WaterPR Water News Archive
Back to WPR Water NewsCongratulations TEEA Winners!
Posted May 5, 2011WaterPR congratulates the winners of the 2011 Texas Environmental Excellence Awards presented by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. We were pleased to be able to attend the awards banquet in support of the Harlingen Irrigation District - it was a great evening! The full list of winners is below; visit the TEEA website for more information, including videos about each of the winning projects.
- Agriculture: Harlingen Irrigation District, Cameron County #1
- Civic/Community: Valley Proud Environmental Council, Harlingen
- Individual: David Baker, Wimberley
- Innovative Operations/Management: San Antonio Water System
- Pollution Prevention: U.S. Army, Fort Bliss Directorate of Public Works, El Paso
- Technical/Technology: Union Pacific Railroad
- Youth/Education: Fulton 4-5 Learning Center
- Water Conservation: North Texas Municipal Water District
- Gregg A. Cooke Memorial Award: Carole D. Baker, Austin
5 Design Principles of Logo Development
Posted April 27, 2011These design principles aren't mandatory for the creation of a successful logo design. However, thoughtful consideration of these concepts can help you design a logo that is relevant and easy to apply in marketing strategies.
1. A logo should be simple.
Your logo goes everywhere your business goes, so it needs to be versatile across a variety of formats. Logos can end up on websites, web ads, brochures, letterhead, business cards, etc. Different marketing mediums have different size, resolution, and formatting requirements. Simple logos save you time and money as you traverse from web to print, or other displays.
If you print your company brochures in black and white, colors will not be differentiated or visible if they are too similar in shade or color range. A logo with 7 different shades of pastel colors may print as 3 different greys and cause the design to lose details.
Another issue can arise if you purchase a web ad that is only 40 pixels tall. If you logo design has extensive detailing (too many lines), your logo could appear muddy or pixilated on the web ad.
2. Consider whether you logo should have a dynamic or static design.
Dynamic compositions are asymmetrical. They imply movement and activity and encourage the eyes to explore. Statics designs are highly symmetrical. They convey permanence and authority and appear to be at rest.
If designing a logo for a bank or financial institution, you may want your logo to convey stability, and use a static design composition. On the other hand, if you are designing a logo for a wedding/party planner, you may opt for a dynamic logo design in order to convey energy and creativity.
3. A logo should be appropriate.
The content and design elements of your logo should be inspired by the company's activities and mission statement. Your favorite pet, color, flower, or any combination therein, should not be considered an option unless they are truly appropriate. People that don't know you will see your logo. If your favorite things are forced into the design, you may accidentally mislead or confuse the on-looker.
For example, color is a critical design component of your logo and it can be used appropriately or inappropriately. Therefore, your selected logo color scheme should have some reasoning behind it. It is a well-known fact that people respond emotionally to color and that color preferences vary with culture, life cycle, and other demographic characteristics. For instance, men tend to prefer orange over yellow and blue over red; whereas women tend to prefer yellow over orange and red over blue. Among the spectral colors, North Americans tend to prefer blue and red over green and violet, and green and violet to orange and yellow.
If you are designing a logo for a daycare, a bright and cheerful color palette is preferable. If your favorite color is a soft grey, incorporating it into the design might give it a tired feel. On the other hand, if you are designing a logo for a funeral home, a soft grey may be used to convey calmness and peacefulness.
You should also choose your color pallet as a means to reinforce your logo if it uses pictorial symbols. For example, some color-enhanced icons include: green shamrocks for the Irish or good luck and symmetrical red crosses for ambulances or hospitals. Consider the effect of using iconic symbols in your logo. But don't use them unless they are relevant.
4. Consider negative space as important as the positive space.
Negative space lacks a definite shape and definition once the elements are drawn. Once you have completed a design, step back and look over the negative space created. Ask yourself, "Is the negative space actually creating undesirable shapes? Is it creating desirable shapes that can be made even more desirable? Should I make this space more continuous or break it up further?"
5. A logo should be timeless.
All designs in some form or another express the zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is a German term that can loosely be interpreted as, "the spirit of an age." Zeitgeist appears in the form of trends seen in religion, literature, science, architecture, and art. It can be used to describe trends on global and neighborhood scales, as well as everything in between. Despite the inevitable influence of zeitgeist, make sure you take the time to assess your logo design to determine if it is derived from a particular era or trend. Then, determine if what you discover works to the benefit or detriment of the logo.