A Client Guide To The Logo Design Process
Whether you’re having a brand new logo designed for your business, or just refreshing the existing one, it can be a delicate operation indeed. The designer is employed to do the work, but it is a two way relationship and there are a number of things you can do as the client, to make the process run as smoothly as possible.
Here are a few handy tips to help the project stay on track and make sure everyone gets the most out of the design process.
Get stakeholder buy in
Make sure that everyone within the company or organisation is on board before you try and change the logo. Be clear whether it is a complete redesign or a subtle evolution. This will save you time, budget and a lot of unnecessary pain.
Know your objectives
Make sure you know your brand’s audience and that the creative brief is written for them, not the personal preference of the CEO.
Keep it simple
Don’t try and turn your logo into a complex diagram of what your business does. It will dilute the impact of the logo and look very dated. Simple and elegant is always best.
Keep it flexible
It is important that your logo works well in different scenarios. Overlaid shapes with colour gradients will not translate well if viewed in black and white. The reality is that most office printers are black and white, and even if you have the best intentions for your logo, often it can be viewed in a compromised state. The best logos are often solid shapes that will reverse into black or white.
Size
Will it work when its small? Don’t try and cram too much info into your logo. Forcing a strapline of text to fit the width of an acronym will look fine when big, but when reduced down in size, will most likely become illegible.
Multilingual
If multilingual versions of a logo are required, make sure the layout is flexible enough to cope with wildly varying words length that can occur between languages.
Be realistic
Public engagement and time is required for a logo to become iconic and memorable, it is not designed that way. It is important that you have realistic expectations about what the new logo will achieve.
Avoid trends
Trends quickly become clichés and as much as you want your logo to look contemporary and stand out from the crowd, jumping on trends can easily backfire and looked dated very quickly.
Listen to the experts
Lastly, listen to recommendations. Together with your designer, you will have worked on the creative brief. It is the designers job to come up with the solution that fits the brief. If they are advising a certain path, it will be for a well considered reason. Listen to your designer, and you will reap the benefit of their years of experience and expertise.
With all these tips in mind hopefully your logo design process should run on time, on budget, and result is a brand that you can be proud of.
Some Logo Design Inspiration:
