When a branding project is finished and the design assets are with the client, I often share the project on my website. What isn’t shown are the previous design routes and concepts from the development stages, which are unwanted and unused along the way, in order to get to the final outcome. 

It’s always satisfying when a client approves a design in the first presentation – it does happen from time to time, but not overly frequently, as everyone has varying tastes and opinions. For this reason, I usually offer a few design routes for client consideration. The phrase ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ always springs to mind and is well worth taking on board.

Pinning all your hopes on one design is always going to be risky, as there’s nothing to fall back on if it’s not what the client wants – which let’s face it, probably will happen from time to time! This is often the case unless it has been discussed in initial briefings where the client knows exactly what they want – they just need a graphic designer to action it, like in this School logo project for example.

Have a plan B ready

When creating a new logo, a designer should offer more than one solution for consideration in my opinion. Unless I am extremely confident with one or two options, I usually create an average of 5 options but sometimes up to 15. A good example of this is illustrated with a recent logo project for Fire and Brew – a craft beer and pizza restaurant. For this project 15 logo options were created before the client selected one. 

Don’t be afraid to recycle

Lastly, another tip I would give to designers when creating logos: don’t throw away visuals or delete your old files – you never know when they might come in handy. Save your scamps, notebooks or digital files and archive them. Just because they have been superseded for this project, doesn’t mean they can’t be recycled or adapted for something else in future. There’s nothing wrong in recycling old designs providing they are suitable of course and you own the copyright. You never know, they might just save on design time and money too!