logo design process, graphic designer, brand designer, process start to finish, steps to creating a logo design

My Complete Logo Design Process for Small Business Owners

Hey, welcome to my blog! Whoever you are, I’m so glad you’re here.

If you’re reading this post, it means you’re probably trying to figure out whether or not we’re a good fit to work together or exactly what my logo design process entails (or you’re a designer just starting out and need some inspiration on how this whole logo design process works). I’m here to walk you through step-by-step what I do to create a completely custom logo design for your business from start to finish.

Logo Design Brief

Once we’ve decided to work together, I send over a logo design brief. This is a short questionnaire I created on Google Forms to help me get a better idea of what you’re looking for and to help me get to know your business.

Research

After I’ve received your questionnaire answers, it’s time to take a look at the competition so that I can be sure your logo is unique to your industry and makes you stand out. I also take a look at any inspiration images or colors you included so that I can start getting ideas for concept designs.

Concept Work

Now that I know what we’re up against and what you’re inspired by, I can start sketching out ideas for the initial logo concepts. Sometimes I get a few at a time, and sometimes I end up with dozens of ideas.

Honing In

After I’ve created god-knows-how-many concepts for logo designs, I refer back to the brief, think about your goals as a company, and narrow it down to three initial concepts.

Concept Presentation

Once the concepts are refined, I create a logo concept presentation specifically for you. This initial presentation includes the logo design concepts in full color, solid black, solid white, and some mockups to give you an idea of what it would look like in real life. 

Client Feedback + Revisions

After you’ve taken a look at the concepts and send me any feedback you have (what you like, don’t like, color suggestions, etc.), I work on refining your favorite design(s).

More Revisions

With all of my logo design projects, I include three rounds of revisions. This means working with your feedback and really honing in on your style and direction you want to take your brand.

Finalization

Once we’ve completed our rounds of revisions, I work on finalizing the logo, making sure everything is structurally sound and ready to be exported.

Your Deliverables

Final Files

You’ll receive the final files in black, white, grayscale, and full color. I usually only send the logo designs as png files because they’re higher quality and you’ll never get stuck with that white box around your logo.

Brand Guide

The brand guide gives you a quick overview of your final logo design, any alternate logos, color palette, typography, dos and don’ts for your logo design, and a little “thank you” from me.

Mini File Guide

Similar to the mini brand guide, the mini file guide gives you a brief overview of the types of files I sent. It goes over how they’re named, what the sizes mean, and where is best to use each file type.

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