From the experts!
Often people ask us for handy resources when it comes to building their website or designing their new brand. We have spent years creating websites and brands for companies all over New Zealand - therefore we need inspiration, because when you're doing the same design job every day, you can sometimes fall into using the same styles, the same fonts and the same trends for every new company - which is NOT good.
Therefore we always refer to other websites for reference when designing brands and templates. If you're struggling to find ideas yourself, we recommend a few sites below!
For colour palettes:
We recommend using Coolors, they have an awesome tool for building colour palettes, as well as viewing palettes others have created. Find something you like or start with your own colour and build a suitable palette that clicks with you. Make sure your colour palette is related to the actual industry you're in. Don't use grey and black as primary colours for a make-up artist logo! And cleaners shouldn't use yellow and greens, as thats a symbol of toxicity and mould / dirt. Visit their website - www.coolors.co
Another cool tool we were introduced to recently is Canva, so with Canva you can create documents and designs easily - not those cheesy old WordArt designs, but a proper professional looking design. But the coolest part is your can from photos - get an awesome palette of colours used in that photo that you can incorporate into a design using that image, so then your design and image is seamless and looks great!
www.canva.com
For stock photos:
We recommend Adobe Stock for photos, they're slightly cheaper than alternatives like Shutterstock, but they still offer a great array of images that are 'relatively' affordable, there used to be a site where we paid just a dollar for photos, but Adobe brought them out, SO we only have this option now - and it's really worth it, great photos for any application - nearly! Warning: Don't use photos that are very 'bright' and fake looking, these often put people off because they know they're definitely fake! Visit their website - stock.adobe.com
For logo inspirations:
Logos are very important - they are the face of your brand when your website isn't available (i.e. out on the road, at a network meeting, during a chat with a prospect) - Your logo goes on everything so it should look good but also function well across an array of applications. Logos should stand-out, if they're too skinny and washed out, no one will see them - the opposite if they're big red and in your face, they may put people right off - choose carefully, again make sure the logo suites the industry you're in. Visit Pinterest for inspiration: https://nz.pinterest.com/manekibeader/inspirational-colour-palettes/
These are just a few samples that can help get the creative thoughts flowing in your head. Obviously a designer like us can help give you ideas that
could work, since we've spent so much time developing brands we can generally pickup what would work best a lot quicker than you. Plus we don't look at it from an emotional point of view "what suits ME best, not my customer", therefore you get a more tailored logo to suit your business.
