How A Logo Design Studio Works

Logo design is just a single part of what a graphic design studio does. It is the most important part though because the rest of the corporate identity spans from the logo design. It is the keystone in terms of the corporate identity that the rest of the marketing materials build upon. This is why many internet graphic design studios call themselves logo design studios as opposed to graphic design studios.

The Team

Lead Designer
At the head of the team is the lead designer. Sometimes called the design supervisor or design director. This is the boss and they are usually a very accomplished designer in their own right. No design leaves the studio without being signed off by the boss. This person is responsible for looking after the clients and coordinating the designers. If the design studio consists of just one person then the boss will also be the designer.

Designers
The design team will consist of a mixture of talents. Designers specialise in differnt areas of design. For instance it is not uncommon to have an expert in type working alongside an expert in illustration. Or an expert in layout working alongside several other designers. A good studio will play well to the strengths of the team and work in small specialist teams to maximise the creativity for the client.

Quality Control
This consists of one or two senior designers with an eye for detail. They will make sure that best practices are being followed and that the work is suitable for the media it has been designed for. They will have an in-depth knowledge of printing processes and will be required to work closely with the printing department to iron out any production issues.

The Process

The first thing to do is understand the clients design brief. Understand what the client is trying to achieve with the design. Once the brief is understood and the client agrees to the scope of the work, the creativity can begin.

Brainstorming
The team is assembled by the boss. This will be a hand picked team of designers that have the required skill set strengths to accomplish the project goals. A meeting will take place where ideas are thrown into the pot. All ideas are welcome no matter how absurd they may seem. Often an absurd idea will lead onto something else that will be a real winner so it is important that people speak out and say what they see. Ideas are then refined down to two or three different concepts. It is these concepts that will be explored further.

Concepts
Designers sketch out the concepts on paper (see fig.1). This is crucial to a successful design because it will show how the design can play out in colour and black and white. It will also show weaknesses in the design early on before any computer work takes place. This stage can make or break a concept and so it must never be missed. It is no good committing something to the computer without having first played it out in sketch format. Doing so often ends up in a nice looking design that has a lot of weaknesses discovered too late to change. Sketch first, then commit to digital design. That is the correct sequence.

Digitising The Design
Once the concepts have been ironed out in sketch format and black and white and colour examples (see fig. 2) are created, the design can be computerised (see fig.3). For a professional design they will use a vector drawing tool like Adobe Illustrator. This will get the logo design onto the computer in a format that can be used across a multitude of different mediums. The finished image will be able to be resized and edited as required without any loss of quality. It can then be output into a massive array of different file formats for use on all sorts of applications.

Quality Control
The quality controller for the project will check back to make sure that all procedures have been carried out and that there is a traceable history of the project which has been catalogued. This is important not only for the good housekeeping of the design studio but because this work may well be called on in the defence of a trademark argument. The studio need to prove the work is genuine. The designs themselves will also be scrutinised for quality and any potential printing or media issues will be addressed and corrected.

Sign Off
The boss signs off the project for delivery to the client. Anything that may have been missed by the quality team will almost certainly not make it past the head honcho. The boss takes full responsibility for the project and can be legally held accountable for the work being genuine.

How Can You Tell Real A Logo Design From Fake?

It is almost impossible to tell the difference between a stolen logo design and a genuine logo design. Unless you have seen the original design how can you possibly know what’s real and what’s fake? Even seasoned designers can’t tell the difference (see fig. a) so what chance has a business person got of knowing the difference. If you read the article mentioned above you will stand a very good chance of avoiding the hidden pitfalls. With modern computers and graphics software that almost design for themselves, pretty much anyone can set up designing and selling logos for next to nothing.

About The Author
http://www.LogoQuality.co.uk is the internet brand of Graphic Design Ltd. A graphic design studio based in Slough near London. Graphic design Ltd follows the design procedures and processes laid out in this article. All genuine designs depicted (CHOU Logo) are the work of Graphic Design Ltd or the trademarks of their respective owners.

If you would like to order a logo design from www.LogoQuality.co.uk you can do that here:

Order Logo Design - £149