How do our Graphic Designers create a logo?

25th September 2017

Creating a logo for your business that does your product justice is an art. Far from a quick sketch using the first letter of your businesses name, the right logo will become the foundation to your entire brand, so its vital you get it right.

One of our logo designers, James takes the time to give an insight into the process our graphic designers follow when creating logos for startups and businesses looking to update their branding.

Our design studio talks…6 steps to a kick ass logo design

Like most things in the land of a creative agency (where everything is colourful and juicy), it’s always vital to understand the purpose of what is needed for the client and how to deliver the best solution.

Let’s take Bob, Bob is a passionate coffee connoisseur with a love for adventure and all things outdoors, we really like Bob. He wants to open a café called Advent (Latin for adventure), which infuses his passion for great coffee and the great outdoors. We love what Bob has to offer, a unique combination of two contrasting elements, so naturally as designers we are brimming with ideas already.

Step 1.
To offer Bob the best possible outcome, we need to consider what’s the purpose of Advent? We want it to be the peoples go to for coffee, we want his business to look established, feel adventurous, but not overpriced. Therefore it needs to bring an aspect of good taste and the great outdoors within the brand.

Step 2.
How will we visualise this? We begin by taking these considerations and looking at keywords that describe Bob’s vision for Advent. Words such as, adventure, the great outdoors, exploring, action, discovery, forests, camping, mountains, hiking, wilderness, just a few considerations to play with when creating a logo. This can help chose colours, create strap lines, highlight elements and give an overall feel for what the logo should offer.

Step 3.
Creating a logo! Inspiration is always a good idea when allowing those juices to flow, sites such as dribbble, designspiration and behance are all wonderful places to visit and feel inspired (probably best grab some biscuits and a hot drink if you do). Furthermore, inspiration can act as a springboard into different areas that we wouldn’t consider, including drawing from natural elements or unusual items related to which Advent infuses. Once we’re inspired it’s time to get pen to paper.

Step 4.
Once we’ve produced plenty of ideas it’s time to consider which ones makes the cut. Usually it’s an easy process to decide what’s suitable, trust your gut and eyes. From pen and paper it’s straight into illustrator, replicating the strongest designs into a digital format. Like most things logos take time, but they should be a playful process which utilises the inspiration absorbed and push the ideas of Bobs’ passions and of Advent forward. During the design process we play, manipulate and refine til the end design is delicious. Then it’s a case of repeating this process until we’ve concepts that we are happy with.

Step 5.
From here we compile our favourite variations of Advent that reflect the brands vision. We put our five strongest into a document and send these over to Bob with our thoughts and rationale behind each concept. It’s through this process of feedback which develops the direction of the logo. Bob loves the colour palette of a particular design and wants to introduce elements from another concept into this. So we merge the two and offer three logos which combine these, this helps us further get Advent into a finalised position were Bob is delighted and feels the logo is finally Advent.

Step 6.
When Bob has chosen his favourite logo we take this forward and apply this across multiple platforms. Advent is then born through the birth of a beautiful visual, a face that becomes the front of his business and amazing coffee. With a bold colour palette and a visual that shows a sunrise breaking above a coffee bean (symbolising that over the mountains), Advent is now ‘For lovers of adventurous coffee’ and tastes as good as it looks.

So there you have it, a little insight into our design studio! If you have a start up idea in mind and are in need of a logo design in Norwich, or your existing business could do with a branding refresh, call to arrange a branding consultation on 01603 859007, email hello@nuimagedesign.co.uk or pop us the details of your project via our contact form below.