Just how long does it
take to design a logo?
Hey folks, and welcome
along to my latest video.
Today we're going to talk about
how long does it take to design a logo?
Now, there are a few things
that can affect the time
scale of logo design,
and the main thing is,
is the process that your
designer will go through
when creating your logo.
I thought what would be helpful for you
is if I run through my
logo design process today
to give you an idea of how
much attention to detail
I take in that process.
And you can then compare
that with other designers
and see if they are someone
that you want to work with
or if you would rather
work with a designer
who follows a similar process to my own.
So let's take a look at that process
and see what I do.
So step one in that process
is probably one of the
most important things,
and that is to meet the client.
Now, wherever possible,
I'd like to meet the client in person.
If they can't travel,
then a video call is the next best thing.
Now, why do I do that?
The reason I do that
is because I like to see
eye-to-eye with someone
and speak to them face-to-face,
because you can pick up on
little mannerisms and things
when you're asking questions
that maybe the client's
not giving the full answer
or it's an answer that they're unsure of,
but by seeing them in
person or on the video,
you can ask them to clarify
or maybe open up a little
bit more by doing so.
By having the client on video,
sometimes when they're giving an answer,
you can just tell
by the way they're acting
or their mannerisms
that the answer is not a full one
or they want to say a bit more
but they're maybe a little
bit unsure of their answer.
You can help by just coaxing
that answer out of them
and by doing that,
it means that you can find out
if that client's a great fit for you,
and also if you're a
good fit for your client.
This is hugely important,
and I've found that out over the years,
that if the client relationship
with you isn't the best,
then the project may struggle.
So it's important, at the very beginning,
you find out if you can work
really well with that client.
So step two,
after I've had the initial
meeting with the client
and found out their design brief,
I will go ahead and
create a project proposal,
which basically just outlines
everything that we've talked about
and gives a plan of attack
that I will take to create
that client's new logo.
Once the client has received
the proposal and approved it,
I will then send them an invoice
for 50% of my design fee and, once paid,
we can then move on to step three.
Step three, again, most of
these steps are important
but step three is the research stage.
Now, in this stage, what I will do
is I will research the
client's business area,
their services, their products,
and in the case of a rebrand,
I will look at the client's
current brand assets
and see what they've been using
and see how they've been
targeting customers in the past,
and whether that's something
that we will take forward
or we maybe need to look at
a new plan of attack for that
and readjust their brand
message and strategy.
I'll also look at my client's competitors.
By doing that, we can see if we can
leverage an advantage for
my client's new branding.
Sometimes competitors can drop the ball
and their branding is just really poor.
Maybe it's a safe market
and they feel they don't
need to take a step up
and have some professional
looking branding.
So this can be a stage
where my client can really
jump ahead of the game
in terms of their brand identity
over their competitors'.
After the research stage,
what I'll then do is
I'll go on to step four,
which is my inspiration stage.
I'll look at my logo reference library,
I will visit inspirational logo websites,
'cause what that does,
is that just kind of
gets the gears kicking in
and the creative juices
flowing for this project.
I'm not looking for any guidance
or any specific type
of logo at this point.
All I'm doing is I'm just kind of
getting my brain into logo design mode,
and by looking at inspirational
logos and other designers,
it really gets you in the
mood for the next step.
Step five is sketching.
I love using my sketchbook.
I'm not the best at drawing
and I think that's a misconception,
is that a lot of people
think graphic designers
are really good at drawing.
That's an illustrator,
that's an illustrator's job.
They're really good at drawing.
Me?
I'm really good at concepts and ideas
when it comes to my sketchbooks.
I'll just maybe use a couple of lines
just to get the flow or
an idea out of my head.
It doesn't matter how
messy, how loose it is.
It's all about just getting everything,
doing a brain dump onto your sketchbook
to get all of these concepts
that you can potentially have
into a book and solidified
so that it's there.
The next step, step six,
is another important step.
You have to take time
away from the project.
So I've spent a lot of time up til now
researching, sketching,
and just really, really
putting a lot of focus
into these early steps.
So it's important that I take time away
so that I can just let
my brain forget about it,
come back a few days later,
look at my sketchbook,
and look at it in a critical way,
and look at some of the
designs and the concepts
that I thought were great at the time
as they were coming out in
this flow of consciousness,
and then go, well actually,
that's not such a great fit
for what we're trying
to do for this client.
So taking time to kind of move away
so that you're not, what's that saying?
You can't see the wood for the trees.
You need to take that time
to let your brain come at it
from a fresh point of view.
Stage seven, it's time to get digital.
So what I'm going to
do, is I'm going to take
maybe up to six concepts, take
them into Adobe Illustrator,
which is my software of
choice for logo design,
and I will work up those
concepts and polish them off
and get to see them
how they look on screen
in a more finished way.
What I'll do, is I will work on those,
and I will narrow it down
to three final concepts.
I will work in black, I
do not work in colour.
Colour can have a lot of effect
on how the client sees the logo,
and also how I see the logo.
So it's important that we
just work in black right now
so that we're focusing on
the shape and the form of the logo.
There may be some, if it's a watermark,
then obviously we'll be looking
at typography and fonts.
If it's not a watermark but
it's more of a brand icon,
then what we'll do is,
or what I will do is,
I will take a very basic
type font just to set it up
so that I can see the balance
of the shape with some text.
