Logo Designer / Branding – Sunshine Coast
Steps in the 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 (see below)
- Apply your branding across your business.
Logo design workflow breakdown
- Sketches
- Font selection
- 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
Logo design or logo mark
A logo is an identification, not communication.
I like this quote and let me explain. Look at all of the famous logos in the world and try to reverse engineer them. In isolation, they don’t really mean anything. Logos should give a feeling or emotion about the product or company but only when combined with branding and marketing, will tell the full 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.
A logo is a great starting point for the branding and marketing of your business.
The logo and brand process
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. The logo in isolation 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.
Brand elements
- 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.
Brand style sheet
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.
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.
Book cover logo and design
The grey zone. A biographical book about blood cancer. A play on the word grey and also red to signify the blood disease. View website
Design and Drafting logo and brand design
Designing a logo for a design or marketing firm is always a little more challenging because the logo needs to look extra slick and convey the nature of the design business.
Aura – Website and branding design. At the time of creating the website, this Sunshine Coast company was just starting up.
This logo and site were created while working as the Senior Designer at DTB Advertising in Mooloolaba.
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.
Musician logo design – Sunshine Coast
stufly – Electronic music producer, branding, logo design, music videos and website.
Concreter – illustrative logo design – Sunshine Coast
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 main usage was for truck branding and also a large sign for the industrial building. I also developed more illustrations that show the lizard driving trucks from their fleet. There are 2 versions of this logo for both types of trucks in the fleet. The next stage was to create a website for Lizards. View website
Ty the Knot – Wedding Celebrant logo design
Ty the Knot – Noosa Celebrant. The client chose colours based on taste including a mint green. He wanted something fresh and funky that tied in with his name. To add another dimension we used a silver special colour on one of the rings. This is a mockup sign to show how the logo could look rolled out to signage.
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.
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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