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INTRODUCTION

A logo less company is a faceless man
– David Airey

A logo is like a name. A logo represents your customer’s brand, profile and integrity.

When you design a logo, make sure you design it with heart. That’s the most important thing to start.

There are lots of graphic designer out there with high experiences and great portfolios, but not much graphic designer can design with their heart.
When you design with your heart, it will reflects in the result.

I would like to share my experiences in designing logo for my customers.

KNOWING YOUR CUSTOMER

There’s a quote in Indonesian language

Tak kenal maka tak sayang

Which means you need to know someone personally in order to care for the person.

To design with your heart, first you need to know your customers.
Have a brainstorming, know them personally (but professionally), dig in their passion, ask them their vision for their business, ask them what color they like, ask them how they started they business and how they want their business to be, etc.

Knowing their personality might help you to understand what kind of font, color and style they like.
For example, a classic person might not like a logo that uses fancy picture, a young customer might like to have a more dynamic color and font, a simple person might like sans serif fonts rather than scriptype styles or blackletter & lombardic scripts style

pictures taken from https://www.fonts.com/content/learning/fontology/level-1/type-anatomy/type-classifications

Let them tell you about their business, their customers and their target user.
A baker store with housewives as its customers might need something that is more simple than a bakery shop which has customers with more various age and profession.
A start up company with young people as the founder might need something that’s more dynamic and simple than a well established company.

Also check whether your customer already have a company guidelines.
A well established company usually has this and we must comply with it.

Bottom line is, nothing is exact. Each person is unique as well as each logo.

DESIGN TECHNIQUE, HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT?

Technique is important.
Most customers don’t know how to put all their thoughts into a compact logo.
This is where your skill comes in place.

Have you ever encountered that your customers’s idea is not proper and somehow looks less ‘high-class’?
First thing you should put in mind is that ‘Customer is the king‘
They’re the one who runs the business, they’re the one who owns the logo, they’re the one who decide how they like the logo, they’re the one who pays you 🙂

You are the professional who knows the technique, the magic to turn a duck into a swan.

So yes, technique is super important.
But make sure your technique doesn’t replace their passion with yours.

GIVING LOGO ALTERNATIVES

Once you have collecting all the information, it’s time to put it in a design.

I’m not going to talk about how is a good logo design technique supposed to be.
I believe that you all are experts in that and also in using your tools.

What I want to say here is that you need to give your customers luxuries. Let them feel they are in control while you limit them to ask too much at the same time.
Sounds impossible, right? That’s the art you need to learn.

If you passed the first step (knowing them personally and their needs) I guarantee that this phase won’t give you too much trouble.

Always give a little bit more than you promise
– The Studebaker Brothers

Give them alternatives, let them choose, let them give inputs, appreciate their inputs and try to accommodate that.
But in the same time, give them the impression that what you’ve done is actually what they want and wrapped with your designing skill, give them impression that you’ve done it with your heart, give them impression that the already get the best alternatives, give them impression that they have limitations for logo corrections 🙂

CONCLUSION

Designing a logo can be tricky.
Something you need to keep in mind, logo is their “face”. It is normal if they will be a little fastidious about it.

The key is to understand your customer, let them get what they want, let them feel special but make sure that you’re still the one who hold the wheel.

Finally, it is a service business, those who can serve better win more.
You might be the best designer with high profile portfolio, but once your service is not satisfying your customer, they will run away from you.

 

So, have fun in winning your customer’s heart.