Using This Guide

This step-by-step guide leads you through the complete process of designing a logo, from brief to debrief. There are however some things to be mindful of as you work through the method and develop your process.

Time indicators

At the start of each step, you’ll see a time indicator. These time indicators are how long I believe each step should take on average, developed from data taken over many years of repeating this process.

In total, once you’ve got this process down it should take you around 8 hours (more or less) if you stick within the range of the time indicators.

Please don’t be discouraged if you go over time. These time indicators are meant to be used as guidelines, and can be used as goals to work towards. Some steps you may nail (the time) on first go, and others you may need to work on and practice through repetition.

Skipping steps

Some of the steps in this method may be similar to what you already incorporate in to your logo design process, which is great – you’ve got a jump-start! But it’s very important that you follow the steps in the correct order, and don’t skip any steps.

I’ve found that when you skip steps, something goes wrong! Whether it’s going over time & budget allocated for the logo design, creating concepts that don’t fit the brief, or misinterpreting the client’s vision for their brand – most problems I’ve come across in the logo design process can be traced back to a specific step (or steps) that have been missed.

Tangents

In certain spaces, tangents are good for creativity and an great way to explore avenues and ideas in depth. But without being kept in check, you can end up too far down a time-wasting tangent, which inevitably becomes destructive to the progress of the logo design process.

So in the context of this guide, we’ll focus particularly on time-wasting tangents, and how to keep them at bay in order to keep your logo design process on track.

Alright, so are you ready to learn the 9Ds?

Great! Let’s go...