Ordering a new logo can be scary. Your logo is your face, in the corporate sense. It represents your company at all times. It reflects what you want to say about the company and how you want to say it.
How will you know that the finished logo will live up to your expectations?
When I was freelancing in London, I worked at a top UK branding agency to design a new logo. It was fun working with a whole team of designers, from storyboard through to concepts, pencil sketches, computer rendering, and many rounds of presentations and revisions. It was there that I realised that logos are living, breathing things, and a good logo will reach out to you from the shelf and touch your heart, without you even knowing!
My London experience taught me how to ensure that my clients will receive exactly what they want, with no nasty surprises. Here’s how I used the 7 Steps for designing a logo:
K2 Global Communications is a boutique marketing, communications and public relations firm. The folks at K2 wanted a logo that would be dynamic, show direction and include “K” and “2”. The logo should work just as well in the future as it does today.
1. Keywords
At our first meeting, I asked for a list of words that the logo should represent. From the eight words they came up with, I asked them to identify the three words that best described their company. The words they chose were:
I kept these words in front of me throughout the design process.
2. Pencil Sketches
Designing is a fun process, and I like to see what happens when a shape gets bigger or twisted, inverted or cut apart. I sketched out many concepts in pencil, and then chose the 3 best ones. It’s important that they are simple pencil sketches, without color or precise lines. This helps to focus on the concept.
3. Rendering in Black and White
I built these shapes in Adobe Illustrator and began to play around with the forms. At this stage, the sketches should remain in black and white. Colors have a powerful emotional pull, and we don’t want to influenced by personal preferences yet.
4. Rendering in Color
When my clients were ready to go with the concept of the two K’s made of arrows, it was time to add color. The three key words could be felt and the letter K was taking shape, but the logo needed to be more attractive.
5. Simplifying and Adding Text
6. Tweaking
The text didn’t work well on the side of the K. I deleted it, and realised that the green and blue parts should be separated.
7. Finetuning
The words “global communications” didn’t look great at the bottom, but when I placed the text to the right of the K, the logo looked fresh and balanced. My clients were very pleased with the outcome. It embodied all three words that they had chosen to describe themselves, with an elegant letter “K” that is also dynamic, and an arrow to show direction.
A year later….
