How do I design a logo?
/Auroch Digital has a brand new logo! We’re excited to unveil it but also wanted to take the opportunity to talk you through the process of designing it. We hope that revealing the thought process will help other indie studios, streamers, and small businesses to create or redesign their logo. It’s increasingly important to understand how a logo can help you reach the right audiences and spread the message that fits you.
These are the various colour combinations, stackings, and versions of our old Auroch digital logo
Where do you start?
There are lots of reasons to design or redesign your logo and knowing your reason is very important. Perhaps what represents your brand has changed recently? Maybe you’ve decided to shift audiences or genres? Or you’re using a legacy logo that no longer fits your company - that was us.
Logos are so important when it comes to representation of branding. The colours, the font, the imagery, all represent your brand and each aspect says something about you. But they also need to work together harmoniously. There were a few steps to get the balance right with our rebranding and we’re very happy with the final look
Why Auroch Digital is called Auroch Digital
We were named by our CEO Tomas Rawlings. The original idea that Tomas had was to create a contrast that would draw the player in with a mix of the known and unknown. That’s where the two components of our name come in.
“At the time I was reading a lot about prehistory and the amazing cave art, featuring Aurochs,” Tomas says. “I liked the idea that the humble cow, we all know well as a domesticated animal, has ancestors that were wild and unknown by many of us today. So by combining that with the word digital I also created another contrast - ancient and modern. Then I dropped the s from Aurochs, as it became our own version of the word, so Auroch Digital.”
Choose a designer
Firstly, you’ll need to choose a designer. Yes, a designer. You might think you can redesign your logo by yourself, but trust us, a designer will do a much better job. If you haven’t been trained or been working as a designer for years then you won’t have the necessary understanding and skills to give your logo the chance to be at its best.
You’ll want to find a designer that works in a style that suits your brand. Don’t go to an artist who doesn’t work in the style you like. A simple and obvious point but it’s probably the most important. If you try to get a designer to do a style they’re not practised in then you probably won’t like what they give you. This mistake becomes costly if you need to hire that designer for longer, or find another one. It’s not just a financial consideration either - you could get a bad reputation among certain designers.
We decided to work with Sarah (@eirawave) who we’ve worked with previously, they are a graphic designer, as well as an illustrator. For a logo designer, typography and iconography skills are the most important thing to consider, but Sarah's illustration work also gave a good indication that they would be able to produce the kind of style we wanted. We knew their work well, we liked their artstyle, and especially respected the way they worked with other clients. We also felt they understood us as a studio and would create a logo that represents us.
What do you want your logo to say about you?
Your logo inevitably gets across the personality of your brand. It’s often going to be the first contact people have with you so you want to make the right impression. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Figuring this out and communicating it to the designer is your biggest contribution beyond feedback on each iteration of the logo.
When designing a logo and thinking about your brand consistency is key
So what do you tell your designer? For us, we ensured that we told Sarah that Auroch Digital is all about making fun and accessible games that connect the real world with the digital. The key words are “fun” and “accessible,” the latter of which we can interpret as “friendly”. Sarah’s art style falls in line with these ideas and is a big part of why we chose them. We knew that they would fulfil this part without much input.
Getting into the specifics, we wanted to avoid classic video game iconography. That’s because, as a company, we make games across different genres and also do varied work both inside and outside of the games sector. We needed a logo that didn’t box us in to a particular game genre, or even video games as a whole.
We also told Sarah that Aurochs, the prehistoric cow, is crucial to our identity as it represents an idea - as Tomas talked about. That’s why we wanted to have an Aurochs face as the main icon of our logo. It also makes it easy for people to connect the name of the company to the logo.
One realisation we had when thinking about the branding is that we more often than not call ourselves “Auroch” over “Auroch Digital''. This is why we decided to have the word “Digital” a lot less prominent in the branding going forward.
For the colours, we decided to stick with the Auroch orange we’ve been using for years. This helps to maintain consistency and it means that people will still be able to recognise us after the redesign as they associate that colour with our brand already.
Some of our recent titles: Mars Horizon, The Colonists Console Edition, Dark Future: Blood Red States, and Megaquarium Console Edition
Where will the logo be used?
Your logo needs to be versatile. Will it work on a website? Social media? Magazines? Videos? You need to plan for all of these possibilities during the design process which means getting different sizes of the logo.
When talking about logos in terms of versatility you need to think both in terms of colour and “stacking”. For example, we are planning to use the new logo on socials (square/circle version), game credits (a horizontal version), video game credits, partner websites (a stacked version), and our own newsletter and website to name a few.
Make sure you have a version of your logo that works in monochrome as well as colour. You never know where you might end up needing to use it. A designer can also help you think of all these places your logo might turn up - another advantage of hiring someone who thinks about logos and branding full-time.
Figure out the best way to work with your designer
These were the Auroch Digital marketing teams attemps at designing our logo. any budget you can invest in a professionally designed logo will be worth it
Every designer works differently. They all need to work with you but some prefer to have constant feedback from you whereas others will want a lot more space (the majority will want some distance, probably).
Make sure to have a good chat with your designer to not only get across everything you want from them, but also to work out their preferred way to work. Find out what kinds of deadlines work for them, how best to contact them, and if there’s anything else you can do to help them - even if it’s to leave them alone as they work.
The designer will know how you can get the best from them. None of this means that you shouldn’t give any suggestions along the way. In fact, we even sent Sarah some terribly drawn and photoshopped ideas that we were thinking could work (pictured). Turns out, they were nowhere near what we actually wanted, and Sarah designed our logo so much better.
Ultimately, trust your designer and they will create something awesome for you.
we went through a lot of ideas and iterations with our designer. sarah provided us loasd of options and we refined it based on feedback each time. you can see how the ideas evolved and developed but were always true to our original branding goals
Roll out your new logo and make sure it is consistent!
No squashed cows for us thanks - This is from the logo useage guidelines our designer Sarah made for us
Once you’ve got your logo you’ll want to make a plan to reveal it to the world and to roll it out in all the necessary places. It’s not best to stagger it - get your logo consistent across all your branding at the same time. And let people know that you’ve had a redesign so they don’t see your new logo and think it’s someone else.
For us Sarah put together a logo usage document which we will use internally and we can send to external partners. This is an incredibly important part of the logo process as it tells people in a concise and easy to understand way, how the logo should be used - what colours, layouts, and some dos and don’ts. You want your logo to be used consistently wherever it shows up.
The Final Result
With all that said, we can now reveal our amazing new logo with our awesome Aurochs taking centre stage.
We are really happy with the work Sarah did on this for us. We feel it really shows what we are about, it is memorable, and it will look brilliant in all the different places we need it to represent us. Look out for our new logo in our games and across our pages!