logos have to be vector base?

[riceface]

do logos need to be vector? I know its clean, crisp, and can can scale to any size with out loosing quality,

but i find it limited in what i want it to do... so can i just use photoshop or is that against the graphic design rules.. since it will look ugly blown up to an enormous size..

p.s. i realize this is a site full of illustrators but i'd thought i'd axe anyway

[HunterKiller_]

As an industry standard, yes, the majority of graphic design work is required to be vector.

[Mirana]

A good logo is one that is simple and easily read. Vectors should always be used. Besides, they aren't as limiting as you might think....do a search for vector art.

[tomwaits4noman]

www.pixel2life.com look for illustrator tutorials

[Rist]

Some really amazingly detailed vector art is out there. I believe that using pixels for something that needs to be blown up and shrank countless times really does need to be done with math (vector).

This is done with vectors:

http://www.boingboing.net/vectorPicture%201-17.jpg

this too:

http://www.vectorvault.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/wayne-forest-1-vectorvault.jpg

[kab]

I´d say that all logos don´t have to be vector based, but I´ll also say that pretty much all GOOD logos could be reproduced in Illustrator with no problems. If your client has a logo that you feel is to complicated to put into vector form, that´s a sign that it is far too complicated as it is. There are bound to be logos out there that are in that category that still serve their purpose, but that doesn´t make them good, that just means that they are recognised.

If you are going to make a new logo however, it would be very sensible to make it vector based, because you never know what kind of usage you will need to get out of your logo in 10 years. As a designer your goal should be to make your client happy, and if he suddenly makes it big and he needs your logo on a 100ft billboard in 5 years, he shouldn´t have to spend money on getting his logo upscaled, he should just ship his files of to the guy making the billboard and start counting money. :)

Also, if you as a designer don´t know your way around Illustrator or a similar vector-program, you´ll have a really hard time finding work, and having those skills in your arsenal will only broaden your work as an illustrator or artist aswell. :)

[Riiroi]

This is a little off topic, but i was wondering....
are game posters/logos like those from Guildwars, Warcraft and Halo done in vector or are they painted in photoshop.
Im thinking the posters are done in photoshop but am not too sure about logos though.

Thanks.

[Rist]

The Halo one looks to have been made in illustrator. I am guessing they have really HIGH resolution texture for the blue watery look, and then just apply it as a tile when the vector text has been blown up. Think about what the logo has to go through with HALO 3; it has had billboards, trailers, promo material. All that abuse suggests it is either vector based in some way or the image is a VERY HIGH resolution and then they just reduce the size when needed.

I think games a much different because most of their promotional material is small (except for the big releases), so they have more options available.

So really it depends what the logo is going to be used for.

[DigitallyDumbfounded]

Rist: Wow!! I didn't know that was possible with vectors.

Well, I've been doing some freelance logo design in the last year and you can technically do it in PS... although with smart objects, shapes and blending options/layer styles. Wich is pretty much as vector as you can go in Ps. ;P
But smart objects are really nice in fact.

[kab]

Much of the challenge in graphic design is creating a profile that looks good both at small and very large scales. Not so many details that they get lost in a magazine ad, not so few that your work becomes visually boring when put on billboards if needed. While doing ad-campaigns, like for a game or a new product, you typically know exactly what you need in terms of sizes and functionality and you as the designer have alot of control. Logo assignments however are much harder, as a logo typically has a very long life, in which the needs can change drastically. Suddenly it needs to be able to work in 3D for example.

