This is the ultimate logo inspiration post packed with 25 amazing logo collections. Many designers put together collections of their logo designs each year or a few times a year depending on how many they do as a way to showcase their work and inspire others. We have searched Behance.net for the best logo designers and their logo collections. If you ever need inspiration when it comes to logo design this is your go to post! Did we miss your logo design collection? Show us in the comments!

Best Logo Design Collections

When it comes to working with clients, there are a lot of things you should be doing besides just asking for money. The tips below will help you grow your design business quickly and easily by asking your clients for a few simple things after completing a successful design project.

1. Testimonials

Testimonials can be a powerful element of any business website. They are proven to inspire trust in viewers and many top online businesses feature testimonials on their websites. Its a good idea to feature a few in a prominent location such as your home page and then you could have a “read more” link to a page with even more testimonials from clients. Testimonials do not have to be long (usually a sentence or two is fine), so be sure to ask your clients for a testimonial if the project went well!

2. Designed by Links

If you are creating a website design for a client you should always try and get a “Designed by” link somewhere on their website. The most common place is the footer, but if you can get a link in a better spot go for it! These backlinks can help your site rank better in search engines if you use an important keyword as the anchor text.

Also, if people like a website design they will often look in the footer to see if there is a link to the web designer’s home page. If a client is resistant to the idea try offering them a price discount, but realize a link like this is much more valuable on an established site than a brand new one that is getting no traffic.

3. Print Design Credits

If you are doing print work you may be able to snag a credit somewhere, which can bring in a lot of business. Being able to get this credit will depend heavily on the client…a lot of larger size clients will not want to give you a credit, but you may be able to negotiate with smaller businesses. Try offering them a small discount in exchange for your website some where on the design.

4. Logo Usage Rights

Displaying logos of well known businesses is another great trust building tactic. Many potential clients like to see who you have done work for before and if they recognize the logos of clients you have worked for, it can increase your chances of bringing them in. So be sure to ask your clients for the right to use their logo on your website or wherever else you would like to display it

5. Full Contact Details

Sometimes when you get a new client you only have their phone number or email. It is important that you get all their contact info, including their mailing address if you want to maximize future business. If you have their number you could do a follow up call and if you have their mailing address you can send holidays cards or promotional offers once in a while. Over time, you should be able to build up a pretty nice list of business contacts, which could really come in handy when work is slow.

6. Future Business

Having your clients contact info as mentioned above, will make it easier to get future business. How often you contact clients is up to you, but you need to be careful not to bug your clients too much. Personally I would not email, call our mail something out more than a few times a year to a list of clients. Its usually best to offer some sort of discount instead of directly asking a client if they need new work. Most of the time, clients will seek you out if they want new work so be sure they have your latest contact info and your website is up to date.

7. Referrals

One of the best ways to get new business has always been word of mouth. If you do a good job for a client they are very likely to refer you to friends, family and co-workers if some one asks them about the services you provide. A good way to step this up a notch is to offer clients a finders fee, so if they refer you to some one and you land the job they get a small percentage or a flat rate finders fee. This can help keep people on their toes and bring in way more referrals.

You should also network with other web designers, graphic designers, and marketing professionals so you can offer them the same finders fee. If they are overloaded with work or can’t provide a service a client is asking for, they may send them your way!

Animals have always played a huge part in business branding. Sometimes an animal is used because of what it represents such as a bull representing strength or a sheep being synonymous with sleep. Other times, an animal is simply used because its in the business name or works well in representing what a business is about. So if you ever have to create a logo for a business and an animal is to be included, you will love this round up of some of the best animal logo designs on the web.

Animal Logo Design Inspiration

Again, in honor of tee week here at YouTheDesigner we are going to be giving away a cool t shirt business promotional package from UPrinting.com. This great little package includes several important items to help you get your tee design business of the ground. So whether you are planning to sell a few t shirts or an entire line this package will help you save money, launch your business and promote your tee designs. The winner of the contest will receive 500 business cards, 250 stickers and 250 hang tags.

