By Laila Maline
If you’re a designer, you know that it’s easy to lose your creative direction after a pitch meeting. Sometimes clients will use terms like “larger than life”, “quirky”, or “sophisticated” without really knowing what they mean. This can be really confusing and make it hard to create a strong brand identity. That’s where a logo-designing questionnaire comes in handy! It can help you get specific feedback from clients so that you can create a logo that perfectly represents their brand.
A logo is the foundational element of a company’s entire branding, as it is often the first introduction a potential customer has to a company. And that’s why it’s essential to have a definite layout of a client’s expectations – so you can effortlessly extract vital information to shape your game plan!
In this quick, Simplified guide, we’ll give you a list of the essential elements to include in your logo designing questionnaire. Plus, these ten questions will help you understand the brand language and style your client may be looking for. Let’s get started!
Section 1: Brand Values
What’s your client’s vision? What values do they hold dear? How do they want their audience to perceive them?
If you want to get a good understanding of an organization’s overall vision for its audience, start by focusing on its brand values. Here are the three key things you should cover in your logo design questionnaire:
1. What is your mission statement/tagline?
This should include the principal goods or services you provide, your goals, and the way you approach them. Keep it authentic to your brand identity.
2. What is your brand personality?
Think of this as your brand image and the tone of voice you wish to establish with your audience.
3. Summarize your brand in 5 words.
Dig into your brand vocabulary and descriptors. For example- lively, over-the-top, Gen Z, minimalist, innovative, etc.
Related: The Journey Of A Brand’s Logo
4. Who is your target audience?
Ultimately, it’s important to think about your audience when you’re designing a logo. You need to make sure that your designs appeal to the people you’re making them for. What works for one group of people might not work for another, so it’s important to be specific about who you’re making the logo for. Include things like age, gender, and interests. That way, you’ll be able to make a logo that really speaks to your audience!
For example, the font you use will change depending on who you’re advertising to. You would employ playful typography on an educational app for children, but you’d use a sleek sans serif font for a premium marketing agency.
Section 2: Brand characteristics and attributes
5. What message do you want to convey?
You know what they say: a picture is worth a thousand words. And when it comes to your brand, that couldn’t be more true. The logo is one of the first things people will notice about a brand, so you want to make sure it’s saying the right things.
That’s why it’s important to put thought into your logo designing questionnaire. With careful consideration, you can create a logo that not only looks great but also reflects your values and builds community loyalty.
6. Which of these attributes represent your brand?
In this section of our logo designing questionnaire, we’ll be covering the most important aspect of designing a logo for your brand. With these “select one” options, your client will be able to figure out how to write a design brief for a logo and zero in on any abstract ideas they may have
- Youthful/Mature
- Feminine/Masculine
- Carefree/Professional
- Inclusive and Open-for-All/Premium and Luxurious
- Contemporary/Classic
- Natural/Artificially Designed
- Friendly/Authoritative
Section 3: Picking your design
Summing up, it’s time to put our brand knowledge into action and plan the way to approach your design execution. These last four questions in the logo designing questionnaire will determine the visual aspect of your logo’s appearance, style, and placement.
7. What colors fit your brand aesthetic?
Color psychology plays a significant role in shaping viewer opinions, which makes translating a brand personality into a palette a potentially difficult task.**
Having pre-defined brand colors may make the job a little easier, but not entirely. For example, much associate green with the environment, so you may want to use pastel green for an eco-friendly brand. Or, since black and white communicates professionalism, you may want to use that scheme for businesses providing premium services.
So, ensure that your logo designing questionnaire taps into your clients’ imagination through the right colored glasses!
8. Do you have any imagery in mind?
Using relevant and representative imagery of your brand’s name can give your audience a visual point to palpably connect with the logo. These can include mascots, characters, emblems, or even illustrated clip art that viewers can recognize across all your platforms.
9. How would you like the typography to appear?
Your brand voice can easily get lost in translation with an error of judgment in typography. In other words, Your font choice, style, and spacing can really impact your client’s look and feel, as well as the legibility of the text. For example, a wedding planner would probably go for script fonts, whereas most publishing houses prefer clear, serif fonts for their logos.
So, it’s important to be strategic about how you depict the brand name in your logo design and make sure you’re on the same page as your client.
10. What level of detailing do you prefer?
Keep in mind where your logo will be appearing when you’re designing it. A really detailed and intricate logo might not work well in all contexts. For example, consider how it will look in print, as a web icon, on product packaging, as an app icon, and on business cards. Make sure the details will still be visible in all of these scenarios.
In your logo designing questionnaire, give your graphic design client suggestions of what they would prefer to include, such as:
- Textures
- Patterns
- Lines
- Hand-drawn illustrations
- 3D effects and glossy reflections
Related: What Is Balance In Graphic Design And Why Is It Important?
Simplify Your Logo Designing Process
There’s a lot you can do with your logo to make it perfect for your brand. With just a few clicks, you can add shapes, clip art, icons, patterns, avatars, and so much more. You can find what you’re looking for in the ‘Components’ and ‘Visuals’ sections of your Simplified workspace.
