Logo Design as Conversation

My most recent client, Tiffany Luong of Tiffany Luong Photography, has inspired a new way of working with my clients. There are a few clients who prefer to tell me their story and give me full creative control. They know they can relax and focus on their business while I handle the design. Many clients, particularly those in creative fields, want more of a hand in the development of their logo. They need to feel personally connected to their logo.

Initially, I approached Tiffany’s project in my traditional way. I took all of the information she gave me about her business and I got to work on several unique logo designs. My logo design goal is simplicity. I want to create an image that can quickly become instantly recognizable. I want my logo designs to be easy for the brain to memorize and then recognize from across a room (or scrolling through myriad images on the internet!).

Tiffany wanted something more personal and complex. She works in branding herself and is a creative person. She needed to be more involved in the creation of her very personal logo. She specializes in documentary family photography. This means her photographs focus on capturing what your family feels like, rather than what it looks like. Her warm and loving approach to photography needed a very special logo.

A new way of working together

For the next round of work on her logo, I proposed that we work together in a more fluid and interactive and human way. Her photography gave me a feeling she would be open to this. She is a fan of realness, so I didn’t think she would mind unpolished drawings. By not polishing them, we were able to work much faster.

I started by sending Tiffany my sketchbook drawings. Well, sort of. I had just moved and was suddenly also a home school teacher, so I just used the paper that was handy when I got moment to really sit and think about her logo.

Tiffany wanted her logo to be hand drawn and to look like a stamp. She also had told me she liked imagery like houses, mountain and Chinese waves. The waves were meaningful to her, and it was her favorite from my first round of logo designs, so most of my thumbnail skectches include them.

Tiffany’s favorite was my idea of the waves as the roof on a humble and welcoming little house. Tiffany had an idea that I liked a lot. She suggested putting the waves behind the house like mountains. This ended up being really interesting visually and it gave the house the feeling of being a safe space in a storm.

She chose the house on the top right and I experimented with light and dark as well as fonts. Something about Safer at Home has made doing everything by hand, including text, very appealing.

Logo design is a conversation

Tiffany ended up finding two different typefaces she liked and laying them out herself. I nudged letters and changed the text sizes slightly because that’s what designers do, and sent her the final file for approval. Tiffany told me she loves it. I look forward to working with more clients in this interactive fashion. Edits have always been my least favorite part of the job, and they have been completely eradicated now that the logo design process is a conversation.