FROM THE SKETCH TO THE FINAL LOGO

My personal formula for a perfect logo is:

maximum recognition value

+ maximum flexibility

+ fast memorability

− excess complexity

= perfect logo

I try to achieve the best balance here: a sustainable and strong logo, tailor-made for the client, their product and target group. I show you some sketches from my daily business in this article, so you can see how this development looks like in practice.

CUBILE MONITORING HEALTH

Cubile is a medical product for hospitals, care homes and people nursing family members at home. The first step after the briefing with the client was an internal brainstorming session, collecting ideas and further keywords to specific main keywords. Letting my ideas run completely free was very important here - like always when conducting a brainstorming. Everything is allowed in this early stage.

This brainstorming served as a basis for logo draft pencil sketches further on. I usually start with pencil sketches on paper as I‘m very flexible and can bring down my ideas very quickly. Much later in the logo developing process, the best drafts are drawn on a computer and presented to the client.

My idea was to develop an animated logo to incorporate movement into the logo, as movement plays an important role for cubile. A part of cubile is a foam pad underneath a bed‘s mattress. It sends a warning signal to an app installed on the doctor‘s smartphone, tablet or PC as soon as specific data such as breathing and heart rate are out of the norm. This happens when the patients execute certain movements (risk of the patient falling out of his/her bed), too.

These logo sketches focus on the topics patient monitoring and warning signal:

The following logo sketches deal with the topic data out of the norm (different letter positions, letters out of the norm) and warning signal:

Other logo sketches show the modular flexibility of the product:

Here you see more logo sketches dealing with movement and movement generating a warning signal:

Here you see the final logo:

The completely designed branding including business cards, fair stand design, brochure design, infographic, website design etc. you can see in my portfolio.

BAD UND HEIZUNG (BUH)

BAD UND HEIZUNG (BUH) is a plumbing business that offers complete services around baths and heating systems.

In the course of the briefing, heartiness and the love for the job were core values for the business owner Paul Plattner. This passion for the job should be communicated within the team as well as towards the outside public. Answering my question how clients call him, he said "BUH Paul" (because of Bad Und Heizung = bath and heating) and "Readl-Biaga" (Tyrolean slang for pipe benders).

This made me think of a pipe bent in a heart shape ("passionate pipe bender"):

Alternatively, I developed a few more classic logo approaches with pipes:

Here you see logo sketches with taps, sinks as negative space, drop shapes, heater switches and other things reminding of a plumbing business:

The following logo sketch didn‘t make it into my pre-selection to present to the client. ;-) However, it shows how important it is to follow every single idea - may it be "silly" or not.

Another classic approach with water and heat waves finally made it in the end. The client decided to skip the heartiness theme and went for a more "classic" logo design:

Here you see the final logo:

Take a look at the entire corporate design including business cards, webdesign, car sticker, letterhead etc. in my portfolio.

LOGO SKETCHES VS. FINAL VERSION

The process from logo sketches to the final logo is always the same: From all the logo sketches I draw, I pick about five that best match the briefing and the client, draw them on my computer and present them to the client.

After thoroughly discussing the different logo drafts with the client, the client picks one logo draft. At the end the client will have one final logo that is drawn with all necessary details and coloured. In the course of this process, more corporate design relevant things are developed: secondary style elements, colours, fonts and more.

You can also download this article as a free whitepaper.

If you want to know more about logos, I have another tip for you: Take a look at these 8 things that make a good logo. Enjoy reading!