I’ve yet to do a book review on TDC, but with the new year among us, I thought you all might like to hear some thoughts about David Airey’s new book, Logo Design Love: a guide to creating iconic brand identities — a subject of area of design I am particularly in love with (pun intended) and focus a majority of my attention/marketing towards.

On David Airey

For those unfamiliar with David Airey, he runs a brilliant design blog and another website, Logo Design Love, which is devoted to — you guessed it — logos. Not only are both websites extremely valuable and resourceful, but David’s work is just a superb. As an experienced, self-employed brand identity designer, David’s book shares his passion and expertise in the field.

The book

First off — Logo Design Love is a great read for both designers and clients, as it shares valuable insights and discusses the importance of brand identity all the way down to the process from start to finish.

As with David’s blogs, the book is written in a very friendly tone and very thoroughly explained with relevant examples, logos and designer/firm references. Many of the chapters and topics will help designers explain to their clients why they (clients) should invest in a well research brand identity and what their investment will do for them. This is essential to being a designer (especially if you are freelance): you must be able to sell and talk about your services just as well as you execute your work.

A walk through

I really enjoyed the way David walks us readers through his design process. He offers his professional insight from laying down the ground work, gathering a brief, bringing out details in the logo discussed by the client, and how to cull the adjectives used by the client. David explains it in a way that you feel apart of his process. It’s a 1-2-3 style insight.

Helpful topics of discussion

I often receive many questions by email from new designers asking “how much do you charge your clients?” and “how do you deal with clients that try to dictate your work.” Many of these questions are answered in Logo Design Love and provide worthwhile insight for some “behind the scenes” experiences and how to [better] deal with them.

One in particular helped me out that pertained how to explain to clients the number of concepts they will receive. David offers the following sound advice:

“With your help, I will create a number of possible design directions that are ideally suited to your potential customers. Once the different ideas have been presented, we can choose the most effective option and either move forward with it, or tweak it a little after your feedback.” — Logo Design Love, Keeping the committee involved (page 132)

David goes on to say how stating the above could have saved him time (and a headache) with a client that had a predetermined idea that they wanted to see executed, instead of a strategic and relevant concept based on research and brainstorming. The following is a great way of positioning to your clients which will help achieve better designer/client interactions and the best solution to your clients needs.

Conclusions

David concludes Logo Design Love with some great Q&A’s from various emails and reader questions, 25 practical logo design tips, and a great list of resources that include: design blogs, iconic designers, and other recommended books.

Overall, Logo Design Love was a solid read, with a friendly approach with tons of great, useful information. It was informative without being too lengthy (202 pages long) and will without a doubt make anyone who reads a better visual identity creator, recognizer and appreciator — especially if you are a beginner or intermediate designer.

The design of the book

What would a review of a book be without reviewing how it was designed and put together?

The cover has a nice matte finish with a gritty substrate — feels similar to plike (plastic like) in a way — with the words ‘Logo Design Love’ and the red heart embossed. The dimensions of the book make it easy to hold and handle.

The inside copy text is large — could have possible brought it down a size or two — but makes for a easy, comfortable and quick read. The pages have a large top margin which makes the pages easier to digest. Images and logo examples are used appropriately throughout, although some of the photographs could use a bit of retouching (a few appear to be taken with a low resolution camera). Overall, the design is pleasant and practical — much like the content within the book.