Logo design and the process involved
What’s involved in designing a great logo for your business?
A powerful logo gets your business noticed and remembered – without a single word being spoken.
Your company logo is an essential feature of your visual reputation and brand identity.
It needs to stand out, be easy to recognise and reinforce all the good things people think about your business.
Good logo design takes time
A great logo will serve your business for many years.
The logo design process isn’t instant and it shouldn’t be rushed. It will take time for you and a good designer to come up with a logo that will work well wherever you use it, including on your website, business stationery, vehicles and sometimes clothing.
Find a designer who is easy to talk to and is on the same wavelength as you because it’s vital you work as a team to come up with the best solution for your business.
Logo design – things to consider
Before the design process starts, it’s a good idea to run through the following questions: –
- Where will you use the logo? List everywhere you want to use your logo.
- Do you have existing company colours that you want to include? Consistency is important.
- Do you need to be able to use the logo across printed and online materials? Do you want to adapt your logo for different uses?
- Do you have a tag-line or strap-line that you want to incorporate into your logo?
- Who are your competitors and how good are their logos? You need to stand out and be different.
- Who is your target market? This will help shape the design and colours for your logo.
Case Study – 325 Productions UK
Here’s the story of how we designed a new logo for one of our clients. We think it explains the logo design process well and we hope you find it useful.
The Brief
Our client wanted us to redesign their existing logo to create a fresh new look for the business.
They were happy with the existing company colours and wanted a new logo that was easy to recognise and would work well across a variety of different marketing collateral such as business cards, stationery, T-shirts, video and more.
No tag-line was needed which helped keep the design clear and simple.
Concept Stage
This stage is where we test the water and check that we fully understand what our client likes and dislikes.
Normally, we create three to five initial concepts that are very different.
We always try to create totally different concepts with a range of shapes, fonts, uppercase or lower case, some with graphics and icons and some without.
This allowed the client to express their preference and shaped the direction we should go in for the next few rounds of development.
Normally this round is done in black and white for two main reasons:
- A good logo needs to work just as well in single colour as it does in full colour, otherwise it doesn’t work. Take a look at this list of logos and see how many you can spot that don’t work in black?
- At this early stage, colours often distract the client and they focus on changing the colours when the priority is to look for the design, fonts and lettering that they prefer.
In this case, the client clearly stated he wanted to use exactly the same colours as in their old logo, so we were able to add colour in the first round of drafts.
1st development round – It’s a split decision!
After considering the initial concepts, we agreed to develop two concepts a little further.
The feedback at this stage is focused on getting the font spacing right, along with the boldness of some of the typeface. We also looked at the potential icon and tried some variations to see what worked for the client. The font in these logos was the right font but maybe needed a little work.
2nd development round – Moving the design on
With the first development round complete, we had a much clearer idea of what the client likes and where to focus our efforts in the next stage.
Through our discussions with the client, we agreed to look at the icon and the type weights as we felt these weren’t quite right. The top version is the starting point from the last round.
3rd development round – Fine tuning
Once we had identified the icon, font and layout that our client preferred, we got down to the finer details of the logo and started making very slight changes from the last round of logos.
We changed things like rounding the corners of the font and thickening up the dividing line.
We presented a number of colour combinations so the client could see what worked and what didn’t. It is often not until you see a logo in a group with other colour combinations that you can imagine how it would work on a t-shirt or business card.
We are always happy to present a range of designs and colours to help clients with the decision-making process. In this case, we mocked up a business card with the client’s details to help them to visualize the final logo.
4th development round – Making sure everything is 100% right
Often during the logo design process, our client will take a look back at previous ideas, just to make sure they haven’t missed something they really want to keep. This reflection can also help to identify why a logo at this stage isn’t quite right yet.
This project was one of those occasions and that’s what makes our multiple rounds of development so valuable.
It’s also a good reminder to the designer to keep previous artwork files until the process is complete!
By this stage, our client was happy with everything, apart from the 325 icon.
They didn’t feel it was individual enough as a standout element that would work in isolation and we completely agreed.
Our role is to put forward the ideas and advise on practicality, but our clients usually instinctively know what’s right for their business at this stage of the process.
We never present an idea we are not 100% happy with or that we wouldn’t want used in the final logo. This is because we always want to be proud of everything we produce and the only way to do that is to present ideas that we love.
In this case, we went back to the previous round and looked at another icon design that was previously dismissed. With a few minor changes, we came up with the following and final design that the client loved and we are proud of.
We looked at how it would work as a round logo, along with a few minor changes that the client wanted to see before committing to the final design.
Final logo – We are there!
Here’s the final logo that the client loves and we know will work for his business.
Thanks to our dedicated logo design process, we know it meets the client’s original brief and works in black, white and full colour, as well as being able to adapt to a square logo if needed.
A good logo must be flexible
The flexibility of a logo is extremely important as the logo won’t always be used in long, thin horizontal boxes.
Often, especially with social media, the logo spaces are only suitable for square logos.
Having a logo that can be adapted is important and this has to be factored in from the start of the process in order for it to work properly.
All that’s left to do at this stage is to package up all the final artwork files in different formats like jpeg, vector and png. We’ll explain these in more detail in a separate blog post.
Summary
Designing a new logo for 325 Productions took some time and it was as important for our client to see what they didn’t like, as much as narrowing down what they did.
They plan for the final logo to be around for a while as they know constantly changing logos can damage your brand identity and ultimately your business.
Do you need a new logo?
We charge around £200 to design a company logo and we think that’s pretty reasonable considering the time we spend on getting things right.
If you want new business cards to show off your new logo, we’ll design and print 500 top quality business cards alongside your logo for £250 or £350 if you want a full set of business stationery, including 500 letterheads or branded invoices, 500 business cards and 500 comp slips.
If you’ve seen logo design advertised cheaper
We know.
There are a lot of people out there who say they will design a new brand identity and logo for £50. We would argue that these people are unlikely to spend longer than half an hour working on your company at this price.
But, don’t take our word for it – ask for quotes from at least three different marketing and design companies and check the process they go through to come up with the perfect logo for your business.
Our logo designs stand the test of time
As we said earlier, we take pride in everything we do and we make sure the logos we design are “fit for purpose” for many years to come.
If you’d like to find out more, please get in touch today and see how we can help your business stand out.
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