Logo design is a common service offered by many freelance designers, small design shops and advertising agencies. Before delving into the depths of the logo design process, let me first take a moment to define what a logo is (and what it is not).
Dictionary.com defines a logo as "a graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark, abbreviation, etc., uniquely designed for ready recognition." So there you go. But it's not quite that simple. When it comes to logo design, a "graphic representation" should exclude one thing - actual photos. We've actually had quite a few clients who have wanted to incorporate a picture of either a person or "thing" that represents their company or organization into their logo. There is one simple reason why a photo will not work as part of a logo - a pixel based photo is not infinitely re-sizable as a good logo should be - if you try to blow it up, say for a banner or large sign, the photo can become pixelated, and that's not good.
An ideal logo should be adaptable to any situation. It should work perfectly large (side of a semi truck) or small (business card). It should also work great in color or in black and white (newspaper ad or fax).
So, how is a logo actually made? The first step is to fill out a design "brief", or a Project Interview as we call it here at C McConnell Design. This gives you a chance as a client to get your expectations and ideas down on paper to aid the designer or design team working on your project. Without getting too complicated, the next steps include industry research (if necessary), brainstorming, concept design, revisions and finally choosing a final logo design.
Below is an example of the steps we took to create a logo for TEAMS, a tutoring service located in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Step 1: A Blank Slate
After receiving your Project Interview, the designer will know exactly where to start, what they have to work with and what the expectations are. For TEAMS, we started with this...
Step 2: Brainstorming and Sketching
Brainstorming and planning is an important part of the logo design process. Most of the time, this step will be "behind the scenes" from the client's perspective. At C McConnell Design, we usually start by making some quick, and oftentimes ugly, sketches just to get our ideas down on paper.
Step 3: Concept Design
During this phase, we turn our ideas into actual design concepts on the computer. Sometimes we will start from scratch or oftentimes we will scan in our sketches and re-create those ideas digitally using either a mouse or a Wacom Pen Tablet. TEAMS expressed that their logo should include bright, cheery colors and not depict "grade school education" as a number of other designers had tried to create a logo for TEAMS with apples and other cliche symbols. While we may develop a number of concepts during this phase, we try to narrow down the best 3-4 concepts in-house before presenting them to the client for review. Here are some of the design concepts we came up with for TEAMS:
"Pages of Knowledge"
Concept: Dispersion of knowledge in every direction.
"Four Teammates"
Concept: The four pieces are meant to represent a team of a student, a teacher, a tutor, and a parent. All four elements work together to form a "whole".
"Making Progress"
Concept: Meant to represent a model or chart showing upward progress. Each vertical bar also represents a team member.
"Growing In Knowledge"
Concept: This is a visual depiction of growth through knowledge represented by the plant and book.
Step 4: Revisions
Sometimes a client loves one of the logo concepts we create just as it is, but more often they want to see a few changes, such as a version with different colors or adding or deleting a tag-line.
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