An introduction to flat logo design.

Benefits of flat logo design.

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Logos are all about communication with customers and brand recognition. “You need to communicate fast, and to do this your logo needs to be simple,” says designer George Bokhua. “The more information you have in the logo, the more time it takes to process, and communication becomes harder.” Enter flat logos. Take away dimensional depth, highlights, shadows, texture, and intricate details, and you’re left with a simpler shape that’s easy to understand in a split second and is thus ultimately more memorable.

Simple typography

Flat logos are almost always paired with a sans serif font. Elaborate fonts won’t help you achieve that effortlessly memorable and modern look you probably want out of a flat logo. Stick with a simple, crisp typeface and keep text to a minimum for the most impact.

Contrast and color

Flat logo designs skip over intricate details and depth and instead emphasize contrast. Without tools like gradients or texture, you can easily render contrasts with color so your shapes don’t bleed together.

Keep your color palette to one or two bold hues for a clean look. Remember that any logo will also have to look good in grayscale, so think first about how you can communicate your form through contrasts in black and white, then think about colors.

How to make a flat logo design.

Research

Great logos start not with a sketch, but with extensive research. Get to know the goods or service you want to promote inside out. If it’s client work, ask about the company’s history, mission, values, competition, and target audience. The more you know about the organization, the stronger your logo will be because you’ll be able to incorporate all the information you learned into the design.

Gather inspiration

Moodboards are a great way to conceptualize your logo, explore what’s out there, and help your client visualize the art direction. Search Behance to gather logo inspiration and design examples from other artists, and make a compilation of logos, color palettes, typography, and imagery that you might like to include in your own design.

Design

Make lots of fast iterations and don’t worry about perfection. “Start with a silhouette,” advises Bokhua. “You need a strong silhouette, then whatever goes inside the logo is secondary. Just like architecture, any iconic structure needs to be recognizable by its silhouette.”

Once you’ve sketched out a few concepts, pick a couple to dig into deeper. “I do most of my work in black and white,” says Bokhua. “Every first client presentation is shown in black and white. Color is a later addition.” Remove color from the equation until later in the process to keep you and your clients from being prematurely distracted by color, so you can focus on the design.

If you don’t want to start from scratch, get a head start with logo templates or use a free logo maker, great for designing on the fly or kick-starting your imagination.

Now that you hold the keys to a great flat logo, you’re ready to get to work. Even if you’re not sure that’s where you want to end up, “if you’re good at making flat logos, other logos will become easier to design as well,” says Bokhua. Have fun, experiment, and discover where the process takes you.