Professional Logo Design

Professional Business Logo Design

Professional Business Logo Design

One of the key characteristics of the most efficient logos is their simplicity. On the one hand, it becomes a challenge for a designer to create a sign which is both simple and at the same time recognizable. On the other hand, it can give clients the illusion that logo creation is a sort of simple operation that needs a couple of hours and doesn’t require special skills, too much time or effort. That is quite a mistake and such an approach will bring branding to nowhere.

Being a part of the team that regularly works on brand strategies and logo design, I would be happy to add my two cents to the issues. In one of the articles called Logo Design: Creative Stages written for Tubik Blog, we got deeper into the stages of the creative process in logo design on the basis of extensive studio experience in the sphere. So, let’s revise some ideas here and move through the all the creative process.

Efficient logo design is a complex strategy that includes all the stages of design and marketing process such as:

·         setting the task

·         user research

·         marketing research

·         creative search

·         choice of style direction

·         choice of color palette

·         testing in different sizes and environments

·         creating a style guide setting right and wrong cases of logo use etc.

        Let’s look a bit closer at each stage.

Setting the task

This stage is the foundation of all the design process. This is the time when the designer should get as much information as possible from the client to mark the right way to the goal.

Designers should always be ready that clients often don’t know in details what they want. They just want a beautiful logo that will bring success to their business. That is natural and that is the reason why they hire a designer. In our earlier post devoted to stereotypes about designers, we mentioned: «your customer doesn’t have to know all the nuances and peculiarities of the design process. That is why THEY are customers and YOU are a designer.»

Moreover, the thing we checked in practice is that communicating with clients, you should get not only their wishes but also try to get the ideas and reasons behind these wishes. If you understand why your customer wants to see particular colors, shapes or transitions, it will be easier for you (if necessary) to justify other methods of realization for these ideas which would give the result desired by the customer.

The more information you get from the client, the better it is for setting the right direction. Design briefs, calls, Skype-conferences, chat in Slack, brainstorming sessions, mood boards can all form the good starting line for productive work.

At this stage, it is highly advisable for a designer to get the data about:

·         the nature of the product

·         the target audience

·         geographical targeting (if available)

·         the keywords with which the company represents its identity

·         preferred color palette

·         potential carriers and surfaces at which logo will be used

·         the need for consistency with existing corporate identity (if available)

·         preferred type of logo

·         the necessity of mascot design.

Obviously, the list is not totally full, still, it contains the most important positions needed for setting a general design goal.

Research

This is the stage when being based on the established task and aims, the designer has to get deeper into the environment in which the future branding sign will function. The research stage usually moves on in two directions simultaneously: user research and marketing research.

User research means getting deeper into details of core target audience, to know their preferences and psychological peculiarities, the influence of color and data carrier on their emotions and experience, the sources of information and creative performance ways which encourage them and make them active.

Marketing research means exploring the market segment, primarily from the perspective of creative solutions used by competitors. Logo design presumes to create a uniquesign that will make the company or brand stand out from the crowd and draw potential customer’s attention.

Neglecting the research stage and relying only on their creative intuition and talent, designers risk failing this task as they will not know the conditions of the logo functioning and will not be able to make it efficient and original.

Creative search

This is the stage when armed with loads of data and seeing the path, the designer sets off in the creation process. The aim of this stage is to develop one or several stylistic directions which will allow fulfilling the branding goal and marketing needs. In all fairness, it has to be added that branding design process like every single personalization activity is very individual in each particular case. Sometimes it happens that the requirements from the customer are so clear and details are collected so carefully at the previous stages that logo direction is set during the first iteration and needs only to get polished. In other cases, especially in cases when requirements are blur or competition at the market segment is really high, various directions should be analyzed and different variants have to be tested to get the one which will be effective and original.

This stage can include the creative outcome of different fidelity levels, from rough pencil sketches to sophisticated digital samples. Any of them can work efficiently, the choice of strategy depends on the designer’s expert decision on more effective presentation way according to the client’s requirements and specific type of logo. Speed and urgency of a project, as well as its interconnection with other design processes like for example interface design, can also influence the choice of presentation format. You can observe the variety of creative stages in our case studies on branding.

Creative search of mascots for Saily App logo

The outcome of creative search is the selected style and type direction (for example, flat or skeuomorphic, colorful or monochrome, featuring the mascot or not and hundreds of other general stylistic details), color palette, basic shaping and placement of the logo (say, round, square, triangular; using landscape or portrait placement; perhaps setting several variants of shapes and logo elements placement etc.)

Polishing the details and finalizing the concept

At this stage, the designer develops the chosen direction and works over the slightest details. People staying far from the design process can be stunned by the level of fidelity and sophistication over the image presenting future branding sign. Sometimes, it takes hours of work to develop the variants with tiny changes set in millimeters which still influence the general harmony. This is the time when designers can experiment with forms and lines, hues and shades, still, at this stage, they work within the already set general stylistic concept.

Testing

Designers believing that preparation of final high-resolution graphic assets for a logo is the finish of the journey for them make a big mistake. As well as for any design task, post-design testing of the created result is the must-do. For the logo, it is a vital condition of efficiency and success. It should be tested on different surfaces and devices, in the wide diversity of settings and environments, sizes and resolutions, alone and surrounded by other logos. If such an option is available, it should be tested by people directly representing the core target audience. The results of the testing should be thoroughly analyzed and sometimes they can significantly influence the final logo alterations.

Visual perception and mental associations are deep and vital human element making a great impact on any design element effectiveness and attractiveness. There are loads of factors, some of them so slight and deep that it’s impossible for the designer to predict them. Among those factors we could mention:

·         geographic location

·         color perception

·         gender

·         age

·         religion and beliefs

·         level of education

·         minor and major disabilities

·         psychological peculiarities

·         technology awareness.

The list can be continued longer and longer to amaze designers and customers with its diversity level. To avoid the issues of misunderstanding or misperception, as well as risk getting lost in the environment of other logos and icons, testing becomes the integral design process stage.

Creating a style guide

The last but not least is the stage when the designer accomplishes the style guide for the approved and finalized logo. The guide should include clear and informative instruction of correct and incorrect variations of the logo use. It becomes the basis for a brand book and enables customer in the future to inform any sides involved into the creative process like print shops, for example, to keep the rules of harmonic presentation of the logo.