UPDATE10/26/2009:

WINNER SELECTED – Ray Masaki – Lowdtown Friends & Freaks

Contest Prizes

One lucky winner will win 500 business cards, 250 stickers and 250 hang tags courtesy of UPrinting.com

How to Enter the Contest

Leave a comment below telling us about your idea for a t shirt line or t shirt design you want to sell. The best idea/comment will win and the winner will be chosen by me on October 26th 2009. Increase your chances of winning by actually showing us your t shirt design/designs via a link in the comments. Even If you have already launched a t shirt line or have designs for sale you may still enter.

Contest Rules

1. Free shipping for winner if located in the US. If winner is located elsewhere, shipping fee will apply.

2. Only one entry per person

3. By commenting/entering you agree to receive promotional emails from UPrinting.com

If you have mad design skills and t shirt week on YouTheDesigner has inspired you to start creating and selling t shirt designs…than keep on reading. Today’s t shirt week post is about how to promote your t shirt design business offline. Selling tees is NOT easy and it takes a combination of both on and offline marketing to be successful. You also need to create and build up your brand so that people become familiar with your line. Branding is a very important aspect of the fashion industry.

So when you are dabbling in offline promotions, you must always keep your brand in mind and your brand identity consistent in your marketing collateral. The same idea should be applied to any business, such as a freelance graphic design business. Below are some very common things clothing line owners use to promote their brands, all of which you can get at UPrinting.com

1. Business Cards

This is the most important thing to have when running a t shirt design business. As a clothing line owner you need to network like crazy and the one thing people always ask for is a business card. If you are caught without one there i a good chance you will not be taking seriously and you could miss out on a big opportunity. You might even find every day people asking you where they can get your tees and handing them a business card with your website url is a great way to ensure nabbing a new customer.

So the first thing any t shirt business owner should get is some Spiffy New Business Cards with your logo, website url and contact details on each card.

2. Flyers

Flyers are a great way to promote sales to your customers via standard mail and also at events. Their are plenty of holidays during the year shoppers associate with sales and these are all Great Times for Flyer Printing and mailing to past and potential new customers promoting sales, contests and more. Start building up your mailing lists today and keep a stack of flyers handy at any t shirt events you attend.

3. Stickers

People enjoy supporting brands they love and stickers are a great way to create a guerrilla marketing team out of your loyal customers. You can throw a few free stickers in with each order, give them away at events, or stick them around town yourself! When you Order Your Sticker Printing, make sure your logo and website url are on the stickers so people know where to go when they run across your brands stickers.

4. Hang Tags

Hang tags are a kick butt way of reinforcing your brand name on your actual products. Many clothing line owners create Custom Clothing Hang Tags with their logo on them and attach them to each t shirt. This is a cheap way to help people remember your brand name and it is also a good spot to place pricing tags without damaging your t shirts. You can order several hundred hag tags for cheap and there are a bunch of easy ways to attach them to your tees quickly.

5. Vinyl Banners

Going to concerts, trade shows and other events is an important thing for any t shirt business owner to do. Many brands spend a lot of time traveling and attending events to promote their t shirts to a specific target audience. If you can find the right audience for your tees at events you can sell tons of tee designs in just one day. Usually you pay for a spot to set up a booth and then its up to you to draw people in.

I have seen t-shirt business owners create very impressive setups to promote and display their tees. Putting up a Big Vinyl Banner is a very good way to draw people in and the banner is something you can keep using over at any events you go to.

6. Letterhead

A good letterhead design can be used for a lot of things such as standard letters, contracts, estimates, invoices and so on. Its a simple way to make your business appear more professional and keep your branding consistent across all your business and marketing collateral. A Good Letterhead Printing design should not be too overpowering, but should include your logo design, design elements that work with your branding and important contact information such as your website url, email and phone number.

