Get your free Logo Design Love chapter

Dec 16, 200975 appreciated comments

Get your free Logo Design Love chapter

yay!

I showed you my book’s table of contents, and asked what chapter you wanted for free. Many of you said, “All of them,” but alas, I doubt my publisher would approve, so you’ll have to settle for the most popular chapter vote—seven: From pencil to PDF.

From pencil to PDF: sub-headings

Mind-mapping
The fundamental necessity of the sketchpad
The Tenth Commandment
Pinning the map
Internationally recognized
No set time
Dress for success
Black and white before color
Where Photoshop comes into play
The pen is mightier than the mouse

All you need to do is click on the link or the image below to get the chapter. No strings. The PDF download is 1MB in size.

Logo Design Love chapter seven: From pencil to PDF

If you like what you see, and if Twitter’s your thing, you can help me out with a quick tweet:

Get your free Logo Design Love book chapter: http://bit.ly/50dEBX

(The bit.ly link directs back here.)

Or earn mad props from your designer peers by sending them the PDF (or a link to this page).

And of course, please tell me what you think of the content. I may write another book one day—your constructive feedback helps immensely.

As a Christmas gift, I’m giving away 5 free copies of the book to fans of the Logo Design Love Facebook page. One winner will be drawn each day next week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday or Sunday, depending on how much I’ve eaten for Christmas dinner.

Image credit: natalie johnson

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75 appreciated comments, click here to add one

Katrin Eiermann

This is great for us as fashion designers, who haven’t studied logo design but need to work with logos a lot!

Dec 16th, 2009
Haje

Hey David, looks fantastic!

Who is your publisher or their PR company? I’d like to approach them for a review copy of the book,

- Haje

Dec 16th, 2009
Chris

excellent, It shall make good reading, i’ll pass it along to a fellow designer if that’s ok… maybe he’ll end up buying the book too.

Dec 16th, 2009
David Airey

Great to know, Katrin. I hope it’s of use, and feel free to pass it to your fashion design buddies.

Haje, thanks very much. The book’s published by Peachpit in the United States (hence the American English spelling throughout).

Chris, go for it! The more people who see it, the happier I am.

Dec 16th, 2009
shnick

Hurrrrayyyyyyyyy! Christmas is earlier this year :)

Dec 16th, 2009
Ben Kauffman

Thanks David! Can’t wait to get the book.

Dec 16th, 2009
Pedro

you make my day!!!

Dec 16th, 2009
Victor G.

Oh, Is this out yet?! Can I get it at my local canadian chapters/indigo?

Dec 16th, 2009
David Airey

Hi Victor, the book should be in my publisher’s warehouse on Friday (18th). Deliveries will then be made, so anyone who has pre-ordered a copy should receive it before the end of December (providing there are no major backlogs with the Christmas mail).

Thanks a lot for the tweet, Ben.

Dec 16th, 2009
Rob Russo

Thank you, David. I look forward to having the entire book in my collection.

Dec 16th, 2009
Alberto P

Thanks for the “first look”. Now I’m pretty convinced that the pre order of your book I did on Amazon was the best and right decision for my career. Thanks David. Keep your work rolling!

I wonder how I can help you for a spanish translation of your book. Latin america doesn’t have a strong design literature for students and professionals alike and sometimes we wander with a stick in our hands trying to do things at least with some structure. Thanks again….

Dec 16th, 2009
Stephen Dyson

Cheers, just had a read and was very informative. Its a real insight seeing how people go through the mindmapping stage and brilliant seeing how the ideas evolve into a fully fledged logo.

Dec 16th, 2009
Carlos

Thanks David, this looks fantastic.

Dec 16th, 2009
Ian Devlin

Looks great, and thanks for the free chapter. You have me convinced ;-)

Dec 16th, 2009
Christine Williams

I am pre-ordering my copy now, looks like a great read :)

Dec 16th, 2009
Tom

great chapter david – near perfect, no overload of informtation and the summary at the end is a nice touch.

look forward to getting the book for xmas..if santa remembers!

Dec 16th, 2009
Andrew Kelsall

Wow, that was better than I expected—in a sense that the whole chapter was easy to read and well structured but left me wanting more. I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing…

I especially liked this:

The ﬁrst idea you sketch for a client is unlikely to be the one that gets chosen. But sometimes, when your creative energy is really ﬂowing and you completely “get” your client, it ends up that way.

