typeface with the right licence, fixing a colour that failed contrast, applying for a UK trade mark and sending the right files to her sign maker. Every section has a worksheet, model answers, a cheat sheet and practice files, including a brief template, sketch grids, scoring and contrast spreadsheets, practice drawings to open in your vector program and a brand guidelines template.

What you'll learn

• Getting started: the difference between a brand, a visual identity and a logo, five qualities of a logo that works, the main kinds of logo and the process from brief to launch.
• Brand foundations: customer conversations, a visual audit of competitors, three brand words turned into design directions, a one-page brief and a mood board that doesn't copy anyone.
• Ideas and sketching: word lists, mind maps, timed thumbnail sessions, symbols and negative space, scoring a shortlist fairly and developing one concept.
• Building the logo: from sketch to clean vector artwork, construction with a unit system, optical adjustments, line weights and corners, and simplifying until it works small.
• Typography: type families, choosing a typeface with your own name, kerning and tracking by eye, putting the symbol and words together, and font licences.
• Colour: designing in black first, building a small palette with jobs, hex, RGB and CMYK codes, and checking contrast.
• Making it work everywhere: scale checks, logo versions, clear space and minimum sizes, signs, vans, embroidery, stamps and labels, and real-world checks.
• Protecting your logo: copyright and commissioned work, what to agree with a designer, UK trade mark basics, searching the register, choosing classes and applying.
• Feedback, files and guidelines: three questions that beat "do you like it?", presenting against the brief, file formats and a complete file set, short brand guidelines and designing for other people.

Who it's for

New business owners who want to design their own logo or brief a designer well, and beginner designers taking on their first logo work. You don't need any design experience. The course is tool-agnostic: it works with any vector drawing program, including free ones, and with paper and pencil for the early stages. It doesn't teach one program's menus in depth; it teaches the thinking and checks that make a logo work. The legal lessons give general information about UK copyright and trade marks, not legal advice. It ends with a final project: a complete identity for a fictional swimming school, or for your own business, from brief to file set, guidelines and launch plan.

What will I learn?

• Explain the difference between a brand, a visual identity and a logo, and judge any logo on five practical qualities
• Research customers and competitors, choose three brand words and write a one-page logo design brief
• Generate ideas with word lists and thumbnails, then score a shortlist fairly and develop one concept
• Build clean vector artwork from simple shapes, with a unit system, optical adjustments and sensible simplification
• Choose, space and license type for a wordmark, and lock the symbol and words together with clear rules
• Design in black first, build a small colour palette with recorded codes and check contrast
• Create the versions, clear space and minimum sizes a logo needs for signs, vans, embroidery, stamps and screens
• Understand copyright in commissioned work, font licences and UK trade mark basics: searching, classes and applying
• Get useful feedback, export a complete file set, write short brand guidelines and plan a launch

Frequently asked questions