Logo Design Process

After designing a logo, or any piece for that matter, I’m often asked, “how did you come up with that?” I usually try to answer with a short and sweet reply instead of getting into all this…

When a client comes to me with a logo design request, there are many steps I take before the identity project is complete. I’ve been designing a lot of branding packages for new businesses lately, so I’ll attempt to condense my process into a few stages.

First, I interview my client to gather as much information as possible about them and their business. It’s important to learn all you can because this knowledge creates a base for the ideas to come.

Then, I put my creative thinking cap on and hit my sketchbook with pencil in hand. Yes, I do still rough out ideas on paper before getting on the Mac. I make lists of words and phrases that describe my client and their biz. I jot down anything that comes to mind, even if it seems ridiculous at the time. From these words come images, so I draw those. While sketching images and mixing them with words, icons begin to appear.

At this point, I start working in Illustrator, picking out fonts that mirror my client’s message and tone. I sometimes do a Google image search to stir up shape and icon ideas. I basically just go to town, drawing and compiling a bunch of rough logo concepts until I feel there are enough solid ideas to work from. I polish my three favorites and send them to my client in gray scale. Color comes later. I don’t want to distract my client with color when the first step is to focus on the icon. I briefly describe each idea to ensure we’re on the same page. The fun part is working with my client and discussing each logo concept and what works and what doesn’t.

From there, I have a good idea on how to improve upon or combine concepts to create a more refined logo. This is the point where I pick colors from my Pantone swatches and incorporate them into the design, messing around with placement and value.

Another round of concepts based on the favorite are sent to my client and after discussing, ideally, the logo is ready to be finalized. Of course, it most often happens that the ‘final’ logo concept goes through several more rounds of revisions, but you get the picture.

Here are a few logos I’ve designed…