I won't go into any finalised
font choices just yet.
That's in a later stage.
So once I've got those three
concepts all solidified,
I then go into the next step,
which is the second client meeting.
Again, I'd like this
one to be face-to-face
so that when I show
the client the concepts
then I can get and gauge
a reaction from them.
That can be difficult to do
if it's by email or even by telephone.
By face-to-face meeting,
then I can see whether there's any sort of
leaning back from it,
or if they're kind of,
"Ooh that's, I like that one."
I think it's important that you have
face-to-face meetings with a client
when you're at this critical
part of the design journey.
Now, you can also find
out whether the client
is giving you feedback based
on a critical viewpoint
of the logo being for their
brand and their business,
or if they are being
very emotional about it
and giving you their likes and dislikes.
Now, this is important.
Likes and dislikes are important.
But, this is where I always
bring out the statement to my clients.
The logo is not for you.
The logo is for your customer base.
So what we need to do,
is we need to ensure that
this logo is going to
trigger an emotion with your customer,
which will then bring
up brand associations
for your customer.
You need to, as a client, take a step back
and try to think of your logo
from a customer's point of view,
and not a personal business
owner point of view.
And once I can get the
client back onto that track,
we'll then re-look at the concepts
and take it from a viewpoint of,
okay, is this going to work
for your service, your product,
and be effective at
pulling in new customers
and also helping current customers
just associate with your brand.
After that meeting,
I'll go into step nine,
which is the refining process.
Here we'll take, and
have narrowed it down to,
one final concept.
I will take that concept and
do a few variations of it
tweaking little parts of it,
and at this point I will
finalise the typography
that needs to go with the logo,
but we're still working in black.
No colour has been introduced as of yet.
So, we've now got that concept
and we've got a few variations of it.
Now in step 10, we
start to add the colour.
Colour can be dangerous.
And what I mean by that,
is that everyone has
different colour tastes.
And a bit like what I said earlier on,
about the logo is not for you,
we need to make sure that
the colours you're choosing
work in the interest of the brand
and the logo design itself,
and it's not about personal taste.
So for example, take red as a colour.
Red can be seen as passionate,
bold, energetic, fiery,
but it can also mean danger,
and a warning, or stop sign.
So that every colour has its
positives and its negatives,
and we need to look at colour to make sure
that it's a good fit for their industry.
Now it may be that they
want to really stand out
and be bold and not, kind of,
blend in with all the other
businesses in their industry.
So for example, say it
was the financial sector,
which in the main, use blue.
Blue's a safe colour.
But my client may want to use bright pink,
or even a bright red,
just to stand out that little bit more.
So colour can play a really
crucial part in your logo.
Once the color's sorted and agreed,
I'll then move on to step 11,
which is logo presentation.
Now, up until this point,
I've been working with the client
and we have been working on
the logo on a white canvas.
So the logo is there, it's
in isolation, and it's flat,
and it's in a sea of white.
What I will do now, is I will
take the client's logo design,
and I will present it in various mockups.
So for example, stationery design,
or how it might look on
the side of a vehicle,
or some shop signage.
There are lots of different
ways that we can use this.
Promotional items is another
one which is really good.
By doing that, that let's
the client really visualise
how their logo will
appear to their customers,
on caps, on pens, on
cars, as I've mentioned,
and it really lets them see,
and at this point they get excited,
because it's now getting very real.
And it's one of my favourite
parts of the process,
is creating these mockups,
because I can see as well,
wow, this is going to
be really great here,
or we can take small sections
of this logo and use it here.
It really gets the ideas going
on how we can actually
utilise the logo design.
Next step, I will create
logo style guides.
Now, this is basically a document
that the client can use in future
if they want to give the
logo to another designer
to create a piece of artwork.
The logo guide basically outlines
fonts, colours, sizing, and spacing.
Those are the basic ones.
But it will basically say,
do not use this colour,
always use this colour,
if it's going to appear
on a dark background
then you must use this version.
It just keeps a consistency
for the client's logo,
and consistency is key
in terms of awareness,
so that people are gradually built up,
even subconsciously, to
being aware of this new brand
and this new logo.
I wouldn't say the logo
guidelines are set in stone,
but they are there, as the name suggests,
as a guide to keeping the logo
as close as possible to its original form.
Then we're onto step 13,
which is basically me
invoicing the client.
Once the client has
paid the final balance,
I will send them their logo
in all the major file formats,
Adobe Illustrator, EPS,
SVG, JPEG, TIFF, PNG,
and I will also assign
copyright over to the client.
That's just a simple form that just says
the client is now the copyright holder
of that logo design.
Oof, that's a lot of steps, isn't it?
It just goes to show how much work
goes into creating a logo.
It's not a quick turnaround project.
If you're looking to
have your logo designed,
rather than going to somewhere
like fiver.com, or Etsy,
where you're only going to get charged
a few pounds or a few dollars,
and they're saying you'll get
your logo within 24 hours,
warning signs.
As you can see here, I have
a thirteen step process.
I believe everyone should follow
a process similar to that,
and that's going to take two to four weeks
if it's followed correctly.
So if you want to have
a successful end result for your logo,
then I would say, how
long does a logo take?
About two to four weeks.
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And until I see you next
time, stay creative, folks.