7. Greeting Cards

The perfect holiday promotional tool, greeting cards can work wonders for bringing in extra sales during the holidays. Greeting Card Printing is also a really nice way to just say thank you to your customers. You don’t always have to pitch a sale or offer with a greeting card. A simple seasons greetings form your clothing line with your logo and website url is enough to get people back to your website when they are trying to think of ideas for gifts.

8. Catalogs

Catalogs are perfect for trade shows and handing out to retail stores interested in selling your tees. It allows people to quickly see all the designs you have in stock and can help them order products offline. If you have a ton of products you can even invest in Catalog Printing and allow people to order a printed catalogs online. You should also carry a small stack of catalogs to events in case any potential retailers like your line and want to take back some samples and a catalog of your products for review.

9. Roll Labels

If you can’t afford expensive custom packaging for your tee designs, but you still want to make an impact you can use Custom Roll Labels. The roll labels can be printed at various custom sizes and placed on standard envelopes and boxes to give them a sweet custom look that is consistent with your branding. Roll labels can make all the difference when it comes to packaging design. They are super easy to have made and only take seconds to place on your product packaging.

10. Sales Sheet

There comes a time for many t shirt business owners when expansion is needed. There is nothing cooler than seeing your t shirt designs in clothing stores and making great money at the same time. In order to get your t shirt designs into stores, you usually need to pitch your line to a retail business that sells tees. Having a Professional Looking Sales Sheet is a super simple way to let a retailers know everything about your clothing line and individual designs such as what your tees look like, how they are printed and who your target audience is.

Images from LintyFresh on Flickr

Interviews have always been a great way to learn tips and tricks from successful designers and entrepreneurs, making them an important learning tool. Being a successful t shirt designer or clothing line owner is no easy task so if you are serious about bettering yourself and gaining some insight into the inner workings of the t shirt design industry check out some of these awesome t shirt interviews. These interviews are also just a fun and great way to get to know the people behind your favorite brands and t shirt designs better, so dig in!

Interview With Draco

Interview With Matthew Skiff

Interview With a.mar.illo

Interview With Johnny Cupcakes

Interview With Jimiyo

Interview With Wotto

Interview With Shirt Fight!

Interview With Amir at Beautiful/Decay Apparel

Interview With Reese Imhof of 410 BC

Interview With Keaton Henson

Interview With GodMachine

Interview With Pyknic

Threadless Interviews

Interview with Jeff Finley of Go Media

Interview With Shred Clothing

Interview With Jimiyo 2

Interview With Founder of Retro Campaigns

Interview With Inkemplete

Interview With Kyle Crawford of Electric Zombie Clothing

Interview With Kevin Hartranft

Interview With Glamour Kills Owner Mark Capicotto

Interview with David Murray of SEIBEI

Day 3 of t shirt week on You the Designer is here! Today we have created a very handy list of t shirt resources for any designers looking to get into the tee design business. Our list of resources includes the top t shirt blogs, the best t shirt design galleries you can submit your designs to and some great t shirt contest sites you can sign up for to try and win very generous prizes. If you think we missed any t shirt design resources in this list, please share them with us!

T Shirt Design Galleries

T Shirt Blogs

T Shirt Contests

If you are reading this blog you are probably really into design and if you feel like showing off your love of design check out this collection of t shirts for graphic designers. Perfect for wearing at design school, in the office or around town these tees will let people know what you love to do. The one thing I found funny while searching for tees designers would like, is the crazy amount of ampersand (&) tees I came across! I guess this is a universal symbol for graphic designers haha! Anyways, if you know of any cool tees I missed please show us in the comments.

Tees for Graphic Designers

Today we are continuing t shirt week on YouTheDesigner.com with a roundup of some of the best t shirt tutorials on the web. If you are a designer looking to get into the t shirt design business, be sure to check out these tutorials! The t shirt tutorials below include printing tips, how to create custom stencils and how to mock up your t shirt designs. If you know of any other great tutorials please link them in the comments!

