Customer Reviews

Logo Design for Small Business 2

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Dan Antonelli's first book, Logo Design for Small Business, provides the artist with tools and concepts to create effective logos. His second book, Logo Design for Small Business 2, explores in greater detail what artists need to consider when designing logos for small businesses and how to more effectively sell logo design to small businesses.

My personal favorite of Dan's sage advice: no abstract graphics! Dan says on page 15, "...don't design meaningless icons. Don't design something that needs to be explained. If you need to explain what the graphic means, you're really not serving the needs of the small business."

What about the contractor whose business is doing great without a logo? Why should a small business owner pay you $400 or $500 for a logo when he or she can get one from an "internet logo mill" for $99? Dan's book answers questions like these.

Dan shows how he provides his clients with marketing strategies by incorporating effective logo designs in various advertising media. Whether it's logos, business cards, brochures, billboards or websites, Dan's work is always over-the-top! Dan considers himself to be his clients' marketing partner. He`s committed to his clients, and his commitment has paid off!

While logos are displayed and examined throughout the book, chapters 5 and 6 together showcase almost 160 different logos. Chapter 5 presents logos designed by Dan. Chapter 6 presents logos by several exceptional artists. Each logo is accompanied by a short explanation. These last two chapters are a great source of inspiration.

Logo Design for Small Business 2 will benefit those that routinely design (or want to routinely design) logos for small businesses.

When I opened the box from Amazon my first impression was that this book isn't very big. Most of the books I buy on design, software and photography are between 100 and 500 pages. Dan's book has just 71 pages.

I had mixed feelings about this at first. On one hand I was wondering if I had gotten my money's worth and on the other hand I was relieved that I didn't have to find a way to fit another large book into my schedule.

After a couple of days carrying this book around with me I had actually finished reading the whole thing. The short answer to my query above is yes, I got my money's worth.

My impression of this book is that it's a 71 page summary of a four year college design program and it is written more from an applied perspective than an academic perspective. This book doesn't teach you how to use your software, the principles of color science or technical terminology. This book points out things that you need to consider when dealing with real life situations, gives you some solutions to these issues and many sample designs (including the names of many of the fonts). Some examples include:


What to do when a customer wants you to create a fresh identity for them using their old art work (that may have been done by their niece in MS Word)

What to consider when designing a logo that will be used in different types of collateral. Business cards, web sites, windows and vehicles have different requirements.

Differences in designing for a large corporation vs. a small business.

Being a successful designer means that your work produces results for your customers. What do you do when a customer says "I just need an inexpensive logo and some cheap cards."? You know that giving them what they asked for will make them and you look bad.

I like this book. It deals with real life and gives real life examples. It is readable in a reasonable amount of time.

I recommend this book to designers and to customers of design services. If you need design services this book will help you understand what your designer is saying and if they are doing a good job for you.

After completing graphic design courses in a New York City school, the topic of small business logos and how they're different from corporate logos was never once dicussed or explored. How often is it realistic to think that as designers, freelance or otherwise, that we'll be asked to create an identity for a large corporate client? The fact is that there are many times more small business than large corporate clients for whom we'll do work-- and we're never really shown direction on how to approach their needs.

This book, as well as the first one, really show and remind us of what we see around town on a daily basis, and how to design for those small businesses in a great an impactful way. Your small business typically can't have a logo like one you'd see for a large corporation- it needs to bring more identity to the name and make more of a statement.

I think this book should a part of any designers library if they're working on logos for businesses like the ones Dan Antonelli seems to design for on a daily basis.

"It may be a bit odd for me to reviewing a book that includes quite a few examples of my own work. However, with my own logo designs in over 70 books at this point. my selection of logo design volumes to consider for review might end up being somewhat limited. With the follow-up to his first book, "Logo Design for Small Business," Dan Antonelli does not disappoint the logo designer with his second offering, "Logo Design for Small Business 2." Antonelli preaches what he practices. I appreciate the fact he is educated as a designer, has worked in the industry for a number of years and is in business as a sign maker. He understands, and is able to convey, what a designer needs to accomplish - and, from his own unique perspective, what a vendor needs as a final product. The author provides a great deal of advice in regards to the business of logo design for small businesses, as well as displaying examples from a variety of designers for inspiration. Don't be put off by the rather short length of this book - it's 72 pages of useful information. Those just starting out in logo design will benefit from the excellent advice of Antonelli. For seasoned pros the book is a reminder of many things we should consider in our day to day designing of identities. All logo designers will recoup the cost of the book on the first project produced after reading the book - and it should be on the reference bookshelf of anyone interested in the design of logos." - from Jeff Fisher's "Logo Notions" column on CreativeLatitude.com

I have both of Dan's books and love them. However the first book is more of a how to book and the second is more of various peoples portfolios of logos they have design. So this book is good for ideas.

If you are looking for a book that contains a bunch of logos along with a description of the meaning of each logo, then, this is what you are looking for.

However, I still advise you to save your money. This one is very expensive compared to the content and what is there in the market.

I wish if I didn't buy it!

If you own the prequel to this book, you know exactly what to expect. It contains more of the same kinds of designs, in very similar styles, with additional commentary.

My thoughts about this volume are pretty much the same as my thoughts about volume 1. It's OK, not great, but a fine resource to have on hand.

I'm in the process of producing candidates for a possible redesign of our corporate logo. The logos in this book are a bit too colorful and casual for an organization of our size and nature. But I did find the designs to be artisticly pleasing. For me it is more of a general design resource than something that would help me with my particular goals.

Having said that, the title of the book after all is "Logo Design FOR SMALL BUSINESS." Pay attention to that last part, and you may be pleased with what you get.