What Goes Into a Logo?

Everyone knows what a logo is. But how does the process work? To figure that out we have to begin with Websters definition of a logo.

Logo: A graphic representation or symbol of a company name, trademark, abbreviation, etc, often uniquely designed for ready recognition.

A logo can be a complicated thing to develop and even more difficult to describe how it was done. To get that "uniquely designed" logo every designer has to work with a process. This process makes it a fun and quick experience for both the designer and the client. The best way for me to describe this process is to showcase a logo I did for a friend of mine, Tracy.

There are five phases to designing a logo and it typically takes three to five weeks:
1) Discovery
2) Logo options
3) Choosing the logo and adjustments
4) Color options
5) Final logo and treatment

1) Discovery
Tracy needed a logo for herself and her husband (the Egans) and her friends (the Walker's) to use for the trips they make together. They've been doing it for years and this year they decided to make a logo to distinguish themselves from everyone else.

2) Logo Options
Once Tracy explained why she needed the logo the next step was for her to decide what message she wanted the logo to give. She told me that the logo needed to be as much an Egan logo as a Walker logo. It had to have a 50/50 feeling so that both couples would connect with it and enjoy wearing it. This told me that the audience was the two couples, nobody else. The logo had to be festive and fun while also being strong and masculine, since men need to wear it as much as woman.

So I designed four logos.
v.1: Martini and beach water spoke to having fun and relaxing.
v.2: Screamed the hot sun and had a tribal feel to it.
v.3: A badge/stamp was fairly generic. But the middle letter could have been an "E" or a "W" depending on how you looked at it.
v.4: "Laze". This logo was all about being fun and crazy.

3) Choosing the logo and adjustments
This is the part where they might hate all of them or love one or two, you never know. In this case they liked three of them and asked me to modify them a little.
v.1: I flipped the type and made the "E" and "W" a little more edgier.
v.2: Got rid of the "&" because it confused the "EW" message.
v.3: Changed the olive to an umbrella playing off the martini glass and making it a beach.

4) Color Options
By this point most clients have typically picked one or two of the logos but again, they liked all three. With three logo choices, I began the color options. With each logo I made three color versions. The first two were what I thought the colors should be. The last, I always do in a completely different way so that the client can see something different.

v.1abc: With the first two I did blue, which is the the opposite of what you'd expect.
v.2abc: This logo is all about fun and relaxation, so I focused on the colors that best represented sand and beach.
v.3abc: Since this was a stamp, I looked at the first two logos for inspiration. I also wanted to show them how the "E" and "W" would look at different angles.


5) Final logo and treatment
Once I created the color options, Tracy and her group quickly made a decision. The Martini Glass Design was too feminine for them. The stamp "E" and "W" logo was cool, but in the end seemed to fall on the side of the Egan's and not the Walker's. So the logo they all liked the most was the screaming sun logo. They liked the opposing colors but we adjusted them some more and we were done.


I was really happy with how the logo turned out. It represented the clients perfectly. Out of all the logos designed for the group, my personal favorite was the Martini Glass design because it had a simple, cool twist to it, making it more memorable.

Logos are fun. They are simple and true, they don't lie. You quickly know whether they suck or are brilliant. That being said, I think that reason alone is what drives most designers crazy. I love logos because I have all the freedom in the world to design something unique that will stand above all the others.