While out meeting folks in their place of business, I was asked in a beauty shop “what is the process of designing a logo, how do you come up with that?”  My answer was somewhat vague, but it completely depends on the client.  Sometimes as a business owner, you know exactly what you’re looking for and you just need someone to put it on paper or on the computer for you.  Other times, people have no idea what they are looking for.  While I enjoy visualizing others ideas, there is a certain amount of creative joy that comes with the ability to flex the right side of your brain and create from scratch.  All that being said, I will let you in on the process that I use, using my most recent client as an example.

In October of 2010 we met with Jim Santangelo, the owner of the Wine Academy of Utah to discuss branding ideas for his businesses.  To begin we just talked about his business and what his goals were, who his ideal clients are, what he wants people to think of when they think of his brands, etc.  This was to give us a starting place in terms of imagery and icons that would be the ideal representation of his brand.  The next step in the process was to identify Jim’s taste in logos.  To do this, I did an online search for logos within Jim’s industry, in this case, Wine.  I saved the search with it’s 100 or so image results, and emailed that to Jim.  I asked Jim to identify the top 10 likes and dislikes among the logos.  He was able to group the logos according to the similarities that they had that he both liked and disliked.  This gave me a good idea that he was looking for textual flow, a certain “corporateness” if you will.  Though he liked the professionalism of the corporate look he also wanted something reflective of his fun personality.  The final step in the brainstorming process dealt specifically with Jim’s own ideas.  Though he didn’t have any coming into the conversation, the brainstorming allowed him to begin to think a little bit about what types of images he would like to see in his logo and the result was the idea of grapes rolling off the vine and into a wine glass.

The next step in the logo development process is where I took the information and began to put it all together.  Most designers will tell you it is best to start on paper.  To pick up a good ol’ pencil and just start sketching ideas out.  I was able to come up with 5 or so sketches that I presented to Jim based on his feedback, but ultimately settled on one below.  As I was sitting at my dining room table with a pad and pencil, I placed a wine glass in one hand, and just started drawing the wine glass over and over.  I played with the shape of the glass, the angle of the glass and the reflection of the glass.  I began to notice a pattern as I drew the glasses over and over.  Each glass drawing gave me at least 2, but often 3 circles to play with.  As the circles stacked up they began to form a grape bunch.  Then the idea struck; What if instead of grapes rolling into glasses, the grapes were turning into glasses?  So, I continued drawing the wine glasses and stacking them until I had a grape bunch composed of stacked wine glasses.  After drawing a grape leaf on top of my grape bunch, I noticed something else.  While playing with the grape leaf, and staying true to the academic nature of the wine academy, the shape of the leaf was very similar in shape to three graduation caps stacked together.  The resulting drawing is below.

After presenting this idea to Jim, it became apparent that this would be the design we would build on.  The first step was to scan-in and redraw the image into the computer.  This was the result.

Now that we had our base concept down, and an image that we were happy building on, the only step left was to add a little color, text, positioning and create versions for all media, print and web.  Incorporating Jim’s requested colors and layout, we settled on the final result below.

As you can see, we have a very thorough process in developing an image for businesses.  What’s most important in all of this is that the result both appealed to the Wine Academy’s cliental, and represented everything that Jim was looking for, thus making Jim happy.  Now, how we can help you to create an image for your business?  It won’t cost you a thing to sit and brainstorm with us.  Don’t hesitate to contact us, today!