On Using Black And White Logos In The Place Of Color

Most of us have grown so accustomed to seeing colorful corporate logos that we forget the power of a black and white image. But consider the well-known brands that use black and white - along with halftones - exclusively in their artwork: Playboy, Canon, Apple, IBM, and many others. The stark contrast between the tones in the images are memorable.

While many of the issues with using black and white in your logo design are similar to the problems associated with using color, a few are unique. We'll explore them below. We'll first explain what halftones are, and offer a few tips for preventing a loss in tonal quality when printing your logo. You'll also learn about converting color images into black and white (i.e. no halftones).

To understand halftones (sometimes referred to as grayscale), it's useful to think of printing a photograph in black and white. There are many shades of gray between the two colors, and all of them must be reproduced in the print. The printing press can only deliver the inks that are on it, and must do so in coats. The problem is, the photo will contain far too many shades for the press to render all of them accurately. The image must first be converted to halftones. This is done through a process known as dithering (which lies beyond the scope of this discussion).

When using halftones, your logo designer is likely to create your artwork with tones that seem to represent new colors. In reality, they are merely shades of gray. This is useful since doing so expands the tonal palette of your image. It makes your logo appear more nuanced than a simple black and white image. The main problem is losing some of the tones when printing.

Suppose your company logo has color in it, and you would like to turn the artwork into a grayscale image prior to printing. You cannot simply use image manipulation software to convert the colors to black and white. Doing so will likely result in a loss of contrast between the individual tones. This can be even more problematic if you print your emblem on something that is big like a billboard, or something that is shiny like a custom bumper sticker.

The most effective solution is to have your designer produce a grayscale version of your logo during the design process. This is the only way to ensure the contrast that exists between the colors is preserved for printing. The potential obstacle is that your designer must work with a vector file (as opposed to a raster format) in order to do this. If you have communicated your intentions of printing your logo, he or she should have already taken this into account.

Leaving halftones behind, let's now suppose you would like your color logo printed in black and white; no shades of gray are desired. Any section of your artwork that is not white, will be black.

Here, too, working with a vector-based logo is necessary to achieve a reasonable level of quality in the image. The colors must be completely stripped from the original artwork. There is likely a feature in your logo design application that will remove the color with a single click. Unfortunately, as before, it's a bad idea to use it. A new image with the colors manually modified is a much better option since you - or your designer - will have more control over the tonal contrast.

Manually converting a color logo into grayscale or black and white requires a vector image. Pixel-based artwork does not provide the level of flexibility you'll need to control tonal quality. Assuming you intend to print your logo, this requirement should not be an issue. A vector image is an ideal format for printing since it can be scaled up without risking a loss in resolution. A raster image will become pixelated as it grows in size, causing it to become increasingly blurry.

Black and white logos can have a powerful impact on your audience. If your logo is normally in color, and you plan to convert it, review the issues above prior to doing so.