Over the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to recreate several logos for clients. I thought I would share the basic process I use to do it.
What The Font Is It?
The first thing I do is identify any fonts used in the logo. These days, there are thousands of fonts out there. Many of them are so similar it’s hard to tell them apart. Especially when the only difference is something like a slight angle on the serif. Luckily, there are a handful of very helpful websites that assist in identifying fonts. A few of the website I have used are:
These sites use 2 different methods to determine a font. One method takes you through a series of questions asking you to describe the font. At the end of the series a number of fonts are displayed that may (or may not) be your font. I have used this method before but only when the following automated way reaps no rewards.
The second method is an automated method. You are asked to upload an image of the font you are trying to identify. The software crunches the image and, with your help, identifies the letters in the image you uploaded, then searches for similar (or the same) fonts. This method is pretty good if you have a relatively clear image containing font letters.
This logo I had to recreate from a photo of a baseball cap that had the logo embroidered on the hat! The kicker was that the photo didn’t give an entirely clear view of the logo. Thus, I had to use the Question Method from above.
This logo, on the other hand, I had a clean, digital copy to use. The person who designed the logo for the client was out of the country I needed to do work the required knowing the fonts. For both of the fonts I could use the automated method with little difficulty.
Recreating Imagery
After identifying fonts, the fun part is recreating any images in the logo. This can be done in a number of ways depending on the complexity of the design. (It is worth stating that most of the best logos are excruciatingly simple. The more clutter, gradients, colors, or words, the less memorable a logo is).
One method I use is to import the original logo into my graphics manipulation program, The Gimp. I decrease the opacity of the original logo and basically trace the shapes. Filling in whatever colors or textures are called for later.
This logo for a small pool company was fairly simple. Having the phone number as part of the logo cluttered up the imagery. Plus, the original font was more reminiscent of the Megadeth logo circa 1987. So, I upgraded that to a slightly more refined font. Basically, all the shapes were recreated with a bezier tool in The Gimp and filled in.
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