A day before yesterday I came across an article “Logo Design Creation Process from Start to Finish”, written by Angela Ferraro-Fanning. Angela is said to be an expert graphic designer and has been working with logo and graphic designing for several years. In this article she contributed her experience of a logo design process for a shoe boutique ‘kick’.
I like this article because of the reason that she just not only tells her experience but outlines the logo design process comprehensively for logo designers. She has covered all tits and bits in only four steps and defined everything about logo design process through her experience. As she has mentioned in step one that she always ask 4 questions to her every client:
“ 1.What are the values of your business/company?
2.Can I see any current/previous marketing materials you have?
3. Who is your target audience?
4.Do you have any bits of inspiration for me to work from? In other words, paint swatches of colors you like or are currently using? Photos of your business or products? How about patterns/images that really identify with your business? ”
In fact, all the questions are very necessary to be asked from your client but question 3 is the most important one. A designer must know the target audience in order to get the clear concept of logo for the business. One would get a clear idea about the design, colors and style of the logo after getting the answers of those questions. So ‘kick’ described itself as:
“We are a chic women’s boutique with a throw-back glam décor. We are located in a progressive and growing downtown area… We aim for the distinguished in tasted and in style. A woman who wants a stylish shoe that won’t hinder her daily activities; whether it be work or leisure… We have bright pink paint on our walls and we also like gold and black.”
She must have got the complete idea that what type of logo would be needed for a stylish women’s footwear business. In second step she advices the designers not to go directly to the computer and start designing but to jot down any thing comes in your mind from the business name. This will certainly give you some great logo design ideas as she said in the following lines:
“By jotting down this list (whether they be nouns or adjectives), you’ll begin the process of generating visuals. These visuals can produce some pretty amazing logo designs.”
In step 3 of ‘Logo Conception’, she indicates that one should design several logos in different styles and format. Different fonts, colors and styles can be used for designing random logos. She designed 35 random logos for kick like as she said in these lines:
“It is my policy when working on a client’s logo that I present them with three concepts. I try to create three entirely different looks while utilizing the three different types of logo formats: just type, image only, and a combination of both. Just because my client sees three logos though, doesn’t mean that’s all it takes. With kick’s logo conception, I literally created 35 different logo ideas.”
In the final step she discusses about the selection of best logos out of random designs which were created before. She also asked the same question to herself what she asked to the client before:
“After weeding out the “weaker” options, I then refer to the information that kick initially provided me with. Do the logo concepts meet the client’s objectives? Do they communicate to the targeted audience? Are they legible and will they reproduce easily on a wide variety of materials? If not all of the questions are answered with a “yes,” then the logo gets tossed out.”
She focuses on checking the reusability of the logo before presenting it to the client, she advises the designers to test it by duplicating it and by reducing the size of the logo, which is one very important aspect of a good logo which should be given high consideration. She presented this concept with the following lines:
“When formatting the logos for presentation, I am always sure to duplicate each and reduce them in a size. This shows the client how well the logo appears when minimized. This is also the time to provide any additional color options the logo may have (such as with the circular shoe logo).”
Finally, she tells how she designed the logo, what was the inspiration and from where she got the idea for designing kick’s logo.
After reading this article I come to the conclusion that these four steps are perfect for designing a creative and business focused logo. Definitely logo designing is an art and an artist considers all the related things before going to the core designing process, he sees all the dimensions and creates a piece of art at the end.
