What catches your eye in a logo?

[Dangelica]

I'm not thinking of making a living with my camera for a while yet but i figured with my other artistic and business talents i may as well get under way with branding what i do in the way of photography. I have always found that a recognizable and consistent identity is a great boost in getting known and remembered.

For me a logo should be a clean vector graphic that can be recognized at various sizes. Something that will be seen as representing you and the style you bring to what you do. I'm a fan of the Stylish /simple /2 colour + contrasting background styles.

What in a logo catches your eye and makes you take a closer look at a company? what is it that draws you in?

I'm doodling away with the Derwent's and the sketchpad ATM. Once i get a few valued opinions I'm gonna work up something in Illustrator and Pshop that will watermark my work and any business it may lead to in the future.

I greatly value all input noob and pro alike. Don't be shy i see you lurking

[OsmosisStudios]

Speaking as someone who's done work on this kind of thing...

Simple
Scalable
Invertable
Recognizable

Simple: Something that isnt cluttered and complicated will generally garner more attention (and be more long-standing) than something full of intricate details

Scalable: As you said, it has to be good from a small size (generally 64x64px) to a large size (poster). Vector works well, but you can also just use raster (and make one size: HUGE). It should be identifiable at all sizes, though.

Invertable: this goes for both colours and backgrounds. You should be able to make a colour logo greyscale and have it look good in both colour and black and white on black, white and grey.

Recognizable: it should be unique enough to be instantly recognized.

[Vagebond]

If there's text, please make sure the colours/contrast are good enough so that people without 20/20 vision, or maybe colour blind, can read it. A lot of graphics people, and not just web designers, seem to like colour combinations that make for headache reading.

[themadness]

as a graphic designer, i try to find inspiration everywhere. one thing one of my professors told is to look around, see what everyone is doing, and do the exact opposite. that is how you stand out. you may have seen this already but this where i go for inspiration........

LogoPond - Identity Inspiration -

[Free]

I'm a font nerd, so a nice font, with great typography always appeals to me. If there's a graphic it should be clean and look good in black and white.

[Nekrose]

I think something that is black and white and easy to read is best. I have been trying to make a logo for my business, and I just did something extremely simple.

I also did a little something for myself But I will not be putting it on pictures. I just think it reflects my personality.

I am not very experienced in logo design. I have been using the simple one for all of my photo's, and I like it just fine. It is simple, easy to read, and it is not over the top.

[goldt3]

I agree with the simple idea. Your logo needs to tell the viewer in a split second, who the company is and something about them. I don't like when they get crazy with fonts. Some fonts are hard to read, and there are people out there that can't read cursive well. A font with stylistic attributes is important, just don't go overboard.

Here is a logo I designed for my husbands youth soccer club. We play in downtown Salt Lake, Utah. We are the only team from downtown, so the skyline of the city sets up apart instantly from the other teams and tells the viewers something ipmportant about us. This logo prints nicely on hats, sweaters, shirts, etc. And it doesn't take a color cartridge for printing flyers, etc. meaning that printing is cheaper. When I have nice embroidery done, I have the printer convert the lightest gray details to a metalic silver thread and the logo really pops!

I've been given compliments from several of our printers on the logo. I'm proud of it, myself!

[AmyH19]

A good logo should be clean and simple, look good in black and white, and represent (not necessarily in an absolute literal way) your business. Too many people want super detailed graphics in their logos and that doesn't translate well when reduced to a business card size or when reproduced in newspapers, as they have a larger line screen and are printed on newsprint, which isn't known for it's crisp images. I also prefer readable fonts, most scripts are not easy to read so it takes a lot of searching for the right typeface.

It's also very important to have your logo done in a vector based program so it's infinitely scalable in case you ever need to have a large sign or banner made.

[lonni]

Easily recognisable and memorable. When people see it you want them to remember your name. You also need to be able to convert the image to black and white as well as the standard colour.

I am a graphic designer and my husband and i run a printing company and i can tell you the worst logos are the busy, complicated many coloured ones and the ones that follow fads, like the foliage and floral flourishes. They are a dime a dozen, you cant seperate one from the other, they dont work well in small sizes adn low resolutiona and they often distract you from the business name.

I currently use a little stylised camera for my photography logo and i have my name in basic text. Both elements work individually as well as in conjunction. Its clean and modern and wont go out of fashion too quickly.

Everyone else has already said the basics, easy to read text, represent the business etc