Design Process: “Sick” Metal Band T-Shirt

Go Media’s Rapid-Fire Illustration Technique

Create a Complete Apparel Tech Pack

Designers’ Guide to the Apparel Printing Industry

How to Create Photorealistic T-Shirt Mockups

Photoshop T-shirt Design

DIY vintage T-shirts

Create a Custom T-Shirt Stencil Design

Product Presentation and Packaging

CMYK Process Printing for the Emerging T-Shirt Designer

Create a Three-Color Illustration for Screen Printing

Super-Slick, Screen Printing Separations with Illustrator

How to Create Your Own Color Separations in Adobe Illustrator

How to Prepare Artwork for Screen-Printing

How to create a T-shirt from scratch

Apparel Printing Techniques

6 Great Tips On How To Prepare Artwork for T-Shirt Printing

Tutorial: creating t-shirt templates

Step by step Photoshop coloring method using halftones

Halftone Shading Tutorial

Making halftones in Illustrator

Realistic T-Shirt Mockup Tutorial

4-Color Process Separations In Photoshop

Spot Color Separations In Photoshop

Using Adobe Kuler to Enhance Your Photoshop Color Workflow

Many graphic designers dabble in t-shirt and fashion design, so this week will be t-shirt week on YouTheDesigner.com! All our posts this week will revolve around t shirt and fashion design, starting with today’s posts. Below is an ultimate roundup of t shirt templates for any designers interesting in doing t shirt designs and such.

The t shirt design community is very rich with plenty of things for a graphic designer to do. You can work full time as a designer, create freelance t shirt designs, submit your tee designs to the many t shirt contest sites out there to win cool prizes and lots of money, or even start your own clothing line if you have a bunch of cool designs! The t shirt templates in this roundup are a great way to mock up your designs to see how they will look before production.

Best Free T Shirt Template Designs

If you are a freelance designer doing websites and graphic design work for clients, there are certain services your client will often be in need of. For example web hosting would probably be the most common service needed. You probably know a few good hosting companies already and would simply recommend a few choices to a client, but why not sign up for the hosting affiliate programs and ask them to use your referral link?

A lot of hosting companies give you $50-100 for a referral! That’s a nice chunk of change for not doing anything if you ask me. If you do a lot of websites each year you could potentially make a few thousand more dollars a year just by getting clients to use your hosting affiliate link! If this sounds interesting to you, check out some other ideas for generating extra money from referring clients below.

How to Squeeze Money Out of Clients With Affiliate Programs

1. Printing

As a freelance graphic designer the thing you can promote the most is a Printing Company. Most graphic designers have a favorite printing company mine being UPrinting.com of course =). Printing companies like UPrinting often have a Printing Affiliate Program you can use to help your clients print work. This can help offset some of your expenses and can bring you in a lot of extra income each year!

2. Email Marketing

Many businesses want to build up email lists because they can be a very powerful way of keeping in touch with customers and bringing in new business. If a client asks you about an email marketing and list soultion you can tell them about one of the many great services out there such as MailChimp, which has a partnership program waiting for you.

3. Shopping Carts

If your client needs to set up an online store there are plenty of really great software solutions out there that can save them thousands of dollars on a custom coded store and earn you a few bucks as well. 1shoppingcart is a popular e-commerce solution that has an affiliate program you can promote.

4. Website Security

Some of your clients maybe be creating online stores or websites with private information that needs to be protected. Website can be secured with SSL certificates and that means you could recommend a quality SSL certificate service to your client and get a referral commission as well. Comodo is a good choice for SSL Certificates and they have an affiliate program you can sign up to.

5. Hosting

As mentioned earlier web hosting will probably be the most common thing you can recommend to a client as a web freelancer. HostGator is a very good hosting company with a solid affiliate program that has a tier based commission system starting at $50!

Feel free to recommend any other services design clients often need that have affiliate programs below!

