What should I know before designing a logo?
Recently I participated in a group discussion about branding. The speaker, for whom I have immense, immense (did I say immense?) respect, described a suggested process in which a business owner chooses colors, fonts and imagery before the work of understanding their client (i.e. brand strategy). The reasoning was, to summarize, that “strategy before design assumes we know who might find us attractive so we shouldn't use it to drive creative decisions that might hold us back from reaching a new kind of client who really would love our logos/fonts/colors".
Okay.
Chances are, if you're showing up genuinely, there will already be some alignment of the visual and verbal identity that works for your customers and with your personal taste. But even if there is, it shouldn't be left to coincidence. Some things follow a certain order that makes sense – horses and carts, engines and cabooses, ones and twos – branding should be one of these.
A strategy is literally a plan, not just a feeling.
Brand identity (e.g. your logo) should follow brand strategy (which includes analysis of your ideal client/customer) if you want your creative decisions to silently continue the work of the strategy. But never fear, you can:
be thoughtfully and playfully creative with decisions rooted in your brand strategy,
enjoy the creative process and how your founder-ness gets to show up, and
know there can be a beautiful result that considers it all.
