Logo and brand design
Steps – branding process
- Research your target audience and your competitors.
- Pick your niche focus and personality.
- Settle on your business name and tagline if applicable
- Work out the scope of the brand assets. ie. Stationary, website, social media, signatures.
- Choose the look of your brand (colours, fonts, images, illustrations, icons).
- Design your brand logo and style sheet
- Apply your branding across your business.
The logo mark
“A logo is an identification, not communication”.
I like this quote, and let me explain. Look at most of the famous logo marks globally and try to reverse engineer them. In isolation, they don’t mean much. But the logos should give a feeling or emotion about the product or company. Only when combined with copy,branding and marketing will it tell the whole story.
Make sure your business is easy to recognise with a logo design or logo mark that captures the essence of your business and personality.
Below is a logo mark I designed for Business Fitness – accounting software. A modern company, evolving with an industry moving from paper to cloud technology.
Logo design workflow breakdown
Branding and logos design starts with a great brief. Sketches are a quick way to start the design process off, either by the client or the designer. Once the client is happy with the general direction, more time is spent on honing ideas and eventually producing computer art. Below is an example of a client sketch turned into an illustrative logo.
Steps in the process
- Sketches
- Font options
- Colour psychology (covered in branding)
- Rough ideas on paper for icons and logo lockups
- Feedback
- Computer drafts of best ideas
- Amendments based on feedback
- Honing of the best ideas
- Output to various formats
- Style sheet /guide for brand assets
The design brief
There are a few steps that I like to use when beginning the logo and branding process. It’s essential to get a big picture of what the client is trying to achieve, make sure the business name and tagline will communicate well, and then start brainstorming ways to develop a logo and brand that’s visually appealing and relevant to the personality of the business. In isolation, the logo mark doesn’t need to be literal communication but should be a balance between distinctive (unique) and simple (in its most basic form). Simple yet distinctive design gets more challenging as more logos flood the market.
What is branding or brand design?
Compared to just a logo mark and font lock-up, branding is the bigger picture of how the business is viewed across a variety of platforms.
Branding can be about font choices, style guidelines, stock image and, illustration style, supporting brand elements and even sound and texture.
When a business is properly branded, everything in the business fits. This can be from the email signature through to Word Document templates, social media and website look and feel.
Branded elements can include
- Email signature
- Mailchimp EDMs
- Templates
- Website
- Car detailing
- Packaging
- Style guides
- Apparel
- Favicons
- Social media banners
Let’s discuss your next logo and branding project.
I love talking about graphic design, logo design and branding, so for a no-obligation chat about the latest advertising and design solutions call me, Stuart Flynn on 0414505393. See below for more examples of my recent branding and logos.
Branding
KarmanLine – Marketing company logo
Karman Line (the sky isn’t the limit – it’s the start) – the point in the atmosphere (100km) where regular flight in no longer possible and rockets needed to be invented to propel up and beyond. This consulting business is about training you for a paradigm shift.
Providing logo lock-up options
Dog Walker – feminine logo design
Doggy Day Tripz – A female-driven company for dog walking and outings for high energy dogs.
Most businesses require logos for various print and online formats. You can explore different lock-ups to suit your needs with a slightly higher budget.
Illustrative logo design
Lizard’s Concrete Pumping branding needed to tie in with the owner’s nickname ‘Lizard’. The brief was specific. It needed to include an illustration that was similar enough to an old reference but combined with a likeness of Keith. The primary usage was truck branding and a large sign for the industrial building. I also developed more illustrations that show the lizard driving trucks from their fleet. There are two versions of this logo for both types of trucks in the fleet. The next stage was to create a website for Lizards. View website
Honing ideas into logos
Mantle Marketing Sydney – logo design concepts to finished art
Mantle – Definition. The mantle is the part of the earth that lies under the crust. It is the largest layer and is solid but flexible. This is an analogy similar to the values of Mantle Marketing. The logo design and brand needed to be corporate, conservative and reflect the values and culture of the business. The sheet shows a typical process of logo development after the logo sketches stage. Computer ideas through to colour selections.
Jack and Knife – restaurant logo and branding design
Jack and Knife – A restaurant in Darlinghurst Sydney. The branding was developed over several weeks of concepts which showed a variety of styles.
The final design is shown here. This logo was used for large format printing on the restaurant walls as well as the restaurant’s website, business cards, postcards and stationery.
Self explanatory logos
Graphic designer – my own brand style guide
Example of a premium brand design package
This is an example of what you get when you ask for a premium brand and logo package.
I know to pay particular attention to my own logo design branding. This ensures that all of my collateral ties in together for a coherent look and feel.
It also gives a sense of what can be achieved by my clients. For a deeper look into my own brand development see my logo and branding stylesheets blog.
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