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/libraryman/78337046/

I’ve always been a fan of cars (even though I own a truck!) so its always fun to look at custom and concept car designs online. I like to see where car designers think automotive styling is going. Unfortunately most concept car designs become much more boring looking when they go into production, but as the years go by, car designs do seem to get closer and closer to what we view as futuristic looking now. Anyways here are some sweet new car designs (not all concepts, some are just cool car inspired designed) from the design community.

Powerful Car Designs

The current unemployment rate in the United States is at 9.6% as of August 2009. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) That’s pretty scary if you ask me and most people think it won’t get better for a long time! Hundreds of thousands of people are getting kicked to the curb every month and graphic designers are no exception. I’ve spoken about how competitive the graphic design field already is and the current economic troubles have only made it worse. Don’t worry, there is still a light at the end of the tunnel and this guide will help you get there or at least get hired!

Find Jobs With Your Graphic Designer Resume While Sleeping

I’m going to teach you how to job hunt while you sleep and we will be doing this with your graphic designer resume. If you have not created one yet, check out our Graphic Design Resume Guide then come back.

Job hunting online is very popular nowadays, especially on big job boards like Craigslist and Monster. People who post jobs on these boards are being bombarded with tons of applications, especially now that there are many thousands more unemployed designers across the World. So your chances have become much more slim at finding a job online.

Thankfully there is a solution…

Step 1 – Keyword Research

If you want potential employers to come directly to you, you must first figure out what they are searching for online. As an example we will use the phrase “Graphic Designer Resume”. If a company was looking to hire a new graphic designer they might very well type that phrase into Google to search for designers. How great would it be if they saw your resume appear on the first page of results? Getting your resume on the first page of Google can greatly increase your chances of being hired, especially for a popular phrase like “Graphic Designer Resume”.

If you use the Google Keyword Tool you will see this phrase gets an estimated 12,00 searches a month. This number is usually a high-ball figure, but if you were in the top 5 results on Google for this phrase you would see a significant amount of traffic, which could very well lead to some job inquiries! Obviously being hired will depend on many factors such as your experience, portfolio, location and so on, but who wouldn’t want a steady stream of potential employers visiting their site on a daily basis, even while asleep!

So check out that keyword tool above and type in some different phrases. Once you have picked a phrase you want to rank for we can start setting up your site.

Step 2 – Get a Domain Name and Hosting

If you don’t have a website up you will need to set one up. I suggest using your personal name as your domain name. If its taken try some variations such as first name and last initial or throw in your middle name. You can get a domain name ad GoDaddy or similar domain registrars. Most domain registrars also offer hosting, if not HostGator and Doreo are a few good choices as far as web hosting goes. All you need is a basic plan to start. Just make sure your hosting has cPanel and supports WordPress because they are very useful and powerful tools…

Step 3 – Set Up Your Website

How you design and code your site is up to you, but the important part is what is on the website. For this guide I am going to recommend displaying your resume as the home page of your site. Its a very plain and simple concept, but not many people have done this. Most of the time you just see a link to download a resume or a portfolio displayed on the home page. I recommend adding those things as well, but your resume should be the main focus.

If you have your resume completed, then you should already have your site’s design and content! Just convert your resume design into a website and make all the text live so search engines can crawl and index your resume content. If you need help coding your website try using a service such as psd2html.

Step 4 – Optimize Your Site for Search

Now once your new resume website is up we need to optimize it for the keyword phrase you picked in step 1 such as “Graphic Designer Resume”. Below are several basic on page search engine optimization tips you can use to help boost your sites relevance and ranking for the search phrase of your choice.

1. Page Title Optimization

The page title is the title seen at the top of your browser window and is also used as the title for your listing in search results. Your home page title is very important and should include your target phrase. An example of a simple and effective page title would be “Graphic Designer Resume of Your Name”. Including both your target phrase and your name is very important and so is keeping the page title short and to the point. Page titles are added in the header section of a website, usually along with other META tags.

