A logo is the first thing you notice about a brand. A logo is also the first thing that comes to your mind when you try to recollect the brand. It is hence not very surprising that some brands spend months together just to put together the right logo that carries their image.
A logo can be just one or a combination of the below elements.
- Text
- Image
- Shape
Logos are a part of the branding and are closely related to the brand’s image at every point in time. Most brands create their logos once and stick to them until the end. That is why a brand’s logo design process needs time, research, and effort to get it right.
What is the purpose of a logo?
Yes, a logo is usually displayed along with the brand name. Apart from that, what purpose does it serve? You will be surprised at how vital branding experts consider the logo of a brand.
Here are some ways a logo will help its brand.
- Create a first good impression with leads and potential customers
- Create a very strong brand identity
- Breed familiarity
- Help create a unique symbol/shape through which people can instantly identify you
- Inspire love and loyalty for the brand
- Help people understand what your brand does and stands for
- Act as a common binding bond between the stakeholders
- Make your brand memorable
For all this to happen, you don’t have to end up with a highly complicated or graphically advanced logo. That is not the goal at all! Most branding experts find the ‘the simpler the better’ rule applicable when it comes to logos. Consider the below logos. How simple yet how absolutely memorable and unique are they?
How does a logo help in branding?
Branding is the measure of how customers and other stakeholders view your brand and its values. Branding is an emotional aspect of the relationship you have with your customers. If you end up with positive branding, your company will keep growing organically.
A logo is a part of the branding strategy. How does a customer feel when looking at your logo? Do the colors, the shape, and the orientation of the logo invite them to check out the brand? What kind of emotions does it bring to the hearts of your customers?
You have to design your logo to match your branding strategy. Do you want to be perceived as a bold brand or a fun brand? Do you want to motivate your customers or make them laugh? The logo design process needs to be aligned accordingly.
Once you do that, every time someone looks at your logo, positive branding happens. You connect with that person the way you wanted to.
8 Steps to create a logo for your brand
1 Design Brief
The first step to creating a logo is to build the design brief. The design brief is a document that helps the designer understand all the vital elements needed to put together the logo. The design brief usually contains the below items.
- Preferred style
- Preferred theme including color combinations, shape, and size
- Deadlines
- Budget (if any)
- A brief about the brand’s ideologies
If you do not give your designer a brief of what is to be expected, then there will be a lot of time wasted in going back and forth with design creation and changes.
There is no set format for the brief. You can add any detail you feel may benefit the designer and take him/her closer to your expectations.
2 Research
Imagine spending weeks together creating the perfect logo for your brand only to find that there is another brand in the market with a closely similar logo. This is not what you want!
Researching the industry includes finding out what kind of logos your competitors and brands in the same industry have. Check what color themes have worked for these brands, what particular shape these logos are designed in, and their styles.
Once the research is complete, you can do two things.
- Create your logo based on the general theme followed by the rest of the brands in the industry
- Go in a completely different route and create a unique logo that stands out.
For instance, organic and natural brands usually opt for brown, beige, cream, and other earthly hues for their brand logos and other images. These colors are subtle to the eyes and relate to the words natural and organic. Check out the logos of these natural Indian brands. Few organic brands, however, go away from the usual route and pick up colorful logos like the below. There is nothing right or wrong about this. Both models work depending on what you prefer as a brand.
3 Brainstorming
Brainstorming is the process of sitting down as a team and putting together ideas. Such brainstorming happens in a free-thinking environment and can bring out some amazing ideas and thoughts.
Here are few things you can try brainstorming about.
- What adjectives suit your brand? Write them down
- How do you want people to feel when they look at your brand?
- What kind of stories should your logo talk about?
- Browse through popular logos of competitor brands and identify what you liked about them
- Sketch rough shapes of how you feel your logo should look
Bring the members of the brand and the designing team together and create a healthy brainstorming session.
4 Sketching
Sketching is the most vital part of the logo design process. Here, you try and bring all the ideas you have generated in the prior steps into visual glory. You could try and sketch the ideas you have on a piece of paper with a pencil. However, designing digitally is easier and you can control different aspects of the logo better.
Professional logo designers can create vectors in the software that can be tweaked multiple times to create the perfect sketch.
It is normal for designers to create multiple (even up to 50) sketches with minute variations and then let the brand choose what works for them.
5 Design Execution
Based on the multiple rough sketches that a designer creates, it is the work of the brand to work hand-in-hand with the designer to execute the final design. The brand has to look through all the sketches and provide feedback and suggestions to help the designer execute the final design.
The execution starts from the creativity phase and ends when the logo design is completed 100%.
6 Presentation
Presentation is the part where the experts will show you the final and completed logo design. If the designer has taken the liberty to add/change few details to the design during the logo design process, this is the time they will try to convince you about the necessity of these details.
These are the basic steps any designer will go through while presenting you the logo
- Starts by mentioning what the clients wanted initially from the designer
- Mentions the objective and theme of the logo that was discussed
- Goes through a couple of sketches that were created for the brand and the feedback that was provided (This helps build excitement and curiosity)
- Presents the final design
- Explain why the designer had chosen that particular shape, size, color theme and how those relate to the brand’s image
7 Revisions
You may really like the final logo but do know that most designers are open to constructive feedback from the client. Good designers, in fact, prefer knowing how the client felt honestly about the design.
The revision stage may give rise to discussions again on what works and what does not. You can put down your point here and request changes if needed.
Some designers allow unlimited revisions to the final logo while others limit the revisions allowed. Know how your designer works and then plan the revisions accordingly.
8 Delivery
This is the final stage of the logo design process. Once the revisions are done, the logo will be delivered to the client. If your designer has just sent you the JPG version of the logo as an attachment, make sure you request the logo in the below formats too.
- .ai file (Adobe Illustrator)
- PDF file
- .PNG, .JPG, .JPEG files
Apart from these, you should also be getting the below versions of the logo.
- 100% vector file
- Source file
- Logo on a transparent background
- Logo in CMYK and RCB colors
Having all these versions will help you use the logo without distortions or loss in quality any time you need in different sizes and pixel ratios.
Conclusion
When you are creating your brand’s logo, you are not just creating any image. You are giving the brand a visual identity that is going to last for decades and even centuries together. Give the process enough time and take help from branding experts and professional logo designers to come up with a unique, mind-blowing, stunning and get the best logo design that reaches the hearts of people quickly.
If you are creating a new logo for your brand or want to upgrade the existing design that you have, get in touch with us. Our experts will be happy to schedule a free consultation to help you take the right next step. Our logo design process put together by experts in the field will exceed your expectations and create a logo that defines and embraces your brand ideologies.