Looking to establish a career for yourself in the challenging world of logo design? There’s a list of must-have tools that no budding logo designer can do without. Thankfully, many modern day households already contain most of these items anyway, so it’s not necessary to break the bank when you’re just starting out.
Tablets such as Wacoms are great for illustrative purposes, but even in an age that is so technocentric, there is no substitute for the tried and trusted pen or pencil. If you prefer pencils over pens, be sure to buy a mechanical one, as they eliminate the need to sharpen them.
Unless you intend to scribble your concept designs onto your bedroom walls, you’re going to need some paper with which to use newly acquired pens and mechanical pencils. Whilst all finishing touches to your marvellous new logos will be made on your computer, every groundbreaking design is born on paper.
Sketchbooks come in all different shapes and sizes and each serve their own purpose. Large sketchbooks are great for when you have the luxury of working in your room or in your office, while smaller ones are ideal to take with you in your travels. As designers, we know that a flash of inspiration can occur at any time, so it’s essential that we are able capture it on our sketchpads.
Logo designs may spawn from primitive tools, but they require less-primitive ones to be of any value in the modern world. Logo design isn’t particularly taxing on a computer’s hardware and doesn’t require a state-of-the-art system to perform comfortably. Any average computer will be adequate.
For anyone working in the digital design industry, screen size is very important. I’ve been using a large, high resolution monitor for a number of years now and simply cannot work with smaller screens. Most desktop monitors now start at around 24 inches, so that is the smallest that you should be aiming for.
Adobe Illustrator is to vector graphics what Photoshop is to raster graphics. Illustrator offers the most complete, feature-rich list of editing tools for logo designers. It can be quite pricey, but if you can afford it, get it without a second thought.
If you can’t afford to buy Illustrator just yet, consider using any number of the free options that are currently available.
There are many remarkable books devoted to the subject of logo design. Learn from the masters.