2. Title Tags

Once you add your resume to your home page as the main content of your site, you should add some keyword rich titles. So for example you could add the phrase “Your Name Graphic Designer Resume” wrapped in an h1 tag in the code of your site. The h1 tag is one of several tags that are used for titles and subtitle styling h1 is given the most weight by search engines. Adding one h1 tag and a few h2 tags around some important keyword phrases can help you rank better for those phrases.

3. Keyword Rich Content

Your resume is probably already keyword phrase rich, but you should try adding in some important keyword phrases to help your site rank better. For example if your target phrase was “Graphic Designer Resume” you could mix that and some variations of the phrase into your sites content. This will help search engines better understand what your website is about and will help it rank better.

4. Clear Site Structure

Your website should have a clear navigation that remains the same on every page. This will help users and search engine navigate your site better. Also make sure your website coding is valid.

5. Sitemap

Once all your pages are up you should generate both and HTML and XML sitemap for your site. The HTML sitemap should be linked in your footer and the XML sitemap should be submitted online to Google Webmaster Tools, which you need a Google account to access.

Step 5 – Increase Your Search Rankings

Now depending on the phrase you picked it can take some time and money to get on the first page of Google for your target phrase. The most common way to increase rankings is to do link building, because right now most search engines such as Google rank websites heavily by the quality and amount of backlinks pointing back to a site. So for example if a lot of websites linked back to your website using the link anchor text “Graphic Designer Resume” and your home page as the URL and your website was optimized for that phrase using the above tips, you would be on your way to the first page of Google.

While this is an important factor in rankings their are many other ranking factors as well, but don’t worry about that yet. Lets start with the basics and if you want to learn a lot more about SEO, I recommend checking out SEOBook.com, which is a great resource for learning all about search engine optimization.

They also have an awesome free guide on how to build links quickly. Following the tips in the link building guide can help you increase your rankings in search engines.

Step 6 – Other Important Tips

1. NoFollow Tags

Many sites now use the NoFollow tag on links. This simple tag can be added to links and tells search engines NOT to follow the link. This means you won’t get any ranking benefits from the link. So if you buy links, post on forums and do other link building. make sure you are getting follow links. You can check if a link is NoFollow or not by right clicking it to view the properties. If the link is NoFollowed you should see a mention of it in the properties.

2. Varied Anchor text

When you do link building its important you build a natural link building profile. This means varying the anchor text used to link back to your site and also mix up the places you get backlinks. So basically you DON’T want 5 thousand forum links all with the same anchor text pointing back to your site as your only marketing method. So mix it up and think natural!

3. Contact Info

Your contact info should be clearly visible in multiple areas of your site so potential employers can reach you easily. The harder you make it to be contacted the lower your chances of getting hired will be. You should include both your phone and email to give the employer options.

4. Available for Employment

It is very important that you clearly state you are available for employment and where you are available to work. Are you willing to move across the country, work remotely or do you only want to work in your home state? Put your available for employment message somewhere at the top and bottom of your site where it can be easily seen.

Step 7 – Conclusion

Hopefully you found this post useful. I have used this tactic myself and it has worked wonders. I am currently employed full-time, but recently got two very generous full time job offers in one week by companies who found my resume by searching online using Google. Even if you are currently employed and have to turn down offers, you will be making contacts and securing possible future employment.

If you have any questions related to this guide please feel free to ask in the comments below and I will do my best to answer back quickly.

Typography has always been a fundamental aspect of design, but many designers are now making type the centerpiece of their designs. Not only is typography becoming the design, but type is being pushed to the limits by being used in cool new ways such as 3D typography. Designers have been dabbling in 3d typography effects for a while, so here are some new type projects you may not have seen yet form the online design community.

New 3D Typography Effects

Photoshop gurus never seem to stop working, because every day I run across dozens and dozens of exquisite new Adobe Photoshop design examples. A lot of designers get stuck with doing corporate style designs and a great way to vent your pent up creative energy is to work on some creative Photoshop designs. Looking at these Photoshop examples can be really inspiring for both new and professional designers and its always interesting to see what the latest trends are!

Exquisite New Photoshop Examples