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We explore our step-by-step process of creating a visual logo, from the initial project brief to the final design submission.
In many ways, your logo is the most important aspect of your business’ branding.
A well-designed logo that is used appropriately in your marketing can be a powerful tool that visually conveys your business’ identity, values, and personality. Without being consciously aware of it or being able to say why, your audience should begin to associate your logo with positive values and experiences, and by extension, your business. Just think of all the powerful brands that come to mind when you read the word “logo”, whose products and services you enjoy!
In today’s crowded markets, your logo can become one of your main assets that continuously adds value to your business.
A well-designed logo can often appear deceptively simple. The process of creating it, however, is anything but. Making a visual logo is both an art and a science. It involves multiple stages, each of which requires careful decision making, creativity and communication between the designer and the owner. It requires a deep understanding of both timeless design principles and modern trends.
In this article, we will explore our step-by-step process of creating a visual logo, from the initial project brief to the final design submission.
The Initial Project Brief
The logo creation process begins with the initial project brief that you send to us. At this stage, you have realized the need for a new logo. Perhaps you are just starting out as a new business or startup, perhaps you are an existing business in need of rebranding. Whatever the case may be, you get in touch with us and explain your ideas in as much detail as you can.
Perhaps you have thought long and hard about it, perhaps you have a few favorite colors and colors you want us to avoid, perhaps you would like the logo to display a specific element (for example, a bird).
But perhaps you only have a vague idea of what you want. Perhaps you want your logo to communicate movement and passion but don’t know how. Or perhaps you only know that you want your logo to be different than those of your industry peers.
Don’t worry! In our initial exploratory phase we will engage in detailed conversations with you to get as clear a picture as possible of what you want to achieve.
Understanding Your Needs
In order to understand your needs we will ask questions, provide feedback, supply examples of what has worked in the past and what hasn’t, and present options for moving forward. In particular, we will need to know the following:
- What does your business do? What industry does it operate in? What is your target audience? What is your unique offering? What are your strengths?
- What are the values of your brand? What is its tone of voice? Is it formal or casual, traditional or modern, playful or serious?
- What will be the primary use of the logo – online, print, or both?
- What are your preferences about colors, fonts and visual elements?
As a part of this process, you will always be able to send us examples of logos you like or dislike, drawings and sketches of your ideas and anything else you believe will help us better understand your vision.
Understanding Your Competition
Together with gathering as much information about your needs as possible, we will also need to analyze your competition as defined by you:
- Who are your main competitors?
- What do their logos look like?
- How do they position themselves in the market?
This analysis will ensure that we create a logo that is unique in your market and accentuates your particular strengths in it, while it is not too similar to that of any close competitor.
At a later stage of the process, we will do reverse image searches and query logo databases to assess how close our creation is to other logos.
Creation of First Design Variants
Once we have a clear enough idea of your needs and the competitive landscape, we will be ready to set about creating a first set of design variants. Typically, one variant will closely follow your ideas as outlined in the initial project brief. With it, we will try to recreate the look and feel of the logo you originally envisioned with its colors, fonts and elements.
A second design variant may focus on alternative or secondary ideas provided by you.
Finally, a third variant may consist entirely of our ideas. It will be the one farthest away from your initial idea while still adhering to the principles agreed upon in the discovery phase.
We will try to recreate your vision as faithfully as possible, while simultaneously challenging it and supplying our own ideas. We will send you a presentation outlining the design variants in detail, our rationale behind them, the fonts and colors used, along with subvariants for each design direction. If we took creative liberties from the initial brief, we will explain why. Ideally, at the end of this phase you will be able to choose one of the design variants or some combination of them. Perhaps you will like to keep the fonts and colors of design A but combined with the icon of design B and the layout of design C.
There are no wrong answers here! We are ready to experiment based on your ideas and test what looks good in practice and what doesn’t.
Second Wave of Design Variants
Now that you have chosen a design variant or a combination of the initial ideas presented to you, we will move on to the second wave of design variants.
At this stage, the outline of your future logo will be clear enough to allow us to experiment with specific details. For example, we may try out thinner or thicker fonts, experiment with letter spacing, etc. We may try different colors and test alternative combinations. We may experiment with gradient effects, shadows, etc. We may produce variants on any visual elements, making them larger or smaller, placing them in a different position, etc.
Once again, we will send you a detailed presentation on everything we have done and our reasoning behind it. Ideally, you will be able to choose your logo from among these ideas but in most cases, some final touches will be needed.
The Final Touches
Based on your feedback, in this final stage of the design process you will have narrowed down your choice to a specific design idea with very particular requests on what you want us to change.
We will send you a presentation containing your chosen logo along with several variants that differ slightly in some unique aspect. For example, you want us to experiment with 5 different levels of letter spacing in your logo. Once you see the results, you will choose among them.
Testing The Logo
Throughout the design process we will extensively test the logo to see if it works as intended in different scenarios. For example, with each wave of design variants we will present the logo on different backgrounds and mock-ups to make sure that it is readable.
Additionally, we will test if your logo looks good in black and white, which is especially important if it will be printed out. We will check if the logo looks good in large formats such as billboards, as well as small formats, such as business cards.
We will communicate these considerations to you clearly each step of the way.
Submitting the Logo
At this point in the process you will already know what your logo looks like and how it feels when used in different scenarios, for example when presented digitally vs when printed on merchandise.
All that is left to do on our end is to present you with the final versions of our design files in all necessary formats, so you can conveniently use them in your marketing and forward them to partners. We will package the logo in a presentation or brand book that clearly defines how to use the logo, what to avoid, what the specific fonts and colors are, etc.
Of course, even though your logo is finished we do not see our work as ending there. We remain at your service to make changes to the logo whenever you need, to design additional logos for your other ventures or to create sub brands for your existing brands!
Conclusion
As we have shown in this article, creating a visual logo is a comprehensive process that requires collaboration between us as designers and you as the client. It also requires a lot of creativity, willingness to challenge conventions and norms, as well as a deep understanding of timeless design principles. From the initial project brief to the final logo submission, each step in the process is vital and needs to be approached with careful consideration.
We strongly believe that to create a powerful logo that works well, communicates the essence of your brand clearly and ultimately provides value to you and your clients, attention must be paid to every detail. We also believe that this can only be achieved through the collaboration of an experienced designer and motivated brand owner, not through free online tools or cheap templates.
With this article, we hope to have given you a clearer idea of what to expect when you get in touch with us to design a logo for you.
Sounds good? Send us your project today!