I had that exact experience lately; designing a logo for an American company called BlueDrift (process on my blog in a couple of weeks). The very first idea and sketch I made, out of 5 or more pages of scriblings, was the chosen concept. So yeah, it does happen.

I really like the Studio1500’s Martínez logo too. No surprise that the simplest of concepts work the best. It was also great to see other designer’s drawings and concepts, which is a reminder to some, but a lesson to all, that unless drawings are been submitted to the client, they can be roughly sketched and messy—but it doesn’t matter.

I’ve also found that you need to get the rubbish ideas of your your brain first before some of the other, greater, concepts come-to-mind…

Dec 16th, 2009
Jan

thanks, chapter 7 rocks.

Dec 16th, 2009
Andy Wilkinson

Thanks for this – the free chapter was brilliant. Placed my preorder with Amazon just now, so I’ll be able to get my learnin’ on before the start of the school year.

Dec 17th, 2009
Sarit

David! Great job on this fabulous Logo book!
So brilliantly deconstructed :)

It’s Legendary!

Cheers,
Sarit

Dec 17th, 2009
David Airey

Alberto, that’s kind of you to offer your help. I’ve no idea if anything will happen regarding translations, but suppose it depends on how many people buy / read the English version.

Andrew, I’m very glad you can empathise with the content, and it’s great how the chapter was better than expected!

Thanks to everyone for downloading and commenting!

Dec 17th, 2009
Stephen Webb

Thanks for the preview, the book looks great and a worthwhile buy. I particularly appreciated the chapter on mind mapping as this is seldom looked at it in great detail.

There are so many books out there on logo design but few that approach it in such a productive way that this seems to. The chapter about approaching the design without colour first is quite essential, as not doing this is an all too common approach. Colour can be very distracting when trying to form the initial ideas, so getting the design and layout correct is key to creating effective logo designs.

I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of this book, and I’ll be recommending it to my colleagues.

Dec 17th, 2009
David Airey

Any recommendations will be great, Stephen. Thanks a lot.

Dec 17th, 2009
Martin Boath

Simple. Clean. Extremely effective. Is it a coincidence that this book echos what a logo should be?

Great work David.

To the less experienced designer these are crucial pieces of advice. I’m startled by how many designers work right away on their Macs and not only that with colour or even, horrifically, grads and drop shadows, so for them to read that sketching and then working in mono is the only way to begin is invaluable.

The advice on rendering the brand over several items is also key. You only need to read on this blog how even designers are impressed by a brand’s widespread usage, even when at times the logo itself isn’t great. Strength in numbers you could say but very effective in winning over a client.

And I’m pleased you mentioned gut instinct too. A lot can be said for that. But it’s not an excuse for laziness; you only realise your initial ‘eureka’ moment is such after further development and work.

For someone with my level of experience however, I found mind-mapping very interesting. It is, admittedly, not something I do. It seems much more organic yet also structured as opposed to just ‘brainstorming’ and jotting things down willy-nilly.

I’ll stop rambling now. Congrats again David. A job well done and another sale guaranteed.

Dec 17th, 2009
David Airey

Fantastic, Martin. Very pleased to read your feedback. Mind-mapping is such a simple task, yet it’s a huge help at the beginning of projects. If you try it out, let me know how you get on, and I’m also happy that you’ll buy a copy of the book. Thank you.

Dec 17th, 2009
lindsay

David, thanks so much for your free chapter! I really appreciate how you resource other designers :)

Take care!

Lindsay

Dec 17th, 2009
bluebird

Awesome!! When will the entire book be available?

Dec 17th, 2009
David Airey

Just this minute I received an email from my publisher. The book won’t be available tomorrow (as expected) because the emboss on the front cover is taking longer than they thought to print. Deliveries will now be made from December 23rd. For everyone who has pre-ordered, please accept my apologies over the few days delay.

Dec 17th, 2009
GUS

I couldn’t agree more with Martin.

I guess your book is something Graphic Design and Designer needed.

Nice work, mate!

And for sure a copy will be shipped to Brasil!

Congrats.

Dec 17th, 2009
Victor Zuniga

Im with Alberto, you are going to have translated this book not only in spanish later but other languages too, that is how good your book is.

