Just like your biography your logo is one of your main tools for promoting your band.
The logo of your band is one of the main impressions people get of your band. It's on your website, your MySpace, your biography, your merchandise, etc. A great logo gives people information about what kind of music a band plays or what a band stands for without them hearing a note.
It can be just your band name in a pretty font, but it really needs something to make it special. There's quite a few rules a logo must satisfy. It must be recognizable. It should be readable (unles you play in a death metal band). It should be scalable: you want it to look good on a button, on a t-shirt and maybe even on a banner or backdrop.
This article contains some useful resources for people that want to create their own band logo.
Getting some inspiration
First it's time to get some inspiration by studying the greats:
Top 10 Rock Band Logos shows some classic rock logos with background information. (See image above)
Another top list: Best Band Logos shows 25 great band logos.
Rock Band Logos - Brand Upon The Brain is a blog completely dedicated to band logos. More than 200 posts with each post about one logo. Like David Cotner, the writer of the blog, says "By the time you're done, you'll never want to see another skull, cow, or peace sign ever again."
Also try and collect some logos of bands that play similar music as your band. Ask yourself the following questions: do the logo and music of the bands fit together? Is there a common style between the logos?
Getting a great font
There's a enormous amount of free fonts available on the web, just google for free fonts and you'll find more sites with fonts than you'll ever need.
A lot of these fonts, though, are overused, cliché or just plain ugly. You could find the font you need, but you'll have to wade through loads of crap.
Luckily sites like Urban Fonts and dafont.com do have nice, modern fonts.
Smashing Magazine is a great website aimed at (web) designers. They post a lot of the newest and most beautiful fonts in their font category.
The real work: Designing it
There's a few simple things you can try. Play with the letter spacing, play with the letters placing, add one or more symbols, there are no limits.
Don't limit yourself to what you can to do NOW with your drawing tools: if you have a great idea, search the web for a tutorial explaining that idea. There's so many tutorials out there, there's bound to be one explaining just what you want to do.
Just like font sites, there's loads of sites with tutorials on creating cool logos. Again, Smashing Magazine is a great resource for Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials, just check the tutorials section.
Design a Logo - The Ultimate Guide is not specifically about band logos, but contains some really great ideas.
Resources for creating a great band logo
April 8th, 2008 | 20:52 in Band Promotion
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8 comments on “Resources for creating a great band logo”
David Rose
April 9th, 2008 | 14:42Great post Jimmy! Does anyone know of a good creative firm or person that could help a band design their logo on the cheap?
Jimmy Shelter
April 15th, 2008 | 21:55Not really, I'm always more of a DIY type of person.
I guess you could always search for design freelancer forums/websites.
I don't know if it's a good site but I found iFreelance.com with just a bit of googling.
Max Lowe
April 23rd, 2008 | 6:49Hey Jimmy,
Sorry I've been neglecting your posts lately. I've also been horrible at updating my blog regularly which I hate to be able to say.
I'm really digging your archives. You've got a lot of good posts worth a read through. I always enjoy checking back in when I get a chance.
As for Dave's comment, I can usually point people in the right direction when it comes to putting together logos and other promotional materials. Drop me a line at maxlowe.net and I'll do my best to put you in touch with someone that can complement your ideas with technical skills.
Keep up the great resources for the community, Jimmy. And, most personally, thanks for joining the conversation on my blog.
Musically Yours,
Max Lowe
http://maxlowe.net
Independent Music Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
RemBeatZ
May 14th, 2008 | 18:32We've just had a new logo created for us, we ran a competition for a new logo and then picked the best, we had so many great designs it was hard to pick one, you can see our new logo at http://www.rembeatz.co.uk
Utah Steve
December 25th, 2008 | 1:39Nice article. As you stated, the free font resources on the Web are great. I would probably use those resources to create a rough draft, then hire a pro to finish the job.
Serve The Song
March 19th, 2009 | 22:05Nice post...
I'm currently looking for a talented graphic designer to create an awesome logo for Serve The Song.
Anybody interested?
Dan
September 24th, 2009 | 21:14Very cool website!
Marleen
June 13th, 2013 | 13:00Bit late to comment on your post. But thanks to google everything keeps comming back. I have recently written a post myself about the importance of a good band logo (in Dutch). And I have to agree with you on.
I'm glad there a still bands who want to pay for a good logo.
So if you are looking for a band logo check my post or write me an e-mail. Thanks!
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