One way to achieve cohesive visuals is to craft a bespoke typeface for your logo. While it's hugely important, a symbol can only take an identity so far. Always consider how the identity works when the logo isn’t there too. In design terms, the bigger picture is every potential item on which your logo design might appear. It’s a little like when you’re stuck in a rut – it can help to step back, to look at the bigger picture, to see where you are and what you’re surrounded by.

A client presentation should include relevant touchpoints to show how the logo appears when seen by potential customers. It's usually presented in the context of a website, a poster, a business card, an app icon, or all manner of other supports and applications. We don't usually see a logo in absolute isolation. Wolff Olins created a bespoke typeface for Macmillan cancer support in 2006 for use in both its logo and marketing headlines Don’t share too much though only your best ideas. This can make it easier for them to visualise the result without the distraction of typefaces and colours, which can sometimes cause clients to dismiss a whole idea. It can also be useful to share some sketches when you’re describing design ideas to clients prior to digitising a mark. Sketching makes it easier to put shapes exactly where you want them – there will always be time to digitise your marks later (see our sketching tips for more advice).

With no digital interface in the way, you have complete freedom to explore, and if you wake up in the night with an idea you don’t want to lose, a pen and paper by your bedside is still the best way to get it down. With the many digital tools available today, you might consider going straight to your computer to create a logo design, but using a sketchpad gives you a chance to rest your eyes from the glare of brightly lit pixels and, more importantly, record design ideas much more quickly and freely. Sketches of Firefox mascots by Martijn Rijven, who was commissioned by Wolff Olins What you discover in this initial phase of a project can really help ensure that you don't miss the market when you start developing your logo design. What do they do, and how do they do it? What makes them different from other brands? Who are they there for and what do they most value? Some of these questions might seem so straightforward that they're unnecessary, but they can be challenging to answer and will lead to more questions about your clients’ businesses. Make sure you ask your client why they exist. Getting to know the client and their product well help you choose the strongest design direction and make it easier to get a consensus on your logo design further down the line. Every client is different, and even in the same profession, people do their jobs in different ways. Logo design should begin with some groundwork. One of the most interesting parts of being a designer is that you get to learn new things with each project. Logos like those of Mercedes and Woolmark have become priceless assets for their companies Below designer David Airey (opens in new tab) offers his 10 golden rules of logo design to help you do just that. The job of designers is to distil the essence of a brand into the shape and colour that’s most likely to endure. Only if that’s enough to hold our attention do we start to read. When we look at something, we see shape and colour before we read. Before anything else we see shape, we see colour, and if that’s enough to hold our attention, then we’ll read David Airey When we look at something, we don’t read first. The aim of logo design should therefore be to create something that people can easily picture when they think about their experiences with a product, company or service. And a logo acts as a brand's face, allowing people to connect with it and remember it. When you think about a person who’s made some kind of impact on your life, you can probably picture what they look like. Brand identity design can include everything from uniforms, vehicle graphics, business cards, product packaging, billboard advertising and coffee mugs and other collaterals, all the way through to photographic style and the choice of fonts. There are hundreds, even thousands of brands competing for our attention, and this means brands need to differentiate themselves visually. This differentiation is achieved through brand identity design – a range of elements that work together to create a distinctive picture of the brand in our minds.

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