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David, responsible for the popular Logo Design Love blog as well as his own personal blog, is a brand identity designer who has worked with top brands globally.

When you finish reading this book, you hopefully will be well-prepared to go out and win your own clients and create your own iconic brand identities.

Who is it for?

The book is primarily for graphic designers. As David shares his experience of being a designer it would be mainly for beginner/intermediate range, but a good read for all.

There are a lot of things shared about dealing with clients and being self employed so I would recommend this to any creatives who freelance or deal with clients.

What’s in it?

• Lots of great examples of brand identities (and how the designers got to the finished product)
• Step by step advice on designing the perfect logo for your brand
• Dealing with clients
• Project managing a logo design project
• Pricing your service as a designer
• From pencil to PDF
• Experience from a self employed graphic designer

Verdict

Very inspiring book. I haven’t done any logo design in a while, after deciding to focus more on web stuff, but now I can’t wait to get stuck into a logo project, even if it is just for myself. The book is full of inspiration and ideas.

Also something that you get out of the book is tips on dealing with your clients and being a freelancer. David shares a wealth of knowledge, a lot of which I can relate to and a lot of which I can take advice from. If you’re new to freelancing, whether you’re a graphic designer, illustrator, web designer or developer, you will be able to learn from this.

Very glad I bought this book.

Pull quotes

The average American sees 16,000 advertisements, logos, and labels in a day

What you take away is just as important as what you keep

People often choose products based on their perceived value rather than their actual value

Color really is secondary to the shape and form of your design

Designers who advertise a list of predetermined prices for x amount of concepts with x rounds of revisions are attempting to commoditize a profession that by definition cannot be commoditized.

Paula Scher, “It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds.”

always give the client an estimate that is longer than the amount of time you’re guessing it will take

Some sound advice!

I’ve put together a showcase of my favourite illustrated characters along with some further links for inspiration.

Silverback App

Mail Chimp

Fatburgr

Cyclops

Old Loft

Branded 07

The Alamo Basement

Freelance Switch

Veerle

Ellis Lab

Project Vino

Ryan O’Rourke

Schneeballschl8

Candy Cult

Spinen

What’s your favourite?

Further reading

• 45 Excellent examples of using character illustrations in web design
• 20 Sites with beautiful character illustrations
• 30 Creative examples of illustrations in web design

A few tips for designing your ‘scape’

1. Get some stock photography

You can get lots of downloadable vector graphics and photos from iStockphoto.

2. Check out Flickr

Flickr has loads of Creative Commons photos available for use.

3. Take your own photos

Get out around your town/city and take a few photos of noticeable buildings.

4. Sketch your own ideas

Jot down your own hills and buildings on paper.

5. Finally, get tracing and cutting in Illustrator and Photoshop

Now you have your inspiration you can start tracing in illustrator and trying different Photoshop effects on your buildings to come up with the perfect amazing scape.

Check out the showcase below for inspiration from the best.

Showcase of cityscapes

1. Andy Sowards

2. Disability Heroes

3. Flayks

4. Gotta Get To FOWA

5. Carrot Creative

6. Sawyer Hollenshead

7. TJ Mapes

8. Bainbridge Studios

9. NY Moon

10. DrupalCon

Showcase of landscapes

11. The Mattinator

12. Kulturbanause

13. Hicks Design

14. Viget Inspire

15. Rissington Podcast

16. Adit Shukla

17. Vimeo

18. Koller Media

19. TwitterFone

20. Project Vino

Showcase of seascapes

21. Dizzain

22. Tomas Pojeta

23. We Are Not Freelancers

24. Frisk Design

25. David Torondel

26. Design Disease

27. Volll

28. Get Me Fast

29. Stylized Web

30. DivVoted

Further Reading

• Cityscapes group on Flickr
• Inspiring cityscapes
• Create spectacular concept art in Photoshop
• 55 vector landscapes