Designing a Logo–Step 4: Logo Design in Black and White

The first step of designing a logo was research.

The second step was word associations to brainstorm ideas.

The third step is thumbnail sketches.

This next step is selecting which of the thumbnails to present to the client. I thought it best to present a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5.

Once the choices are made, it's time to recreate those ideas as vector art. It's best to make logos in a vector program so that they will be resolution independent and can be easily resized for a variety of purposes.

This was a particular challenge for me because Adobe Illustrator is NOT one of my stronger programs! 

LOL!

So I had to learn really quick if I wanted to accurately translate my sketch vision to a digital format. Any time I hit a wall trying to create what I envision, a quick search online for a tutorial helps.

Also, it is important to design—whether it's a painting, illustration or logo—in black and white BEFORE designing in color. First, it's likely that the logo will end up being photocopied in black and white so it's important that it works that way. Second, if it works in black and white, it'll work in color.

These are the final designs in black and white that I presented to the client:

This step also involves selecting a typestyle:

In the next step of this series, I'll share the feedback that I got from the client and the changes made to the original designs.

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Thanks for reading!