I’ve been down in the weeds recently with two institutional logo processes. Keeping them on track has been harder than teaching my 16-year-old to drive. I’m thinking that I need to better prepare my clients for what’s involved in developing a new logo. These folks are eager to get started. But generally they have not been through the process before and don’t have much idea of the challenges they face. Logo design processes are not like other design processes. They have their own dynamic. It is important to understand certain things at the outset to avoid great frustration down the road. What’s worse, you can end up with a very expensive but mediocre piece of design for all your hard work.

We start here – you have commissioned a new logo because you find something lacking in the current one. It is out of date, difficult to use, or lacks design quality that you believe accurately reflect the quality of your institution. Sometimes there has been a lack of discipline surrounding application of the current logo system. Competing, non-conforming logos dot the campus. In commissioning a logo, you are asking a graphic designer to help you achieve your goals. You are asking for a piece of design that is timeless, fresh, lively, distinctive, and appropriate. You are also asking for outside assistance in creating a culture where people use a logo in consistent ways so that you can build positive brand recognition.

Understand at the outset that you will be asking many people within your institution to judge a work of design in a way for which they are not equipped by training or expertise. Logos are particularly difficult to design because one is working with a minimal palette to meet many exacting criteria. That is why logos are produced by designers with experience in this particular field. They are the kind of people who spend their lives focusing on visual minutiae that most of us take for granted. Administrators at an institution do not possess this graphical point of view yet they often believe it is valid to interject their own judgement when it comes to the quality of a logo.

The important way to combat this is to maintain an orderly and structured process for design review. The graphic designer will show you his or her proposed solution(s) and some explanation of how he or she arrived at that recommendation. It is critical to a successful logo development process that all the people who could down the road veto the design be present for this presentation. This might be a board member, the institution’s Headmaster or President, or a Vice President on the other side of campus. If down the road they are going to have input into the design of the logo, they need to be present for the graphic designer’s explanation. And you need to think seriously about this issue. You might think you’ve included everyone with the ability to veto a logo only to discover later someone you’ve overlooked. If this occurs, the designer is well within his rights to complain about how you have managed the process.

You will be working collaboratively with the designer. Your most important role is provide feedback as to whether you feel the design accurately reflects the image of the institution and where the institution wants to go. Then you need to thoroughly vet the design to make sure it supports the full range of required applications – whether you need special versions for institutional centers, whether the colors are easily produced in a wide range of media, etc. If you play your role well and if the designer has talent and the ability to explain the reasons for his or her design solution, the process can go smoothly. You will enjoy the considerable benefits that come from a high quality piece of design at the center of your institution.

In my next blog post, I’ll focus on the importance of a communications audit prior to beginning the design process.