[kingshaj]

if a logo is too complex to produce in a vector format, it is almost always a bad logo

bare in mind what the GOAL of the logo is. how small will its most common iteration be?
envelopes business cards? 1/2 inch?

another good reason to use a vector format is the client.
that is to say, they may not be as savvy about resizing and may be butchering this in all manor of MS office iterations etc.

in short you want to design something that can withstand that, and still look crisp
this is primarily achieved in the design itself. make it too simple..trust me .
marketing 101

[kab]

Another thing is the ease of colour management. It´s much easier to get this right in Illustrator/indesign. A client pretty much always wants his logo to have a consistant colour on signs, stationary, magazine ads etc. requiring you to easily embed spot-colours in your logos. A spot-colour is a colour that is printed directly by an offset-press on a seperate layer from other colours, so that it remains constant even if the shop has a CMYK-profile that differs from the one you are used to... If you use a regular process cmyk-colour in a logo and print it at two different locations it is VERY likely you´ll get two wildly differing colours. :) This is quite easily done in Illustrator for example, while I´m not sure if it´s even possible in Photoshop, since PS is not really made for that kind of work.

[Rist]

Illustrator was built for this kind of usage, not sure why you would use anything else really...

[kab]

All in all... Yes, use vectors :)

[riceface]

well i was wondering if i can just work in super high resolution in photoshop and get away with it.

i mean look at photos or giant posters of digital paintings. they arent vector. up to a certian resolution i think it can do most things. cuz if its meant to be blown up that big then were not ment to see it up close anyway.

[kab]

Well, you can, but it really depends on what you are doing, if you are making a one-off logo and your client says it is okay to give him a raster-file, then ok. If you are thinking of designing logos on a regular basis, then you might aswell learn a vector program sooner rather than later, because you WILL have to. :)

I can´t think of a single reason why a client who has any clue would ask for a logo in anything other than vector. :)

[J Wilson]

well i was wondering if i can just work in super high resolution in photoshop and get away with it.

i mean look at photos or giant posters of digital paintings. they arent vector. up to a certian resolution i think it can do most things. cuz if its meant to be blown up that big then were not ment to see it up close anyway.

You can get away with it. You can get away with a lot of things. If you know pretty much exactly how the art will be used, and it is likely to not get used in wildly different ways, sure you can use Photoshop. A vector based logo is more professional in most cases, but it depends on the client's needs. Expect though that the client may change his mind, or ask for more later. If you are doing a menu, they may later realize they want the logo on the sign over the building.

What I'd recommend if your concept seems to be better in Photoshop, is do the version in Photoshop, then make a simplified version in vector as well. I always give my clients at least 2 versions anyways, one in color, and one that is just black and white, because if they just convert it to greyscale it will usually look really bad. Give them one clean black and white version to go with the full version.

[kingshaj]

well i was wondering if i can just work in super high resolution in photoshop and get away with it.

i mean look at photos or giant posters of digital paintings. they aren't vector. up to a certain resolution i think it can do most things. cuz if its meant to be blown up that big then were not meant to see it up close anyway.

hell no

the most you could hope for is to "get away with it"
i could "get away with" creating it with a sharpie and a digi camera.
but it doesn't make it smart.

it sounds like you are searching for an excuse to use photoshop
play with illus for 30 min...you'l like it and in the long run your client will be better for it .






What I'd recommend if your concept seems to be better in Photoshop, is do the version in Photoshop, then make a simplified version in vector as well. I always give my clients at least 2 versions anyways, one in color, and one that is just black and white, because if they just convert it to greyscale it will usually look really bad. Give them one clean black and white version to go with the full version.

great point!. although after years of this
id recommend doing B/w and simplified versions first .
that way you arent making minimum wage by wasting hours on the woman's hair.

show us an example...it might help:)

[ShroudStar]

If it's a logo for a corporation, company, or organization, I'll learn Illustrator and vector it. You never know what they'll want to use it for later. I've already done logos for two churches and both of them were vectors. The way how I was taught, you give the client three sizes of the logo (large, medium, small) and a B&W or grayscale copy in case they need it in black-and-white.

So far, I've seen one of the logos used on a mug, a in-church booklet cover, and there has been talk of T-shirts in the future. Being a vector, I've been able to scale it bigger for the booklet, smaller for the mug, and if the T-shirts are needed, I can scale it even larger without loss of resolution.

In the end, vectors save you a lot of number crunching and headaches. Personally, I love them.