How to design a logo: the complete process

Most bad logos are not ugly. They are simply too complicated for the places they have to live: a 16-pixel favicon, a rubber stamp, a pen, embroidery on a shirt, a phone screen in sunlight.

The process below is built to eliminate unnecessary complexity early, while it is cheap, rather than at the end, when it is not.

The types of logo

The process, step by step

1. The brief

Do not start without written answers to: what you sell, to whom, in what tone, where the mark will appear (physically and digitally), which logos in the market you like and (more importantly) why. That last question is what separates a brief from a list of preferences.

A vague brief produces a vague result. A good one rests on your brand strategy; if that does not exist yet, at least write the positioning in one sentence.

2. Choose type and colour first

Counterintuitive, but it saves days: drawing a mark is far easier when you already know the typeface the name will sit in and the background it will live on. See the typography guide and the palette guide.

3. Sketch in black and white, small

Draw twenty to thirty directions at coin size, with no colour. The constraint is not stylistic, it is diagnostic: a shape that fails at 2cm without colour will fail everywhere else too, you will just find out after becoming attached to it.

4. Three directions, not twenty

Develop three conceptually distinct directions, not three variations on one idea. Presented properly, each comes with the reasoning behind it rather than a story invented afterwards. A client handed twenty options is not choosing, they are guessing.

5. Refinement

This is where most of the real work happens and the least of it shows: stroke weights optically equalised, letter spacing corrected by hand, corner radii made consistent, alignments that are optical rather than mathematical. The difference between an amateur mark and a professional one is almost always in this stage, not in the idea.

6. The variant family

Primary mark, a variant for wide formats, one for tall formats, the isolated symbol for avatars and favicons, monochrome and inverted versions. Plus clear space and minimum size, documented as described in the brand guidelines guide.

The tests it has to pass

1. 0116 pixels. Shrink it to favicon size. What is lost there is lost in every customer's browser tab.
2. 02Black and white. Without colour, shape and contrast have to do all the work alone.
3. 03The photocopy. Copy it three times in succession. Fine detail disappears exactly like that in embroidery, engraving and stamping.
4. 04Inversion. On a dark background, thin shapes thicken optically. Sometimes a slightly different version is needed.
5. 05Memory. Show it to someone for five seconds, then ask them to describe it. What they describe is what survives, the rest is decoration.
6. 06The line-up. Place it beside three competitors' marks. If it dissolves into the group, the problem is the concept, not the execution.

What you must receive on delivery

• Editable vector files. SVG plus PDF or EPS. Without a vector you do not have a logo, you have a picture of one.
• Transparent PNGs, in at least two sizes.
• A favicon as a multi-size ICO, not a renamed PNG.
• Every variant in the family, clearly named.
• Colour codes. HEX, RGB, CMYK.
• The typeface name and, if commercial, its licence details.
• Usage rules, at least one page: clear space, minimum size, misuse.
• The rights, in writing. Exclusive assignment has to be explicit in the contract or invoice.

Mistakes you can see from across the room

• Gradients and drop shadows. They survive no physical reproduction process and age visibly.
• An untouched default typeface. A name set in the editor's default is not a wordmark; the spacing is never right out of the box.
• Too many ideas in one mark. The leaf, the mountain, the sun and the initial, all at once.
• Detail that vanishes when small. Test before, not after.
• The category cliché. The tooth for the dentist, the house for the estate agent, the cog for IT. Correct, and completely forgettable.

Alone, with a designer, or generated

A good designer brings the judgement the tests above only approximate, and charges accordingly, real numbers are in the cost guide.

The alternative that works on a small budget is parametric generation: you start from the brief and receive a mark built to geometric rules, then edit it. In RHAM, the logo studio works with parametric mark families, every element stays editable, and the export includes SVG, PNG, a multi-size favicon and the full archive, plus applied mockups. The difference from an ordinary generator is that the mark stays vector and adjustable rather than being a fixed image. See how it works.