We thought it would be useful if we pulled together some info about how we approach our logo designs here at Loop. We understand the challenges that business owners face when selecting a design team to create the logo for their new company. It’s important and you want to make the right decision and not waste any time and money. So with that thought in mind, here are the top 5 steps that Loop take when designing a logo.
It’s worth noting that designing a great logo takes time and requires great communication between clients and design team. Here at Loop we spend lots of time at the beginning of a project asking the right questions that will help to inform a better design that our clients are happy with. Projects usually require 3-4 review steps with clients to ensure the final design is right against the original brief.
Step 1 – The Brief
Every design starts with a brief. To ensure that Loop design your logo in the exact way that you require, we ask a series of different questions about the things you like (and don’t like!) who your competitors are and any further information about the business that will help us better understand the nature of what you do and the business audience.
Step 2 – Concepts & Sketches
Once we have all the information in place, Loop will go away and research your business landscape. We also take inspiration from everywhere and with your help, arrive at a point that we can start to get ideas down on paper.
All the logo designs from Loop start with a pencil and paper.
We sketch out ideas and concepts for your logo to create something unique. Drawing and sketching is the fastest way to get lots of ideas down in a short space of time. Typically we can get through at least 30 variations until we get to a shortlist that we feel like we can talk to the client with.
Step 3 – Typography
We don’t just draw!
Typography and the use of type in your design is very important. Depending upon the client, the business and the style we are trying to convey, Loop will either hand draw, create from scratch or look for a typeface that best suits the business. We present all of these different variations as part of the review process.
Step 4 – Black & White design
Once we have a few concepts that everyone likes, (it’s hard to please everyone! trust us) we take the drawings and concepts into the design studio and design all the logos in black and white. The reason for this is simple. It’s all about clarity.
To create a logo design that is memorable it needs to work in the simplest of forms and shouldn’t rely on techniques like gradients and fancy design tricks to convey a concept. Your logo mark will need to work at a variety of different sizes, so it’s important the base of the design is of a form that will reproduce well across all digital and print mediums.
Step 5 – Colour
So usually at this stage, we have shortlisted with our client 2-3 concepts that they really like and we begin the colour studies. The client might have a preferred colour they wish to use in the design, but more often than not, we provide a range of contemporary colour palettes that work for your logo design, but can then be applied in future brand development work across all your marketing communications. The aim here is to have 4-5 colours that all work together to give you lots of flexibility for the future.
Step 6 – Finalising the logo
Phew – we’re almost there! The clients have chosen their favourite logo, the typeface and the colour palette and we may have even tweaked the final design a few times, just to polish it as much as possible. Loop will then export out the design in lots of different file formats for use in print, presentations, documents.
We hope this information helps, if you’re interested in having a logo design, then just get in touch with the team today. We’re here to help: Contact us
“Great working with Stuart. In particular I liked his use of creativity within the specific framework of our requirements. I will definitely partner up with Loop again for future requirements.”
Aamir Kapasi – L.Knighton