Logo design- a walk-through of my creative process
How to design a logo- from start to finish
Detailed logo design tutorial
What comes to your mind when you hear the term ‘Logo Design’? Sounds like an overwhelming process, right?(unless you are a logo designer yourself), starting from the initial brain storming to the final design which is to be delivered to your client; who is actually, eagerly waiting to suggest new additions and revisions to your design. So, keeping all the complex jargons aside, let’s begin this logo design tutorial! I am sure you will be able to learn something from my creative work process.
“There are three responses to a piece of design- Yes, No, and Wow! Wow is the one to aim for.” — Milton Glaser
Let’s begin!
Step 1: The Brief
Before you begin it’s important to have a clear understanding of what your logo is going to represent. The client will usually send over a document that will have all the necessary details but if you feel it’s incomplete, then don’t hesitate to ask the client the questions you need to. After getting all the information and necessary instructions from your client, what you can do is, create a word document stating all the information that you have collected; in an organized manner, stating all the points you need to keep in mind while creating the design.
Once you have a clear understanding of the brief, start looking for references and create a moodboard of how your design is going to feel. The most popular places to look for inspiration are Pinterest, Behance and Dribbble. If incase you’re struggling with what to search for, you can try mind mapping, which is a technique where you break down a logo brief and generate new ideas in different directions. So, what you need to do is- just write the words that come to your mind when you think of your client’s company name or even pick out words from the logo brief and expand around it.
Once you’re satisfied with the keywords it’s time to move on to sketching. This is where you visualize your ideas and start to bring them to life. You don’t necessarily have to be great in drawing for this. You just need to be able to sketch down your thoughts on paper.
So, now moving on to step two!
Step 2: Sketching
There are a couple of options when it comes to sketching. You can either take the initials and fiddle around with them or make something like a mascot or you could even just go to the typography route and play around with that. There is nothing much to explain about the sketching part, its totally up to you on how you perceive the situation and sketch down your thoughts.
So, moving on to step three, which is one of the most crucial steps in the entire logo design process.
Step 3: Colors
Yes! You guessed it right! Colors. Or more like- picking the right color palette, which will complement your design and make it more lively and aesthetic.
An easy way to pick the right color palette is to head over to colorhunt.co and you can choose whichever palette suits your design. Otherwise, if you want to learn more about colors and dig deep into this topic, I would suggest you to check out tutorials. There are many videos on YouTube or you can enroll yourself in a color theory master course on any platform of your choice.
I would personally recommend you to go for this course on Fiverr Learn. It will help you master color scheme selection and take your logo designs to the next level.
Fiverr Affiliate Link to Color Scheme Selection Course
Fiverr.com Home Page (Fiverr Learn Home Page)
Once you have a color palette and a sketch ready. It’s time to vectorize it. So, moving on to step four!
Step 4: Vector
Vector is basically the final design which you present to your client.
I usually use Adobe Illustrator which is the most commonly used software in the industry for vector design. There are also a few other options available which you can use.
Take a picture of your sketch and import it to Adobe Illustrator. Reduce the opacity of the layer to 30%. After that, using the various Illustrator tools, create the design based on your sketch and you are done with your logo!
If you don’t know how to use Adobe Illustrator to create designs, you can check out tutorials on YouTube. I will link some of them below.
Adobe Illustrator Basics: Complete Tutorial (for beginners)
Adobe Illustrator Essentials: BYOL Playlist
Adobe Illustrator Advanced: BYOL Playlist
P.S. The BYOL playlists aren’t complete. You can check out the complete Dan Scott Adobe Illustrator course here:
Adobe Illustrator Fundamentals + Mastery:
Fiverr Affiliate Link (Complete course to master Adobe Illustrator)
Fiverr.com (Home Page)
Find Inspiration:
Check out the following YouTube channels for the best logo design inspiration and expert insights into the world of graphic designing.
Conclusion:
So, this is the entire process through which I design my logos. If you are a complete beginner, then you can definitely follow the steps mentioned above. Once you get used to designing logos, you can experiment with your own creative work flow and try to find a process which suits you the best.
So, that’s it from this article. Thanks for reading till the end!
If you want to learn more about logo designing in detail, you can definitely take up any master course from any platform. I will link some of my favorites down below. Do check them out and give it a try if you are seriously into logo designing.
Logo Designing Master Course: Affiliate Link
Logo Symbol Design course: Affiliate Link
After doing the course, practice making logos for imaginary brands. Try to gain as much knowledge as possible from each project and try to apply the knowledge to real world projects. Once you are familiar with the process, you can start looking for freelance projects on fiverr, upwork or freelancer.com. This will help you gain real world insights into logo designing and the complications involved in the entire process. You will also gain exposure on how to handle the pressure to deliver quality projects within limited amount of time.
That’s all, folks!
Pictures Credit: freepik.com