Dec 17th, 2009
Nick K

Wow. I’ve just read that chapter and was so happy to realise that all that godawful scribbling I do prior to starting a design is actually invaluable idea sketching. I’ve never really credited it as such before, more as shameful proof that I can’t really draw. Might have to check this out when it lands in the UK – any idea when that will be?

Dec 18th, 2009
Zsuzsanna Klucsik

I am going to put this book on Santa’s list. Thanks for the free chapter! I really enjoyed reading it.

Dec 18th, 2009
Sneh Roy

I loved it! Can’t wait to get my hands on your book. Well done David!

I only recently started logo designing and although averse to sketching and scribbling at first, I totally saw the wisdom in doing it once I went that way. It is enlightening in more ways than one and lets you see the clarity and direction of your design without actually having vectorized or colorized it. My last 3 logo projects, the first concept was chosen in 2 of them [still waiting to hear on the 3rd project] :)

Dec 18th, 2009
Nana

Thank you!

Amazon Germany today gave me this information:

Expected date of delivery: February 01 2010 – February 04 2010

I guess I have to wait very long … :(

Dec 18th, 2009
David

Thanks for sharing this David… nice easy reading and full of useful nuggets of information. I sense a copy of this book might just be landing on my desk in January…!

Dec 18th, 2009
Dominic

I really liked what I read, but somehow I got the feeling it was a little less… :( I think I need the whole book… but who knows, maybe I will win one :)

Dec 18th, 2009
David Airey

Hi Nick, I’m expecting to receive a copy about one week after the book is ready to ship. The release date is December 23rd (next Wednesday).

Good luck with the 3rd project you’re waiting to hear about, Sneh, and I’m very glad you love the chapter!

Nana, according to my publisher, Amazon will show a later date on its website in case there are any issues when finalising the product. I can see why, because the book was due to ship today, but it was only yesterday when I found out shipping is postponed until next Wednesday — due to time needed for cover embossing. Perhaps once the first copies are shipped, the Amazon date will change. Alternatively, you can order a copy directly from Peachpit.

Thanks very much to everyone else who has downloaded the freebie and left a comment.

Dec 18th, 2009
alex tass

Beautiful demo/gift! Thank you!

Dec 18th, 2009
Nana

Thanks, David!

Dec 19th, 2009
Chris

Wow, just realised that chapter One, is available to view as well! on amazon you can click “look inside this book” and read chapter one…

although I’m sure I’ve read that before somewhere….

Dec 19th, 2009
Elizabeth

Thanks so much! I have been wanting to learn more of logo design for some while now.

Dec 19th, 2009
Lakshmi Mareddy

David, Yeah! I finally got a sneak peek.. I like what I see so far..
You will be surprised as to how very few people have design sensibilities, whereas most people just copy off, and badly..

I dont do logo design [no training etc.] but when i design websites, i wait for a day or two, during critical stages, so that i cna relook the design with ‘new eyes’ so to speak.. That too helps…

Dec 20th, 2009
Andrew Chee

Thanks for early Xmas gift!

Dec 21st, 2009
James Kurtz III

Thanks David. Looking forward to reading the entire book. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Dec 22nd, 2009
David Airey

Chris, the full book PDF is available to purchase through Peachpit, and you can get an unformatted version through Peachpit’s Safari website (I think you get a free trial for 30 days upon registering, but don’t quote me on that).

Lakshmi, glad you like the preview. I received a box full of the book 30 minutes ago, and it’s great to finally see the result of six month’s stress!

James, a very merry Christmas to you, too. I’ve spent the past two days packing everything in preparation for the move to Edinburgh. Well, packing for the temporary Christmas move in with my folks, then the January drive to Scotland. So it’s really like two house moves in two weeks. I don’t make things easy for myself.

Dec 22nd, 2009
Gino Orlandi

Cant wait for this book! I have been waiting for a really good book on brand identity design for a while now.

Dec 28th, 2009
Matt Fouty

Awesome!!! This just made me even more excited to receive my copy from Amazon.

Dec 29th, 2009
Chaitanya VRK

Thank you David. Waiting for the book to arrive from Amazon.

Dec 30th, 2009
David Airey

Thanks very much for ordering, Matt, Chaitanya. I’d love to know your thoughts once you’ve read the book.

