Since our new website has been online for a little over a month now, I feel it is time that I give you all a little insight into my creative thought process for logo design.  Although my strength is in website design, many of the concepts and ideas needed to create a logo for a client are similar enough that it is a natural extension.

But before I begin, I must give credit to designer and blogger David Airey , who has been a huge influence in my process when it comes to designing anything for a client, not just logos. The logo design process has a great deal of trial and error, so I always like to keep in mind a quote by designer, Jacob Cass:

“Remember that there is no such thing as a bad idea, just bad decisions.” - Jacob Cass

With that said, lets begin! To demonstrate, I will show you my logo design process for a current client, Laura Carrillo, who just recently decided to open a new business in El Paso,TX called Botanica. As with any great logo, we want the end result to be simple, scalable, and memorable.

Client Brief

The first step is to become familiar with the client. You must find out who your client is, how they perceive themselves, and how they want to be perceived.  These answers will be the driving force and direction for the logo’s look and feel. Laura Carrillo’s new business, Botanica sells fresh flowers, blooming plants, and gourmet gift baskets. Laura and her daughter made it clear from the start that in relation to the more traditional Laura Carrillo logo, they wanted the new Botanica logo to be more modern and sleek.  At this point, I almost immediately ruled out the use of any serif fonts for the logo. Some other key words that stood out during the brief were ‘viney’, ‘leafy’, and “no flowers!”.

Research

The research phase consists of exploring the client’s market. No client is an island; and it is important to research the market and its competitors for any oversights, similarities, or even ideas. For example, if there is already another prominent company in town using the color red to market themselves, then it’s probably not a good idea to also choose red as your company’s flagship color for the purposes of brand recognition. Details such as these may sound like common sense, but they are still surprisingly overlooked.

After researching Botanica’s fresh flower/plants competition in the El Paso, TX area, I found out (as expected) that more than one business had already used the “viney, leafy” logo and font approach.  It became clear to me that the vine/leafy style would not be unique enough to differentiate itself from the competition.

Sketch, Sketch Sketch!

And finally after all that research, the fun begins. Sketching on actual paper non-stop. Even though 75% of  my childhood was spent in a corner quietly drawing cartoon characters, the very action of sketching out logo designs on paper still feels foreign to me.  The importance of the sketching phase is to get every idea possible out of your system before you head over to the computer.

Here’s a few shots of the sketches. See if you can find some hints of the final logo.

Logo Mock-Ups and Client Feedback

Once the sketching phase is complete, I’ll do my voodoo and begin doing some digital mock ups and typography selection.  First and foremost, it is important that a logo works without the use of color. It is only after the logo has been chosen that color will be added. Below in the first image are the three logos presented to Laura Carrillo. After lots of discussion, they decided they liked the look and feel of the top one. Like with any good design process, tweaks were to be made.  The second images shows the further tweaked versions of the chosen original. And at last but not least, the final logo was decided upon.

Color

Once the final logo was chosen, I then began to play with colors.  The colors chosen for this particular logo were not too difficult to pick out. We knew from the start of the process that green and brown were colors we wanted to use. Choosing the shades of brown and green was the fun part. Below is the completed logo with color on a simple textured background. The great thing is that the small letter ‘B’ can also be used as an emblem for stickers or any other marketing materials.

Comments? Questions?

Thanks for checking this post out. I tried to stick to the ideas that a logo should be simple and memorable. Do you think I achieved this? Feel free to leave me any feedback or opinions you may have about its development