All great logos start as an idea. Whether that’s after thinking about your design while falling asleep or on the toilet, they all come from somewhere. I will be talking about the process I go through when developing a logo.
I start with thinking about the name. What does it mean to the company? What words can I pull out to look into further? What does the company want to convey and who are they? There’s lots of questions that will pop up during this phase in design and it is the job of a graphic designer to boil all the ideas down into a simple, clear goal.
For Amow Design, the main element in the name is Amow ( or Bee) so taking that direction, I start with sketches. Just throwing everything down onto paper, this will help streamline your ideas. They may not be pretty or nicely organized but this part is for you to settle all the thoughts floating around your mind
Next, I take the concept sketches and throw them into Adobe Illustrator. This is when I start searching for fonts and colours. I think about what will go well with the concept design. I will also create any symbol marks that I have drawn.
For Amow Design, I had an illustration of a bee for my symbol mark. So I created a vector version to play around with it in Adobe Illustrator.
Then, I ask for people’s opinions about it. Of course, if this is client work, show it to the client to get their feedback on it but don’t be afraid to show it to others. If you have other graphic designers you are close with or trusted friends, ask them what they think. It is always good to get a fresh pair of eyes on it, especially if you’ve been staring at your design for a while.
Since I was still in school during the creation of Amow Design’s logo, I had classmates and teacher feedback that really helped develop my logo even more.
With that feedback you can continue to improve your design, and even finalize the logo. Of course this feedback process can go on for a while before you or your client get the logo to a point you both like. Don’t get discouraged, if you feel it is not going the way you want it to, in the end it will be worth it.
With Amow Design, I went through a lot of feedback and changes before I landed on the final logo.
Of course this is not how everyone does this, we all have our own design process but if you are just getting into graphic design and don’t know where to start, this blog post may help.
