Come with me on a journey from initial brief to final concept, and discover what’s involved in the design of a logo and brand.
So I’ve been asked to design a logo for a new global company and thought it would be interesting to take you through the process – either because you are curious about how I work or maybe you’re thinking of having a logo done yourself. It might even be you’re asking “what does my money pay for?”.
I’m writing this blog as I go, kind of like a diary/journal, we’ll see where it takes us!
A bit of background: I have worked for David Stanley and the Music Man Project since their first performance in 2015. Since then the project and charity has gone from strength to strength and in 2025 has joined forces with a similar company in Milan, Allegro Moderato, and created the International Alliance of Accessilbe Music, intended to pool together resources and collaborate in their efforts to bring music to those with disabilities.
Part One
Having received the brief I then go into thinking mode. The client has given me a rough idea of what they want, what the brand needs to do and the ethos it needs to reflect. It needs to feel established, be clean and effective, and have an air of authority but still be accessible and slightly playful. Key words we want to associate are collaboration, resources, global connection, accessibility – even though it’s about making music accessible to all abilities and disabilities, we want to focus more on how it can free a person from disability rather than focus on disability – it’s more about freedom and growth. Also the letters its acronym makes up (IAAM) are quite interesting and have a bit of a pattern to them, there could be something there too.
So for a few days I just let the idea sit in my brain as I go about other things, it ferments a bit and I start to get a few thoughts hovering about. In the shower, walking back from the school run, driving around – all times when I’m looking around and just thinking, letting ideas come and go. Is this time chargeable? Do I keep a time sheet at this point? No, this bit the client gets for free!!
Part Two
Getting the ingredients together.
This is the fun bit, where I’m sitting at the computer browsing around – ploughing through thousands of fonts, seeing if the letter shapes in particular fonts look good. I’m beginning to think there are different options in my head – a strong sans serif font like Gill or Futura, blocky and strong with the title underneath small and light. And then there’s some ideas with a serif, with the light and shade of a Bodoni type font, the serifs joining the letters together perhaps, and emphasising the shape of the angled A lines and the diagonals in an M. I look at handwritten and brush styles – maybe a bit too loose for this, too much like a school. This is an International Alliance, it has a feel of establishment to it.
At the same time I have a look on Pinterest and do a bit of AI – I love asking Canva to design me a logo. I don’t see it as cheating, it’s just an extremely useful tool for sourcing ideas and quickly seeing how the letter shapes and colours do or do not work. Canva (and other ai tools) often come up with some hilarious options where things just don’t quite look right.
Then I get into Illustrator and start playing around with the fonts and imagery. We have a globe, international, music, freedom, connection. Trees, musical notes, hands, piano keys, birds – so many ideas. I have access to Adobe Stock and can browse various icons and symbols. I can download them and then take them and minupulate them, playing around with the shapes and colours, merging them together, taking small parts of one shape, putting it with another.
This is where I just spend time playing around, 90% of what I produce at this stage is largely rubbish, but it’s the rubbish that helps me work out what is good, what does work. This is where the hours go. This is the unknown part of logo design – sometimes something strong comes through immediately and I know this is the one, I don’t need to do any more. The flip side of this is I end up with a page of about 30 logos, all of which I like but can’t decide which works best.
I often take a break at this point, maybe a day or so, let myself step back and then come back with fresh eyes. It’s amazing how this makes it easier to see sometimes. Unless I have come up with ‘the one’ I will probably send a selection of my favourites to the client for their feedback. I’m not after approval or validation, the process is entirely collaborative and their feedback may be vital to reaching the final design – they know their product better than me, they also know what they like, they just might not know til they see it.
In the instance of this client, we have an excellent working relationship – I’ve been working with them for years and they happily put their trust in me to come up with something, and because we know each other very well, I already know what kind of thing they will be looking for. This is why I value the client relationship so much, building up a rapport and a short hand, getting to know them really well and feeling comfortable that they trust me and don’t feel the need to dictate too much, they are happy to let me be free and creative.
Part Three
After several days of playing around with imagery, it has become very apparent that it is difficult not to create something cliché when using musical notes or looking at disability.
So I have steered away from the obvious and tried to use elements without being too direct – a very stylised musical note, or just a use of colour.
I’ve also now got an interesting logo exploring just the shapes of the letters without an accompanying icon. It doesn’t suggest music/disability at all but is distinctive, recognisable and authoritative so may be all it needs.
I’ve tried this version with an accompanying icon but it’s just too much – it’s so important not to have too much, to trust the old addage ‘less is more’. Some of the most effective and well known logos are the simple ones, the ones with just one image, or the word in one single font. Sometimes it doesn’t need to ‘say’ any more, other than be recognisable and distinguishable from others.
I play with some of my favourite designs and see how they might look in different applications, in different orientations and in different colours, really to make sure they will work flexibly before I show to the client.
I don’t like to overwhelm the client with too many choices/decisions, so I choose my four favourites and put them on a clean page showing just the logo on a white background and another within an elipse of colour so they can see it ‘reversed’. Any more and it becomes too confusing.
I can show all the other applications and options once the client has given me feedback on these and I know they are at least in the right ‘ball park’.
I email the pdf over to the client and wait.
Have I got it right? Is this what they wanted? I really hope it isn’t ‘back to the drawing board’. I have my favourite but I keep that to myself, it’s always better to hear what they like before giving my opinion. At this point I need to give the client time to mull over the ideas, show them to their colleagues and associates, think about how each one might work in different applications. Yep I have to be patient, not always easy! I normally leave it a few days before making contact. (Ordinarily they do reply within a day or so even just to say they are in receipt and give their first reaction).
Part Four
Well the client, and his associate in Milan who is collaborating with my client on this project, loved the logo pages I sent, and both chose the same favourite logo (different from the one I preferred!).
This is the perfect scenario (quite rare actually!) where they really like what I’ve done and don’t have any further changes or want me to try anything else. This is fantastic and it’s great when I feel like I have answered their brief really well. One quick check that they are happy with the colours, which they are, and now I set about making up a ‘branding guide’ to show the chosen final logo in different contexts and applications.
This is as much for me to know that it works and I have thought of everything, as much as for them to see it ‘in action’ before final approval. They are happy with the branding guide, the colour palette, fonts and all the options of where the logo might appear.
I then spend a couple of hours setting up all the logos in their various formats and alternatives, in order I can send a logo pack to the client with everything in neatly organised folders to make the logos easy to use, and share where needed.
I’ve included vector files which are preferred for printing and large scale graphics, jpegs for easy sharing, pngs which have transparent backgrounds and best used for web and social media applications – and pdfs, which are generally universally accepted and easy to open and view by most platforms. I send the logo pack along with a page showing thumbnails of the contents for their reference, and the branding guide.
My work is done, the clients are happy, the logo is looking fabulous (if I may say so myself), and a new brand is born! The best part for me is seeing it come alive and used – in this case across the world – and knowing that ‘I did that’! Very much looking forward to seeing where this goes and how it will help the IAAM grow from strength to strength!
Thank you to David Stanley of The Music Man Project, and Luca Baldan of Allegro Moderato, for allowing me to use their project as a case study!
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