Because every designer works differently, and every company is different, not all logos are created equal. But there are a few staple things you should ask for and receive when paying for a logo. And always, always give your designer as much information as possible about your company and your style.
Make sure you designer gives you some options to choose from. A good number is 3. These initial 3 logos should as different as they can be while still meeting all the guidelines that you’ve given as a client. Feel free to tell the designer what you like and dislike about each version and then choose one that you want to move forward with.
Once you’ve chosen a logo to move forward with, it’s typical to do 2-3 rounds of revisions. Sometimes a designer will limit you to a couple rounds of revisions so that the time they spend on the logo keeps within the budgeted quote that they gave you to begin with. Other times, designers will give you an hourly rate and are open to doing as many revisions as you want. But a great designer will be able to pick up what you want pretty quickly and it should not take more than 3 rounds.
When you get a logo you love, it’s just as important to get the right type of files from your designer. You should also ask them for color profiles. Both of these things will come into play when you decide to use your logo to build your brand-which you should be doing as soon as you get it! Files can be formatted in two different ways-vector and raster. It’s ideal to have both but you definitely have to have a vector format as this is the format that you can blow up without the image becoming pixelated. Common vector formats have .ai or .eps extensions on the file name. Don’t be alarmed if you can’t open these on your computer. These files are created in design software that isn’t common on your everyday computer.
To keep your brand as consistent as possible, there are color specs that you can give to publications or designers. It’s great to have a color scheme of about 5 colors to work with when doing your collateral as well. If the designer can supply these, that would ideal. A great website to come up with color schemes is COLOURlovers. For anything that’s being printed on a business card, brochure, billboard or any other printed surface, you’ll want to supply a CMYK description of your color scheme. For instance, a rich black is C:40 M:40 Y:40 K:100. These numbers represent the percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black in your color. You might also have a pantone number which is just another way of describing colors.
For anything that is being used on the web, you’ll want to provide a RGB color breakdown or a HEX number. RGB is similar to CMYK except that it is for digital or on screen uses. For instance, teal is R:0 G:254 B:253 and the HEX is #00fefd. I’ve put the lime logo along with our color scheme below as an example.
If you get these things from your designer, your brand will thank you. It will make the process of advertising and marketing easy on your part and you will get the most out of your money!
