Freelance Home-Based Small Business HOW TO PICK ONE IMAGE TO REPRESENT YOUR PORTFOLIO article 9

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PORTFOLIO SERIES - article 9 - HOW TO PICK ONE IMAGE TO REPRESENT YOUR PORTFOLIO AND YOUR FREELANCE BUSINESS (mostly for creatives such as graphic designers or illustrators)

By Rachel Goldstein

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How to Choose One Image to Represent Your Freelance Web Portfolio Images

In last week's portfolio series we discussed optimizing your portfolio images for the web. This week we are going to discuss how to choose one image to represent your professional identity, more specifically how to design your logo.

In most cases, your logo is the first image that employers will see, especially on portfolio sites. On these sites, employers usually find the portfolio that they admire by looking through representative thumbnails or logos. With this in mind, working on your logo or representative thumbnail is of great importance.

What exactly makes a good freelance business logo?

This, of course, is totally up to individual opinion. A good logo, however, should be eye-catching, unique, simple, keep the observer engaged, and make an impression on the observer. A logo must be easily recognizable and memorable. Additionally, the logo's quality must be attention grabbing in order to make a good impression. Most of all a good logo is like a piece of eye candy, as long as it looks great and it conveys what you are looking to convey, you have designed a great logo.

How do I go about designing a logo for my freelance business?

The purpose of the logo should influence its form, so please keep this in mind. When I get started, my ideas are all in my head and I just work it out in Freehand or Photoshop. This works best for me, but I know that most designers start out with a sketch ... which is really a much better way of planning out your logo than keeping it all in your head like I do. Have no ideas? An easy way to start out is to open up Freehand, Illustrator, or Photoshop (or whatever software you are most comfortable with). Play around with shapes and colors ... make a square, cut a circle out of the square, etc. Many interesting shapes are made from negative space ... play around and have some fun.

Not all logos have to have images within them. There are many great logos that are entirely made out of text. Play around with fonts, shapes, and size to find interesting ways to express your identity. Remember that the text needs to be large enough to read and not a real fancy font. Simplicity is the key to a great logo.

There are other things to consider as well, such as lines within the logo. Curved lines usually signify that the company is a soft sort of business. In contrast, straight, triangular, or sharp lines shows that the company is a technical, firm, and rapidly expanding company. You can contrast curved and straight lines to signify completely different meanings.

Color Within Your Freelance Logo

Color is a huge factor within your design. Brightness, contrast, tone, and color should be used properly in order to obtain a successful design. Keep color simple and use contrast to strengthen the 'look' of the logo. Keep in consideration, that your logo should look good in one color. If your logo design looks good in one color then you have successfully kept your design simple. Simplicity is really the key factor in good logo design. Think about it ... most big companies have one or two colors in their logos.

What Size Should My Portfolio's Logo be?

Size is very important with logo design. The way that your logo will look at a small stamp-size proportion will tell you how scalable your logo is. The way your logo is able to be scaled is important on the web and offlline. Some portfolio sites will want your logo 40 pixels by 40 pixels, and some will want your logo at 100 pixels x 100 pixels, etc. For this reason, make sure that you can scale your logo as needed.

How should I design my logo if I want to print my logo too?

Make sure that you always design your logo for print first and web second. You will need a higher resolution for printing on press than you will on the web. I recommend saving your Photoshop, freehand, or illustrator file first and backing this up somewhere. Once you have done this it is safe to export a separate file for the web. This way when you take your files to the printer, you still have the .psd, .tiff, .eps or whatever you saved your first file originally as.

Remember to optimize your logo for Your Internet Portfolio.

We discussed this last week and you can find the article here. Remember to keep a backup of the original file so you can re-proportion your logo as needed. Good luck!!

Any comments about portfolios - or do you want to share your knowledge with us? Please send questions and comments to allfreelance@comcast.net

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