A logo should be eye-catching, simple, and memorable. It should accurately represent your brand and build a sense of confidence in customers. Creating such a logo takes a lot of thought, research, and creativity.
Professional Logo Design and Development
When hiring a firm to design a new company logo, you want to find a design firm that will take an interest in your company. Crafting a logo is a somewhat lengthy process that requires knowledge of your company and your industry. Along the way, designers may want to meet with your company’s design team, or they may ask to conduct interviews. Below are more details on what to expect from the logo design process:
Design Brief
The design brief provides logo designers with the data they need to create a logo that fits your company. This brief typically includes basic information, such as:
- What your company does
- Who your company’s customers are
- Who your company’s competitors are
- Are there already any style guides in place (typefaces, color schemes, etc.)
To see what information we ask for in our logo design brief, ask us for our logo design questionnaire. The design brief provides a foundation for starting the logo design process, but more information is needed to create a successful logo. Information such as company and industry history can be beneficial, as it may reveal trends that inspire a logo. Competitors’ logos provide a sense of the current style in an industry, which can also prove helpful.
Trends
Trends often emerge from the historical and current information gathered. It may be wise to embrace these trends, or it may be better to create a logo that stands out from these trends. The best approach will depend on your company’s situation, but identifying the trends is necessary to decide which path to pursue. Once all the required information has been gathered in the design brief and through research, it is time for sketching. This is the process most people think of when they think about logo design, and it is the most fun step of the process.
Sketching
Every designer will approach the sketch stage slightly differently, which makes each designer unique. No matter where they find inspiration or how they approach this part of the work, all designers try to accomplish the nearly impossible. They are trying to communicate a message that reflects your entire company in a simple design that can be used in many different situations (e.g., business cards, website headers, letterhead, etc.) and that people will remember. At the outset, this sounds nearly impossible, but the logo is a thing of beauty when it all comes together.
Companies hiring an outside agency to do their design will want to make sure that the agency is providing the maximum creative potential possible at this stage. Multiple designers should work on the logo who will bring different perspectives to work. These designers should create several various sketches that are presented to the company. Once the idea is chosen, you will go through revisions, so make sure you have no limitations on the number of revisions you are eligible for.
Logo Files
Once the logo has been finalized, it is crucial to ensure that you obtain the proper files. Proper file formats and resolutions ensure that the logo is versatile and will meet all of your company’s needs. There should be both high-resolution and low-resolution versions, so the logo will display correctly on both printed and online material.
At the end of the process, your company should receive the following five files for each variation of the logo:
- An RGB file
- A white knockout file
- A black file
- A CMYK file
- A spot-color file
- SVG file
- AI File
The typical resolutions that all five files would come in are a TIFF or EPS, which has a resolution of 1500×1500 at 300 DPI, and a PNG or JPEG, which has a resolution of 800×800 at 72 DPI. A favicon is also nice to have.
Here are some tips that will help at this stage of the design process:
- Never say no to an idea, regardless of how far-fetched it is
- Sketch all the ideas suggested so they are not forgotten
- Have several brainstorming sessions that include different people in the process
- Refine the best sketches until they are worthy of being presented as a possible logo
