A good, simple logo goes a long way

What medium?

Software

How to

Tips & Advice

hidden for layout purposes

So, you have a name for your group, but what about a logo? Why would you want or need a logo?

1. A logo is, in short, a symbol or other design adopted by somebody to identify what they do or produce. Think the Nike “Swoosh” or McDonald’s “Golden Arches” – you see the symbol and you know immediately what the brand and products behind it are.
2. Consistent use of a good logo makes you look (more) professional, and people will be more inclined to take you seriously (and volunteer their time/money for your cause).

You really only need a simple text logo in a “pretty” font in order to start out. There is no need to us a software like Gimp even, provided you know how to install a font, and you are aware of what Google Fonts are, for example. If you are worried that you won’t be able to use the special font logo on a website, because it’s not a picture and not all browsers support all fonts, not to worry. Below, we’ll provide you with a “hack” for that.

1. Open a text editor or slide application of your choice. Refer to the “software” section in this section or in the copywriting chapters.
2. If you’re using a text editor like Word, make the margins of the page at the most 0.5″ all the way around. Change the orientation of the page from portrait to landscape.
3. Write down your name or your group’s name. If you’re using a slide application like PowerPoint, you’ll have to insert a text box to achieve this.
4. Change the font to something you like. That can be as simple-looking as Arial or Helvetica, or it can be more “fancy”, like the one we’re using, which is called “American Typewriter”.
5. Make the phrase as big as you want, but at the most as big as the page so it doesn’t bump to the next line.
6. Here are some examples:
7. Next, be sure to increase the zoom of what you see on your monitor. It should fill the screen.
   
8. Here is how we get this into a picture you can use for, say, a website. All you need to do is to either take a screenshot, or, on most modern Windows machines, you have a snipping tool at your disposal (since Windows 7 it has been included as a part of the OS). On a Mac, you’ll use Grab to achieve the same result. Full size, this logo is 1,500 pixels long.
   
9. You can make it as fancy as your software allows you to go. You can also choose different colors, of course, so instead of black print on a white background, you can make it green print on a yellow background. Whatever you want.