The Art of Logo. Part II: Your Tools. Nuances

roportions, contrast, and repetition constitute a powerful set of design tools which, when used carefully and reasonably, can yield wonderfully engaging results.  However, real professionalism implies more than mastering these tools.  One of the most important features that differentiates a work of experienced designer from a novice's (even a gifted novice's) exercise is the powerful use of nuances.

Actually nuances do not introduce a wholly new concept.  Applying nuances means using the same old design concepts---but with a difference.  The word "nuance" means "a subtle, delicate degree"; nuances cannot comprise the foundation nor the main idea of a composition, but they are always supplied at a final stage and used to accentuate, to stress, to make more prominent various design features.  So why dedicate a separate chapter to this sort of minutiae?

Because nuances can really make the difference in perception.  A form deprived of nuances may still look interesting, but only at a first glance.  It does not engage your look for more than a fraction of a second, and if you force your attention for longer, the thing is likely to start losing its charm.  After you've caught the basic message, the composition becomes too obvious, clumsy, and boring.

With nuances, however, all is changed.  A well-nuanced design becomes warm, human, and attractively elegant; it really invites us to feast our eyes.  Lots of tiny coordinations and contrasts entertain our attention; our mind is busy figuring out the solutions of tens of little riddles that the designer has secreted here and there.  "Ahha! this couple of lines are parallel...  And yes! this detail is the same color as that one...  And these two lines continued, their point of intersection is exactly in the center of that disk...  And this letter's serif is exactly on the level of that horizontal bar..."

Most of these discoveries are made unconsciously, but that's the magic of subconscious perception---it greatly affects our impression and our, quite conscious, evaluation of the quality of work.  What's interesting, our mind is not fatigued by that much "background activity"---on the contrary, it is pleasantly stimulated.  Our ancestors have been trained by natural selection to constantly watch for traces of order, be it intentional or accidental, in the chaos around us.

Decorating a logo with nuances is almost always a time-consuming process.  Stricken by inspiration, you can hit the main shape and color combination in a wink; but finding the best set of subtleties to illuminate the soul of your creation always requires some time and effort.  Before you roll out your finished work, you should carefully examine every little detail of it asking yourself the questions, "Why it's done this way? Why it has this size, this position, this angle? Is it justified somehow or can it be changed?"

If there seems to be no special reason for an element's being this way and not the other, try to slightly adjust its characteristics to better coordinate it with the others or to better express its role in the composition.  This kind of polishing may seem tedious but it really rewards.  It is recommended even to leave the unfinished work for a day or two, as after some period of relaxation your mind may become more perceptive to the delicate matter of nuances.

One kind of nuances deserving special mention is kerning, that is, manual adjusting the distance between letters (see also chapter on fonts in Part I).  Nothing is a more undeniable giveaway of an amateur than a title left without kerning.  It is true that the fonts you use are usually produced by highly experienced artists, but you should nevertheless treat your fonts as you would any other graphic resource and daringly adjust their characteristics if you need to.  And kerning is the characteristic that always needs manual intervention, as it is nearly impossible to create a font whose built-in kerning information would suffice for all practical cases.