Logo design and brand standards are still developed like the digital revolution never happened, or worse, it just picks the advantages of the digital process and forgets about the pitfalls. The logo templates from a micro stock agency presented in this article look nice but are bad logos. So what should a designer care about in logo design and brand standards for the digital age?

1 - Digital first or digital last?

Digital first is the new hype and describes starting the design process with the digital consumption as a starting point. This is a fair point, but analyze your clients customers to be sure what medium the branding will be consumed most and what reproduction techniques will be required. Logos still need to be printed, screened, molded etc. Logo design is not just online or offline, so improve your skills if you lack certain aspects.

2 - The square and the skyscraper

It is very common these days that the logo is "boxed" in a square (Twitter avatar) or a skyscraper (Facebook Profile). Test your logo for this cases. Do you need a lot of white space to make your design shine? Does it stand out from the surrounding design elements? It may be required that you make special versions of the logo for these cases.

3 - The missing Micro-Sizes

In the past the designer defined a minimum size for the logo. He knew that his design will not perform under a certain size (pixel or mm) and forbid therefore the use. Today a designer has to provide a Micro-Size of the logo - It's the Favicon used on the website, the Facebook Bookmark etc. It's a legit use case and it's part of the logo design, so provide a 16x16 Pixel version to your client.

4 - Wrong collaterals

The typical collaterals designed for a client who wanted a simple identity have been a letterhead, business card and an envelope or an full page ad. Today consider delivering a Twitter background, a Facebook profile image, email footer and a standard banner ad.

5 - Falling for the hype

Logo and brand design should never follow the hype. While designers tend to be always on the edge and try something new, they also like to follow trends. If you look at the most known and recognized brands you will see that the logo changes little over time and often you cannot tell when it was designed. A certain timelessness is required. Expect a logo to stay a least 10-15 years the same - longer than any given design trend.