Pretend that you are (or completely assume the role of) a world-class designer--one that happens to live in Nazareth. Of course everyone wants you to design their business logo.

Thankfully you’re famous enough that you can pick and choose who you want to work for--but your deadlines will be the same as other designers. Your first job is to simply choose a locally-owned or family-owned business that you believe has a poorly designed logo or that has absolutely no logo. (You must have proof of one or the other. A business card with the logo or evidence of no logo would be perfect.) Next, write a 100+ word mission statement for the company. If they already have one, print it out and bring it with your business card and sketchbook. If they don’t, gather information about he company and write it into a few sentences so that the entire class can understand the objective of the business you’re designing for. The next slide has a series of questions you'll need to ask your business owner. This MUST be the business owner, not just an employee of that business and it MUST be a small, local, or family-owned business.

Here is a video that explains the general logo design process.

If you're not familiar with logos and the design process, one fantastic designer to consider looking at right from the start is Ian Spalter. Take a look at his episode of Abstract here.

Before designing your logo, answer the following questions with the business owner of product or service for which you plan to make a logo:

1- How would you describe the product or service you sell or provide?

2- What are your long term goals?

3- What should this logo accomplish? Example: more sales, greater foot traffic, higher quality customer relationships…

4- Who are your main competitors?

5- How is your product/service/company different from competitors?

6- What’s the age range of your target customer base?

7- Is there a tag line for this product or service? If so, does the logo need to contain that tag line?

8- Do you have any specific imagery in mind for the logo I'm designing?

9- Do you have any color preferences or existing brand colors that need to be part of the new logo for brand consistency?

10- Do you have any colors that you definitely don’t want to use?

11- What feeling or message do you want your logo to convey to those who view it?

12- How do you prefer the logo to be worded or written out? Example: The Design Cubicle, thedesigncubicle, the design cubicle...

13- How would you like the typography to appear? Example: script, bold, light, hand drawn, custom lettering

14- Where will the logo be used? Example: print, web, business cards…

15- What other logos appeal to you and why? (Get visual examples from your client.)

Using your business plan, make a list of 50 visual symbols that remind you of the product, service, or business model. You can write words or draw pictures of these symbols. Remember that even if you write words, each symbol should be something you can eventually draw. This is hard. Because of that, you'll get a lot of points for completing it successfully and you'll be rewarded with an easier job as you move forward with sketches.

What are symbols and where do they come from? What symbols do you use in your daily life? (Think about all of the symbols you use to drive or to move about in a space or even to read this page of text.) Here are some examples of early symbols.

Sometimes designers create symbols that are so powerful that the symbol ends up being a better representative for the company or idea than the written word. Here is an article about the wordless logo.

There are SEVEN characteristics that designers judge logos by. They will be the same characteristics you'll be graded on at the end of the project.

Scalable: One major element to pay particular attention to when designing a logo is scalability. You can be as creative as you want to be in your construction, but if it does not scale well, it is over. A great logo will be able to be re-sized with ease, all the while maintaining its recognizable form and expressive imagery.

In the interests of scalability, you will want to make a habit of using vectors to create your logos. If you are not as adept with the vectors as you would need to be to make this happen, then you need to see to that. Vectors tend to provide for maximum scalability, putting the rest of the re-sizing capabilities on your design. Remember, you want your logo to look great at any size, from billboards to ink pens.

Looks good in Black and White: Another thing to keep in mind when designing a logo, is that no matter how you design and present it, you will not always be in control of how the logo is displayed once it is out of your hands. The client’s needs for the design are going to end up being multifaceted and possibly bounce between the web and print arenas. This means you will need to keep things fairly flexible on your end.

You can do this by making sure that the logo you design always shines in both form and function no matter how it is rendered. Be it in full color, gray-scale or even in pure black and white. This means that you will have to remain imaginative and yet keep things simple enough for the logo’s idea to transfer despite any less than flattering displays it may find itself in. You should never rely on color to get the message of your design across.

Timeless: Another area to keep focused on while fine tuning your logo design is dating. You want your design to always feel fresh and relevant, and you certainly don’t want anyone looking at it and being able to pinpoint the era in which it was created. The logo should always be without age.

This may be one of the most daunting tasks you will face throughout the process of building the logo, but you cannot let that deter you from making sure that you achieve the desired results in this area. Make sure that you steer clear of any of the current logo design themes that are circulating, and instead take the time to find the right design that will never go out of style. Remember that the logo should be just as effective 50 years down the road as it is today.

Memorable: One more may to separate your logos from the more mediocre stock would be make sure that you keep it memorable. You want the design to stick out, and basically just stick overall, because you want it to also stick with them.

What good is taking all the time to research the client and meticulously pour over the details as you work out the perfect logo, only to have people forget it mere moments after they have taken it in. A great logo will remain memorable enough that a person who has only seen the logo once should still be able to recall it enough to describe the logo to someone else. This is not the easiest of qualities to impart, but it is certainly a high ranking one so make sure your designs stays in their minds.

Original: As with any design, you always want to keep originality in the forefront of your mind as you make your logos. Make sure that the design you have created does not just blend in with masses of others that we are inundated with on the daily, failing to have the original qualities necessary to stand out.

Now being original is something that hopefully comes naturally to you as a designer, or just as a creative individual, but you never know. Furthermore, to that end, it should go without saying, but do not use any kind of clip art or stock images in your logos. Remember that the logo should be something created solely for the individual client and their business, and should reflect that individuality. Copy-catting is not the way to achieve that.

Clean and Clear: Finally, the last characteristics that we want to mention here that help to establish the great from the good are make the logo clean and clear. Consider the point of making the design in the first place, to represent and embody the client’s business. If your design does not clearly convey that to the viewer then it hasn’t been the biggest of successes, now has it?

For all of the above reasons, the best logos tend to be those that are the most simple. So take care not to overload and overwork the design by adding in too many elements to muddle up the message and ideas it needs to transfer to the audience. Abstract is good in art, but for the logo the best way to go, is concise and straightforward.

Clever: The last of the characteristics is to aim for something that makes people think. The best logos are often ones where your client immediately likes it and then looks closer and loves it because there's something stimulating about it--something that goes beyond the obvious into the deepest recesses of your acute visual intelligence.

Here are some examples of logos that accomplish all of the seven characteristics of a good logo.

And here are some logos that are particularly clever, just in case you're struggling with that aspect of the project.

Once we've had a critique and we've individually talked about your most successful sketches, it's time to render your favorite five as full-sized (at least six inches in one direction), full-color sketches. Color can be something you add with the simplicity of aesthetic preference or you can get scientific about it:

Here are some key considerations when you make color choices: color nuance, color preference, and color psychology.

And here are some logos that use color thoughtfully.

After you've designed your final three sketches we'll scan them into the computer and use Adobe Illustrator to make them professional. If you've been working closely with your client throughout the process, this might be a good time to get their feedback--just before you put them into Illustrator. If you're planning to give the logos to your client at the end of the project we may even want to take the Illustrator files and make them into jpegs and pdfs. But for our purposes you'll just need the Illustrator document that includes five artboards with the logos in color and black and white and at six inches and two inches.