Most small business owners realise that to have any chance of success, they can't keep everything in-house. It is important to build a team and lean on the talents of third party service providers in order to create business assets and revenue that are really worth something. When you are just starting out in business, one of the things you will need to do is hire the talents of a graphic designer in order to create a logo for your brand.
But while it's the designer's job to be creative and come up with something that really represents your brand, they can only do this if they are in possession of adequate information. For this reason, it's incredibly important that you know exactly how to brief a designer to get the best creative work back from them. Here are some tips for creating your logo design brief.
Provide comprehensive audience information. In order for a logo to speak to an audience successfully, a designer has to know exactly who that audience is. Going into the world of small business, you should have already engaged with market research and have a clear idea of who you are selling to, so share all of this with your designer. This will help them to understand the target demographic's hopes and fears, what interests them in the marketplace, what they respond to visually, and how their own logo creation can play into all these factors.
Communicate your company mission and long-term strategy. While it's true that logos can be revised, it is ideal if consumer connects with a logo that can work for a long time. But a graphic designer can only create this kind of visual asset if they really know what the long term strategy of the business is. Be totally transparent about what you expect your business to achieve within the year, in the next five years, and beyond that in order to receive a creative logo that stands the test of time for your company.
Convey your point of difference. The key to business success is standing out. If you have a cleaning company and there are twenty other commercial cleaning companies in your town, you need to figure out what makes you different in order to speak to the interests of that consumer base. It's the essence of that difference that should be worked into your logo design so that it really becomes part of your brand. For this reason, your designer should be absolutely clear on what makes you different from the competition and why it's important to communicate that.
