Small Business Logo Design
Inspiration comes from all kinds of different places, whether crafting a custom brand identity or curating a thoughtful gift for a loved one. A few key hints in this projects creative brief provided all the inspiration needed for a great small business logo design.
The Logo Design Brief
Some Cute Thing is a startup specializing a custom gifts. The direction provided by the client was a friendly, creative, emblem style logo targeting females 26-54 with a mid-level income. The client requested something with a flower and the business name that imparted calm and thoughtfulness. She preferred to use pastel colors.
The flower icon was based on the marshmallow flower. According to The Language and Sentiment of Flowers, this little flower represents joy – a natural fit for a gift giving service.
Designing The Logo
I typically design in black only first, to make sure that the design “works” before adding color. Due to that fact , the initial concepts presented for this project are black line art (note: there were 6 options which is three more than I typically include in my branding packages.) Sticking to an emblem style logo encouraged lots of “cute” options. I truly didn’t know what version would win this round!
The client made her choice very quickly to go with option B, and there were no rounds of revisions necessary. When you know, you know! After that, we proceeded to color palette options making sure that the choices could be optimized for web and print use.
And added a moodboard…
Again, the client chose swiftly. This project included the logo, palette, and a logo usage guide otherwise referred to as a “brand book” (see below). With this guide in place, it is easier to implement a cohesive brand look and feel across all touch-points. As a result, the small business now has a voice that is brought to life through their new custom logo, color palette, and moodboard.
