The Ultimate Logo Design Checklist from Concept to Completion

Logo creation is a nerve-wracking process. It involves a series of steps. And one wrong move can make your audience go from ‘YAY’ to ‘BOO.’ Therefore, it is essential to have a checklist to help you carry out the entire logo design process with complete accuracy. That’s what we intend to cover here.

In this blog post, we will share an ultimate logo design checklist. From the concept to the completion of a logo, this list will cover all the steps required to create a visual identity of a brand. But besides the list, we’ll also share a pro tip at the end to simplify the process of logo creation for you. So, make sure to read this post till the end.

The Complete Logo Designing Guide

A logo is also known as a visual representation of a business or brand. It encapsulates key aspects of a business identity and conveys various messages to its target audience. Therefore, you should craft it carefully. Here is the step-by-step guide to how to do that: 

Step 1: Identify the Objectives

There are different purposes for creating a logo. Some people develop visual brand identity to follow the norm. Others want to attract their target customers by designing an eye-catching logo because they believe that humans can process visuals 60000 times quicker than text. So, whatever your goal of designing a logo is, make sure to define it before moving to the ‘creation’ part. Doing so will eventually help you stay on the right track.

Step 2: Understand the Business and Its Target Audience

How can you cook food if you don’t know its recipe and who will be eating it? The same rule also applies to the art of logo designing. Therefore, whether you are creating a logo for your own or a client’s brand, it’s essential to grasp an understanding of the business and the target audience. Doing so will help you identify the objective of the business and the taste of its target audience. These findings will ultimately help you craft a precise and more compelling logo.

Step 3: Perform Extensive Research

You want to craft a better logo than your counterparts without knowing what they’re doing. That’s simply not possible. Therefore, before moving to the actual designing phase of your logo, it’s essential to perform extensive research. During this phase, we recommend exploring your competitors and finding the logo types, symbolism, design patterns, typography, and color schemes they’re using. You should also explore the hot industry trends and logo ideas during the research phase.

Step 4: Begin with Sketching

Whether it’s logo creation or some other form of graphic designing, creativity begins with a rough form. This can be done digitally or on paper. But whichever medium you use for creating a rough sketch of your logo, make sure to experiment with various brand-relevant shapes, typography options, elements, and layouts. Do not pass any judgment on your sketch because the goal of this step is to let your creative juices flow.

Step 5: Creation of the Digital Draft

In this phase, the transition from sketches to finalized form will happen. However, before moving to this stage, make sure to finalize the sketches that closely resemble your intended logo. So, once you have transformed the selected sketches to the digital realm, it’s time to refine their shapes, adjusting proportions and adding or removing details. This is typically achieved with the assistance of graphic design software. Therefore, pick a reliable one.

Step 6: Font Selection

Not all logos involve typography. But if your visual brand identity does, make sure to choose a font family that closely aligns with the image of your brand because it’s important to have relevant fonts for the logo. Otherwise, your created logo won’t be able to make relevance. It is also essential to pick a readable and scalable font family. A few prime examples of such font families are Arial, Georgia, Helvetica Roboto, Verdana, and Times New Roman. On the other hand, decorative and script fonts make it hard for people to read the text. So, pick a font family according to the theme of your business and the taste of your audience.

Step 7: Carefully Play with Color Palettes

A study indicates that colors can severely impact the buying behaviors of customers. For instance, businesses often use green colors for their outlets because it allows people to relax. On the other hand, Red and Orange are often associated with highlighting the savings and discounts. Therefore, whatever colors you choose for your logo, make sure they align with your brand’s theme. Otherwise, people won’t be able to picture your business upon seeing your logo.

Step 8: Perform a Check for Simplicity and Scalability

Beginner graphics designers often make their logos complicated while being creative. Therefore, once you have finalized everything, make sure whether your logo looks simple or not. For that, we recommend getting feedback from someone you trust. Once you have done that, it is also essential to verify your logo for scalability. This means that you need to test your logo in various sizes. If it looks good, it means your logo is scalable. Otherwise, you will have to make some adjustments.

Step 9: Feedback Loop

Once you have finalized the logo from your end, it’s time to get feedback from the client or stakeholder. So, present the mockup of your logo in a professional manner and, if required, explain the design. It is possible that you will have to make a few adjustments according to your client’s feedback. If that happens, do not get frustrated because that’s part and parcel of this job. You may have to repeat this step repeatedly until you get a green signal from your client or stakeholder.

Pro Tip: Take Assistance from Technology

Like writer’s block, sometimes, designers find it challenging to dig into their creativity and craft something unique and attractive. This situation is mostly common for graphic designers who work excessively. So, if you are one of them, you can use an automated logo maker. This tool comes loaded with thousands of ready-made templates. So, you can use the provided templates to find inspiration or get a head start in your journey of logo designing.

Final Verdict – The Conclusion

All in all, logo designing is a time-consuming and stressful job because it demands creativity. Therefore, the best way to cope with it is to stick to a guideline because it’s important to have a branded logo for the brand. And that’s what the steps covered in the above checklist do. 

From the conceptualization to the final draft, the steps discussed in the above checklist cover everything. So, read the above content and follow the steps required to craft a memorable logo for your client or business.