Brand logo design - A definitive workflow on how to design a logo.
So, what's a typical Brand Logo Design process like?
Before we start on any design work. I’ll learn and understand more about your business, your brand story, goals and target audience. We want to craft a brand logo design that is not only timeless and memorable but versatile with all your marketing channels. An effective logo requires careful thought and research to ensure the final logomark works for your business.
Your brand is a promise, it’s who you are and what you stand for. Now, the question is – How to design a logo? Here’s an in-depth overview of my brand logo design process categorised in 5 phases.
Design Brief
Firstly, we’ll kick start the project with a comprehensive design brief in the form of a questionnaire specifically designed to find out as much as possible about your business and target audience.
Over the years, I’ve found that sending questionnaires over to the client as a document works more effective than conducting a face to face interview. The reasons being that not all clients have the answer immediately to a question. Company owners are also focused on the operational side of the business most of the time where specific topics on the brand values, mission and vision may never have been fully considered. A questionnaire allows the client some time to look through and research. Clients can also bring up topics with company stakeholders for discussions if required.
With your inputs, I’ll create a list of objectives agreed by you on what needs to be included and excluded in the logo design. This will act as a base reference point set for the project as we move along in the design phase.
Research and Discovery
I will research and study what I need to know about your existing company, its history and uncover any facet of your business not mentioned in the brief. This research phase naturally takes time but it’s an opportunity to discover potential ideas which could be used as inspiration during the ideas generation phase. This provides insights into the overall problem. I will also look at your competitors to see what they are doing, as well as the crowd and market you’re targeting. This helps me to design a logo that is unique to your business.
Sketch and Conceptualise
Every great brand logo design starts with a sketch, and every possibility, ideas that come to mind will be sketched on paper. The brainstorming doesn’t stop here, any idea worthy of development will be explored. I’ll then practise a ‘cooling’ period to refrain from working on the design. This allows me to reconsider new ideas from a fresh perspective, which will help to address any immediate concerns that may have been overlooked in the initial sketches. The best idea will be further developed on grids and lines to balance and align elements, organic shapes correctly. Exploration of the logo variants, monochrome formats, and colour schemes will also be visualised and integrated into the design.
Presentation and Refinement
Once designs are ready, I will create a presentation deck in a PDF document which will display the logo design concept and rationale, alongside with mock-ups of the brand mark integrated into images in real life examples. I will only present to you the best design, delicately crafted and considered for your business, and will give you my opinion on the design decision made for every detailed aspect of the design. If you feel the design could be improved or modified to better meet the objectives, we’ll iterate as necessary.
Delivery and Support
When we are both happy with the final design, the design process will be completed once you’ve approved. I’ll immediately prepare and package your new shiny logo for use on both web and print. At any stage when your business grows and requires extended identity design, I’ll be more than happy to help and support.
What will I receive at the end of the Brand Logo Design process?
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CMYK
Referred to as 4C as it contains four inks, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). Mostly used and ideal for print. Your logo will be provided in Vector (EPS) format which you can use across professional design software and office-based software.
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RGB
Mixing three colours Red, Green and Blue to reproduce a broad array of colors. Your logo will be provided as an optimised RGB Jpeg file format, and transparent PNG for web and screen use.
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Pantone
When running different print runs, consider using Pantone for better consistency with your visual brand colours. At the point when a solitary ink is utilised, hues will coordinate precisely in all cases. This will be provided in Vector (EPS) format.
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Monochrome
Need your logo on certain texture/materials like receipts, glass, or even engrave or embossing? No problem, your new logo will contain black and white versions in Vector (EPS) format specifically for this purpose.
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Favicon
This is an essential element to your digital branding strategy that improves your user experience. The classic 16×16 pixel icon still works. However, it appears pixelated with the plethora of devices available in the market that feature high density (retina) displays. As part of the packaged deal, I’ve got you covered with a various number of sizes optimised for that.
Wait... But I want just a logo!
In the past, I used to make just logomarks/logotypes without any presentation, brand styles like fonts and color palette. My clients received the mark, and I received money, and everybody’s happy.
However, as thing progresses, clients find themselves caught in a situation where they’re constrained to using only the logo at the corner of their website. When the logo doesn’t have any guideline defined, most of them tend to be applied inconsistently across marketing channels. Hence, it impacted negatively to their brand. As such, they could not use the logo to its full potential of what they’re paid for.
Consequently, it is so vital and fundamental for me to demonstrate to you how your logo will function for you and your business in a well-thought style, hues, and textual styles formed into a brand identity presentation. Consistency is essential for branding, which increases recognition. Recognition creates trust. When customers trust your brand, they become your regular customers, and that increases repeated sales. Can you see how that vicious circle goes?
If you’re hiring a brand logo designer, who is only capable of just making logos or signs, ditch them immediately! Because ultimately it’s your business reputation at stake.
If you don't give the market the story to talk about, they'll define your brand story for you.