Mastering Your Logo Brief: A Complete Guide

First impressions are everything, and when it comes to your business, your logo is often the first point of contact with your potential customers—especially in the digital space. Your logo should reflect the essence of your brand, be easily recognizable, and memorable. But how do you ensure that your logo design matches your vision and meets your business needs? The answer may be a well-written logo brief. If you’ve never written a logo brief, don’t worry! We'll dive into the nuances of writing an effective logo brief, along with practical tips and examples to guide you through the process.

What is a Logo Brief?

A logo brief is a document that outlines the goals, objectives, and constraints of your logo design project, or what you want your logo to look like and convey. Your logo brief is a vital communication tool between you and your logo designer, helping them understand your business and create a design that aligns with your needs. Your logo brief serves as a roadmap that guides both you and your logo designer throughout the design process, so it's essential to put in the effort and create a comprehensive brief that specifies your logo desires and requirements before you begin the first stages of design.

What should you include in your Logo Brief?

You know what a logo brief is, but how do you write a logo brief? We’ve found that these five things are crucial to include in your logo brief, letting your designer understand the full scope of your business and allowing them to craft the perfect logo for your business. Take a look out our creative logo brief here for additional inspiration!

5 Things to Include in Your Logo Brief

• •  Business name, type of business, tagline and brand values: This includes what type of products or services your company supplies and how that relates to your customer. You can also introduce your business and brand values, or any overarching message your company employs. This is a good time to share your unique selling points, mission statement, or anything that sums up your brand's personality and distinguishes you from your competitors. If you have a tagline or slogan, include them in your logo brief as well.
  • Overall mood, message, and audience: What effect are you looking for in your logo design and what mood do you want to convey? Fancy, cutting edge, modern, high tech? Your logo should resonate with your target audience when their eye catches your logo, and the mood your logo exudes plays a big part in this. Identify who your customers are and think about their values, interests, age groups, and lifestyles. This may help you clearly convey to your designer your intended mood and message for your logo.
  • Competitors or others in your industry: You should research and analyze your competitors or others in your industry before you design your logo and your logo designer should understand the market you operate in and the competition you face. Provide them with examples of other logos that inspire you and those that you would want to steer clear of. Describe your competitors' brand personality, values, and what you like and don't like about their logos. Also, identify your unique selling proposition and how your logo can differentiate your brand from your competitors if you haven’t already.
  • Your preferences and inspiration: Your logo designer needs to understand your visual preferences and ideas. Share your thoughts on how you want your logo to look. Whether it’s a specific color scheme or graphic elements, list them in the brief. Provide your brand colors with hex codes and include visual aids if you can. If you have any design references or inspiration that you want to share with your designer, include those too. Let your designer know details like if your logo will be font type or an image, how many colors you want to use, and provide examples of logos you like and explain what you like about them. It can help to create an ‘inspiration board’ to organize your ideas.
  • Anything you do NOT want in your logo: This includes any colors, fonts, or graphic elements you do not want to see within your logo. This will automatically narrow down options for your designer so that they’ll be able to more effectively create a first draft of your logo, one that aligns with your expectations.

Top Tips for an Effective Logo Brief

Writing your own logo brief doesn't have to be a daunting task with these tips. Read on to find out how to make the most out of your time while putting together your logo brief!

• • • Keep it concise and clear: To ensure that there's no confusion, it's important that you're as specific and clear as possible about your requirements. Providing comprehensive explanations and detailed instructions will both minimize the possibility of ambiguity and allow for a much smoother process overall.
    • Be honest: If some aspects of your business are not your strong suit, be upfront about it. For example, if you have trouble identifying your audience or have limited knowledge of design, communicate that to your logo designer. They’ll help fill in the gaps so that your logo hits home with potential customers.
    • Prioritize: Identify key elements of your logo design that you want a heavy focus on. Take some time to outline the critical aspects of your logo design that you consider to be most important. In this way, you'll help your designer focus on what matters the most to you and apply their creativity where it counts.
    • Revise and refine: It's perfectly normal to revise and refine your logo brief as you progress through the design process, gaining a clearer understanding of what you want. Don't fret - the brief is not set in stone. It's okay to make changes and modifications as many times as necessary.

Your logo is the face of your business, so be sure to invest what you can into this design process. A well-crafted logo brief is the first step towards designing a logo that represents your brand accurately. And with these tips, you'll be well on your way to creating a logo that truly captures your brand's essence in no time.

Logo Brief Example

Taking the first step towards your logo design means actually writing down your ideas! If you’re struggling to come up with your logo brief, here's an example of a short completed logo brief for Fake Bakery (a fake bakery, if you didn’t catch that) to give you inspiration:

• • • Business name, type of business, tagline and brand values: Fake Bakery is a sustainable bakery that focuses on organic and locally sourced ingredients. We value community, health, and the environment. Our tagline is “Everyone deserves a good cupcake!”
    • Overall mood, message, and audience: Our logo should be unique, creative, and fun and our message is to bring organic baked goods to everyone by making them affordable and accessible. Our primary audience is health-conscious consumers who are passionate about eco-friendliness and families and foodies who appreciate quality baked goods.
    • Competitors or others in the industry: Our competitors include other sustainable bakeries and health food stores, like Health Food Store. We like the simplicity and clarity of their logo, but we want our logo to be more playful and creative.
    • Preferences and inspiration: We like the minimalist designs of brands like This Bakery and That Bakery, but we also love the pastel colors and illustrations of brands like Cupcake Company and Cake Company. My brand colors include White, Pink, and Yellow. 
    • Anything you do NOT want in your logo: We do not want our logo to include any black or Serif Sans font. The logo should not seem high-tech or modern, like many logos in the electronic industry.

Visual images could be included showing logos of Health Food Store, This Bakery, That Bakery… you get the picture! All of these elements can help your logo designer begin creating a logo that meets your business needs and by including important details about your ideas and inspirations, you can provide your logo designer with the necessary information to create a logo that reflects your brand's personality and resonates with your target audience. Now you have the tips to start your logo design process today! And if you’re looking for help with creating your perfect logo, our experts at Jason Hunter Design are here for you. Visit our creative logo brief page to fill out your brief now, or just fill out the form below and let’s get started!