my logo design process

A logo that lasts does not happen by accident. It comes from a clear process, honest collaboration, and a shared understanding of who your brand is and what your brand wants to grow into. My goal is always the same: design you a logo that can grow with your amazing company. 

Here’s what it looks like to collaborate with me on your logo...

1. Understanding & Alignment

Before I sketch anything, I ask clients to walk through a logo design questionnaire with me. It sets the tone for the project and helps me understand the goals, context, personality, and vision of the brand.

Two things come out of this step:

📝 A success statement (shoutout James Barnard)

A simple, direct statement that defines what a “successful” logo means for the project. Here is an example of one from a recent project: 

"I want my brand to express the idea of a journey — not a straight line, but a path where you learn, adjust, adapt, and course-correct along the way. The name [company name kept for privacy] comes from “[kept for privacy]” which to me means good things are coming, blessings are ahead, and the journey itself is meaningful.

Visually, I’d love a logo that communicates:

• Movement or progression forward

• Subtle course correction or changing direction (curves, bends, steps, or shifting lines)

• A sense of trust, guidance, and calm confidence

• A horizon, path, compass, or directional element

• Hopefulness — that the future is unfolding in a positive way

The overall feeling should be:
You’re on your way. You won’t always go straight. But you’re guided, supported, and blessings are ahead.

I want it to feel modern, clean, uplifting, and grounded — something that reflects financial guidance but also the bigger idea of navigating life’s route with clarity and faith."

✅ A brand noun list (shoutout Allan Peters)

Together we establish no more than 10 brand nouns that I use to guide the visuals and imagery inspiration of the logo design. This ensures that you have no surprises when I present work for you. If you were not expecting a chicken, but I have one in my design, that would be a problem!

I keep both pieces in front of me while I’m working. They help me design with intention instead of guessing or drifting into unnecessary directions.

Here is an example from the same project mentioned above:

• horizon

• path

• compass

• map

• line

• direction: curve, bend, step, shift

• summit

• ascent

2. Exploration

Once the questionnaire is done and we’ve finalized the success statement and noun list, I move into sketching. This stage is about generating ideas, not perfecting them. I explore as many directions as I can, working off of the brand noun list for imagery that we previously established.

From those early sketches, I narrow things down to 10 or more refined concepts. I then vectorize them into clean, black-and-white “nice sketches.”

I keep them black and white on purpose. Without color or type weighing things down, you can focus on the structure of the brand mark itself, the foundation of your visual identity.

3. Direction

You review those vectorized concepts that I present and choose one to three that feel right for your brand. This gives you flexability to keep a few options you like, but really narrows things down and gives a good direction for the project.

From here, I go into refining these one to three ideas, pairing them work the brand wordmark and tagline. This helps me to see if anything with the brand mark should change, and how the wordmark and tagline should be treated.

4. Refine

In our next touchpoint, we review those one to three refined options. The goal of this touchpoint is to choose the final iteration, and finalize things from there, going into the details like:

• proportions

• spacing

• font weight

• balance

• color exploration

• patterns and supporting elements

• and whatever else your particular project needs

This is where the visual identity of a brand really takes shape. I build you not just as a brand mark, but as a visual identity system.

5. Final Presentation & Handoff

Once everything is dialed in, we touch base one last time to review the very final version of your logo. When you feel confident in the outcome, I finalize the files and prepare the deliverables.

You walk away with a logo that’s timeless, not trendy.

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Interested in Working Together?

That’s the process I use for every logo project. If you’re looking for a thoughtful, structured approach to your logo design, feel free to reach out, I would be honored to work with you. 

Jacob ✌️