The logo is the face of a company, organisation or individual used predominately for the promotion and recognition of their product or themselves. A good logo needs to be memorable, recognisable and obviously have strong aesthetics. Brainstorming and planning is the most important and imperative process of logo creation, and for good reason. Brainstorming helps to provide you with different views and outlooks of the logo requirements or the name and purpose of the company or individual that the logo is being made for.
Many designers have their own list of actions to take when working on logos, including the planning, design and presentation stages. Some jump right into their program of choice (Illustrator I hope) and begin working from there whilst others grab a pen and paper and work their way into the design that way. I am not saying that there is a right or wrong way to go about the process, however I do feel that it is really important to follow a brainstorming process similar to the below, in order to gain the most insight and required inspiration to work on the given logo design project.
Initial Brainstorming
There are 2 parts to the brainstorming process; this first step is simply to broaden your mind or thoughts about the project before starting on it. This step is extremely important for everyone due to the understandings or vision that each person has to a particular word or set of words. Below is an example as to why this first step is important.
For the purpose of this example I will use “Exist to Create” as a company name.
Let’s say that hypothetically you have been approached to design a logo for “Exist to Create” where “Create” has been given to you as the company’s main keyword. They have told you that they are a company that creates brochures and flyers for corporate customers.
Now as a designer you look at the company name and begin deciphering a use or link that “Create” has on the company’s field of work, or directly their product. The problem we have here though is that different people will have a different idea on the meaning of the word create (to an extent), meaning you, as the designer, may have a fixed idea about how you will design this logo and how you will link it in with their product or service based on your understanding of the word. Yes, everyone knows that create, in its broadest sense, means to make something. The “different meanings” I talk about are those of individuals, for example; some people may see “Create” as meaning the making of something with your hands whereas they may see “construct” as meaning to make something using a computer program, even though create and construct essentially mean the same thing. It’s just human nature for people to see or think of things in different ways.
To overcome this potential block all we need to do is make a simple brainstorm chart. Without the use of the internet, books or other sources, you want to grab a pen and paper and make the chart, listing all synonyms or words with a similar meaning to the words within the client’s name.
As seen in the example above, I made a small brainstorm chart that lists some synonyms and words of similar meaning to “Exist” and “Create”.
By completing this step in the process you remove any direct ideas you may have had relating to just the word “Create” and have now opened a large number of other ideas because you have broadened the nature of the word(s). This opens your mind up to further ideas because you now aren’t just using your understanding of the word “Create” but now you are using your understanding of all the words that share the same general meaning of “Create”.
The next stage
This second step of the process is, again, made to help you increase your ideas related to the given project. Rather than helping to broaden an understanding of the words, this step helps to widen your ideas by finding things that help to achieve the meaning of the given words.
We will follow on from step 1, so again the company’s name is “Exist to Create” with “Create” being the keyword. The company makes brochures and flyers for corporate customers.
As with step 1 you want to make another brainstorm chart without the use of anything to help. You want to try and think of words that can be used in conjunction with main keyword or company’s name. For example; technology could be a word relating to our main keyword “Create” because it is possible to use technology to create something.
Again just a simple chart that lists what is required and helps to increase the ideas you may have relating to the project at hand.
To Finish Up
I struggled to explain exactly what I mean but hopefully it has been done well enough to give you a general idea. If you receive work from a client in the future that requires logo work done, why not adopt this sort of process and see just how it can help, maybe even go back to some of your previous logo works and use this process to see whether it may have changed the outcome of them.
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