Designing a Logo, Color Palette & Fonts

Designing a logo that works everywhere

Your logo has to look good as a 3-inch embroidered patch, a 2.25-inch button, a laser-engraved acrylic sign, a 6-foot banner, and a tiny social media profile picture. That means it must be:

• Simple - recognizable as a thumbnail.
• Scalable - built as a vector file (SVG, AI, EPS, or PDF), not just a PNG. Vectors scale to any size without blur. Free tool: Inkscape; industry standard: Adobe Illustrator.
• Workable in one color - many fabrication methods (embroidery, engraving, single-color screen printing) need a flat one-color version. Always produce full-color, black, and white versions.

Start with sketches on paper, then digitize. Avoid fine details, gradients, and thin lines that disappear when small.

Choosing colors

Limit yourself to two primary colors plus one or two accents. Write them down in real values so everyone uses the exact same color:

• HEX (e.g., #0033A0) for web and screen.
• RGB for digital design.
• CMYK for print (shirts, packets, banners).
• Pantone (PMS) if you want spot-color screen printing to match exactly.

Use a tool like Adobe Color or Coolors to test contrast. Make sure text is readable on your background colors - aim for a WCAG contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for body text. Team 254's published design assets specify exact CMYK and RGB values so every vendor reproduces their colors identically.

Picking fonts

Choose at most two typefaces: one display/heading font with personality and one clean body font for readability. Pair a bold sans-serif headline with a simple, legible body font. Practical rules:

• Use fonts you are licensed to use. Google Fonts are free for commercial use and download cleanly.
• Keep a fallback: vendors and members may not have your fancy font installed, so embed or outline (convert to curves) text in final print files.
• Avoid using more than two fonts; it instantly looks amateur.

Building the asset library

Store master files in a shared, organized folder (Google Drive works well) so members do not recreate the wheel every year:

• /logo/ - vector + PNG exports in full color, black, and white
• /colors/ - a swatch file with HEX/RGB/CMYK/Pantone
• /fonts/ - the actual font files and license notes
• /templates/ - reusable slide, social, and document templates

Don't forget FIRST's rules

When you combine your logo with FIRST or season logos, follow FIRST's brand guidelines (covered in the next lesson). Your team identity and FIRST's identity are separate brands that must coexist cleanly - never merge your logo into the FIRST logo or recolor FIRST marks.