Logo Design Process

Logo design has become a popular item with my company! Business people, especially in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley, are starting to realize that an elegant, quality design is a worthwhile investment. With so many  ready-made logo companies and wannabe designers doing this work part-time, people seem to appreciate experience, focus, and professionalism.

One of the things I do is try to get inside my clients’ heads. I do this through a number of techniques, one of which is to ask interesting and sometimes unusual questions, some of which will elicit some surprised looks. Usually, I’ll meet with a client for at least one hour-long “interview,” during which I’m liable to ask them, among other things, about their:

• colour preferences
• company vision
• marketing goals
• target market demographics
• life passions
• favourite foods or music
• preferred time of day (dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, night)

My aim is to learn about the person behind the business, as well as about the business itself. After all, to me a logo is supposed to symbolically represent a person, business, or organization, so why not tie it into the one who’s making the decisions and seeing the whole picture?

I explain that the process becomes very much a dialogue during which I accept input from the client, spend time researching their product or service, come out with some preliminary designs running the range of possibilities derived from my ideas and inspirations, and then come back to them with some basic ideas. We meet in person, whenever possible, to discuss the drafts. Based on their initial visible reactions and then including the discussion feedback, I return to my studio and further refine the designs. We may have to repeat this process one or two more times, but, in the end ,  the quality of the result invariably makes it all worthwhile for both parties.

From a business/philosophical standpoint, I want clients to feel they have a large say in the design process, as I feel it’s very important for them to embrace the final result, especially since they are, after all, spending money on this process, and they will have to live with it for perhaps a very long time. From my perspective, too, I want them to succeed, since, after all, their success becomes mine as well…

I’d be interested in learning how others choose to work with their clients. There are likely as many approaches as there are designers!