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Logo Design Creation Process from Start to Finish by Expert Graphic Designer - Jose Soto
Graphic design is one of the things that I like to do most in my life, but I must admit that I have a special preference for logo design.
If you take a look at my past work ( www.portfolios.com/josesoto ), you might think that some of the logos are quite nice. However, you aren’t familiar with the steps that I take when I go through the logo design process. This article will take you through my design procedure so that you possibly can learn a bit from my techniques.
Within this article, I am going to detail the “six steps” that I took to design the logo for the “Seventh Congress of Zoos and Aquariums” (in Spanish: septimo congreso de parques zoologicos y acuarios).
(1) Detailed Discussion with the Customer
I started this project off by sitting down with the customer to discuss the details of this design project. You should always start your design project off by discussing every important detail. If you are working with a larger company, then you might have to deal with the communications department. However, if at all possible, you should try to work with only one person from the company since otherwise you might have too many conflicting sources of information (unfortunately this is not always possible). In these initial visits you should try to gather all of the important information (by direct questions, seeing the colors of the office, numbering the incoming telephone calls, etc.). In this first step you should be as sensible as you can be. This will allow you to get all of the information that the client doesn’t know that he even has.
In this case, I need to design a logo for the Congress of Zoos. However, after the initial visit, I found out that the client wanted an illustration first, then a logo.
(2) Combine the Client’s Needs, the Market Observation and Your “Style” Together
Although you might disagree with me, I think that it is important to let the client know that he isn’t always going to be right. Of course, I will say this with tact, I want the client to understand that he hired me because I am good at what I do. I know what looks good and what doesn’t. We should avoid letting the customer design, because then we just become the ‘drawing man’. In this case, the customer wanted a full color logo, however, he didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I recommended that we work with a 2 color logo instead because this will reduce the costs dramatically.
(3) Create a Magic Word List
I think that this is one of the most important steps in my design procedure. Here you should translate in single words what the logo will need to communicate. This list should be as simple as possible and it should have only words that have a strong relation with the logo.
In this case the words were:
(4) Use Your Master Design Skills to Do Something With Those Magic Words
As a creative graphic designer, this is the part that you probably like the most! Here you will have to join by symbols all of the words that you have in your magic list by using your art skills and design creativity. I never ignore the “romantic” idea of sketching on a piece of paper because I can jot quick ideas, but of course the computer drawings turn out better.
I don’t have a specific number of sketches that I draw up, but something inside me tells me when I have sketched enough and I have found a good idea.
In this case some good questions that I asked myself were:
How can I match the number seven with an animal?
How can I match a fish with the type Z of the zoo word?
What graphic relations are there between a fish, an animal, and the number seven?
Were can I place the vegetation?
How can I make everything looks simple?
(5) To show the ideas to your client and to have a feed back
Now it is time for you to show the proofs to your client. It is important that even now you present the proofs as professional as possible. Normally I only present my 2 favorite ones (even if I have done 6) because if you present too many options to your client he may want to mix them together (and that is usually just a terrible idea).
(6) Do the Revisions and Leave Some Time to Pass.
I like to leave some time (although some times it is not possible to do this) because I think that good logos are like good wines as they both get better with elapsed time. Once you have the client’s feedback you can work on the corrections.
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