the making of a logo
I just finished a logo for Studio 227 and have decided to show a little bit about my process when creating a logo for a client. Studio 227 is a workshop series created by the uber talented Emilie Sommer of emilie inc. photography and consists of regular small group learning intensives and workshops. The first workshop is taking place on February 25th and is for any and all business professionals who are 1): looking to create or better their brand and who 2): want to learn to communicate their brand and attract a bigger, loyal clientele with blogging. The name for this workshop came from the location of Emilie’s studio where the workshops will be held: 227 Congress Street.
Creating a cool logo and brand, of course, was of the utmost importance so we began by talking about what Emilie was looking for. Her description: something clean, business-like and possibly with a flourish, but not too feminine.
When I start any project, especially a logo, I open a blank document in Adobe Illustrator and I start writing the name of the business or entity over and over, trying new fonts and different spacing. My ideas usually spill beyond the confines of the page and I sometimes have 3 or 4 pages full of ideas. Each page is usually a mess by the time I am done with this initial process and there may be some pretty ugly designs on there as well! This initial design process can take me a few days as I hash out ideas, thoughts and try to be as creative as possible while sticking with the wants and needs of the client.
Here is a screen shot of stage one of the Studio 227 logo.
I usually try to do all of this initial work in black and white so as not to be influenced by colors that I may or may not like. I also usually present the logo to the client this same way. This usually helps someone look solely at the design instead of what they may or may not like in a color. If you hate the color orange, for example, it may be difficult to look past this when viewing a logo that is mainly orange. I usually will present somewhere between 2 and 4 designs to a client. Once the designs have been narrowed down a bit, then I will start to integrate color to help with the decision process.
I presented 4 logos to Emilie, but she she decided that none of them were perfect. We almost immediately ruled out #6 as it just didn’t get across the feel Emilie was looking for. She loved #7 but thought perhaps it was a little too feminine for the workshop series. #2 was a good option, but we thought that it was a bit dated. #4 was her favorite, but we still felt like it needed some tweaking. We moved the 227 around, changed the font and tried tweaking the letters of studio, which is ultimatly what did the trick! We loved the orange dot for the i as it vaguely resembles the i’s in the emilie inc. brand. #1 was winner after all of that tweaking, moving, resizing and reworking. Below you can see the final stages of the process for the Studio 227 logo, after going through these changes.
It is quite a process but in the end it is worth all of the time and effort to have the perfect logo that represents your business the way that you feel it should be represented.
Here is the final Studio 227 logo.
To see this logo in action or to find out more information about the workshop visit emilie’s blog here.
