This paper presents a systematic design method of an anti-swing control law for overhead cranes. A velocity servo system for the trolley of a crane is designed based on the dynamics of the trolley and its load. The velocity servo system compensates for the effects of load swing on the trolley dynamics so that the velocity servo is independent of load swing. The velocity servo system is used for the design of a position servo system for the trolley via the loop shaping method. The position servo system and the swing dynamics of the load are then used to design an angle control system for load swing based on the root locus method. The combined position servo and the angle control systems constitute the overall control system. In the presence of low frequency disturbances, the proposed control law guarantees accurate position control for the trolley and fast damping for load swing. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed control law is independent of the mass of the load. Experimental results on a prototype crane show the effectiveness of the proposed anti-swing control law.