Dec 30th, 2009
Jasmyn Madison

Thanks for the gift! Logo design continues to evade me (lol) and I really struggle with it, so I’m looking forward to getting the book.

Thanks again!

Dec 30th, 2009
Tareq Samman

Thanks David, i didn’t read it yet but I’m pretty sure i will love it, happy new year!

Jan 2nd, 2010
Pam R

Hi David,

Seconds ago I received an Amazon delivery with your book inside. I am ecstatic to begin reading.

As a print production manager…I can’t stop touching the cover and admiring the print/letterpress (cvr) throughout…it rocks David!

As a designer who…well first loves the content, but appreciates the simplicity of the design I applaud you and want to say congratulations for an amazing job! And, your first…amazing!!!

Pam

Jan 2nd, 2010
David Airey

You’re very welcome, Jasmyn, Tareq.

Pam, I’m delighted to know you think so highly of the print production and design. If you have time, please do send your thoughts once you’ve had a chance to read it, and all the very best for 2010!

Jan 2nd, 2010
Shane

Bloody fantastic! Thanks so very much.

(As I sit here with pencil and paper, starting with a new logo!)

Jan 4th, 2010
jasonized

Thanks! Worth reading for a newbie like me.

Jan 8th, 2010
Irene

It seems really great, easy read and well planned.

I read the free chapter and I must admit I will try the ‘mind-mapping’ in my next logo project.

(I will order the book….so its coming to Greece too :) )

Jan 11th, 2010
David Airey

Great, I hope shipping to Greece doesn’t take too long, Irene. Thank you.

Jan 11th, 2010
Chris

Congrats David. You’ve written the first book on design that I’ve purchased.
Ordered it today from amazon.
And please don’t pick up the Scottish accent. I quite like irish accents

Jan 18th, 2010
David Airey

Thanks very much, Chris. Let me know what you think when you’ve had a chance to read it, and don’t worry, my Irish accent is with me for life.

Jan 18th, 2010
Dani Diem

I can’t wait for my copy to get here.

Thanks!
Dani

Jan 20th, 2010
John L

Thanks for the great chapter, but the early graphics (mindmapping) are unreadable. Can you redo the PDF with higher quality graphics?

Jan 20th, 2010
Chris

Arrived this morning, read the first 2 chapters, good so far.

the cover has a strange (but nice) matt coating which I wasn’t expecting, I thought it’d be a nice shiny gloss coat, and while I’m on the subject of the cover, the embossing is really good, especially on the heart, it seems to curve nicely, giving a nice 3d heart.

those two combined are what real books are about, a genuine tactile reading experience,

so congratualtions, not only was it my first design book, BUT it’s also reminded me why some books are worth buying in the traditional paper format, instead of on e-readers or PDF’s

aside from the articles, it just “feels nice” in your hands.

Jan 23rd, 2010
David Airey

Hi John, sorry the image quality isn’t up to scratch on the PDF. I won’t be recreating it, so it’s of an easily accessible download size, but thanks for reading.

Chris, great of you to buy a copy, and I’m glad you like the cover. I thought the matte finish would be nicer than gloss — a little more distinctive. I hope you enjoy the rest of the book. If you’ve time, it’d be great to know your thoughts once you finish.

Jan 23rd, 2010
Chris

finished it last night, great read, having read all of them, I wish I’d asked for chapter 3 as the free one, brilliant read.
In summary:
great first impression, fantastic cover, great to hold in your hands
informative, without going overboard and getting boring

as someone trying to get into web design, not logos, I still find it very very relevant, I’m pretty sure that everything you mention still applies to me, all it takes is a tiny bit of imagination to transpose the examples into websites, and if you don’t have that imagination, then design probably isn’t for you anyway.

I have 1 single gripe.
pg. 36, 3rd paragraph, first 2 words.
English-based, surely that should be either English, or England-based?

but if that’s the only thing I can find fault with then bloody good book, and it’ll remain close to hand to help me through my projects

Jan 24th, 2010
peter barbagallo

i would be interested in chapter 6…

Jan 24th, 2010
David Airey

Great catch, Chris. You’re right. It should read England-based. You know when you’re looking at something for so long, you miss the obvious? Thankfully there have been no typos spotted (yet). I’ll settle for a grammatical error.

Thanks very much for reading, and for the kind compliment.

Jan 24th, 2010