Logo design process: what to expect and what to supply

How we approach a logo at the studio

A logo is the single most repeated piece of your business. It sits on your shopfront, your van, your invoices and the small circle next to your name on social media. At Cornwall Design & Print we treat it as a working tool rather than a one off picture, so the process is built to give you a mark that stays clear and recognisable wherever it turns up.

We are a Truro based design studio, and we manage a logo project from the first conversation through to the finished files you can actually use. That includes preparing everything your logo will need later, whether that is a website, a set of business cards or a fully wrapped vehicle. Print is managed for you and delivered to your door, so you are not left trying to brief a separate supplier once the design is signed off.

Most of the businesses we work with around Truro and the wider county are small and owner run: cafes and holiday lets, tradespeople, farm shops, food and drink producers, salons and independent retailers. The guide below is written with that in mind. The work is collaborative, it moves in clear stages, and you make the decision at every step.

What to supply before we start

The quality of a logo depends heavily on what goes in at the beginning. You do not need a formal brand brief or any design knowledge. You do need to give us an honest picture of your business, and to gather a few practical things before the first meeting.

• A short written description of the business and its customers
• Your business name, tagline and any wording that must appear
• Existing artwork, photos and fonts you own or have licensed
• Colours you want to keep, and any you want to avoid
• Examples of logos you like and dislike
• A list of where the logo will appear, from signage to social media

A short brief in your own words

Tell us what your business does, who your customers are, and what makes you different from the firm down the road. It helps to describe the feeling you want people to get: established and dependable, fresh and modern, friendly and local, or quietly premium. A few sentences is plenty. If your business name is not yet fixed, say so, because the name and the logo often shape each other.

Anything you already have

If you are rebranding, send us your current logo and any artwork in the best quality files you can find. Include colours you already use, photography you own, and any fonts you hold a licence for. If there are colours, symbols or words that must stay, for example a family name, a founding year or a Cornish place that matters to you, flag them early so we design around them rather than over them.

Examples you like, and examples you do not

Pointing at a handful of logos you admire, even from other industries, tells us far more than adjectives can. It is just as useful to show us ones you dislike. Competitor logos are worth sending too, so we can make sure yours stands apart rather than blends in with the businesses beside you.

Where the logo will be used

This is the detail owners most often forget, and it shapes the whole design. Let us know every place the logo needs to work. A mark that looks great on a laptop can fall apart when it is cut into a small sign, stitched onto a polo shirt or shrunk to a favicon. When we know the hardest uses in advance, we design for them from the start.

The stages of a logo project

Every project is a little different, and the exact steps depend on the scope you choose, but a logo generally moves through the same shape from beginning to end.

Discovery and brief

We start with a conversation, in person, by phone or by video, to get a feel for your business and agree what the logo has to achieve. This is where the brief and the notes you gathered come together. By the end we should both understand the audience, the tone and the practical requirements.

Research and early ideas

We then step away to research your market and to sketch. This stage is deliberately broad, exploring shapes, letterforms, symbols and type before anything is polished. Most of this work never reaches you, and that is normal. It is how the stronger directions rise to the top.

Concept designs

Next we present a set of design directions rather than a single take it or leave it option. Each one is a genuine attempt at solving the brief in a different way. We show them in a realistic context, so you can judge how each would look in the places you told us about, not just on a blank page.

Refinement

You pick the direction that feels right, and we refine it. This is where the detail is settled: the exact proportions, the spacing, the typeface, the colour balance, and how the logo behaves at large and small sizes. Feedback is expected here, and a round or two of adjustments is a normal part of the process rather than a sign that something has gone wrong.

Finalisation and handover

Once the design is signed off, we build the final artwork properly and prepare the full set of files. At this point your logo is ready to be used and, if you want it printed, ready to go into production, all managed by the studio.

The files you receive, and what each is for

A logo is not one file, it is a small kit. Ask any designer for the pieces below, because they are what let your logo survive being resized, reprinted and reused for years without going fuzzy.

The most important files are the vector originals. A vector file, usually supplied as an EPS, a PDF or an SVG, is drawn with mathematics rather than pixels, so it can be scaled from a business card to a building sign without losing a scrap of sharpness. These are your master files. Keep them safe, because everything else is generated from them.

You also receive everyday image files, usually PNG and JPG. A PNG with a transparent background is the one you will reach for most online, because it sits cleanly on any colour behind it. JPGs are handy for quick use in documents and email. These are fixed sizes and will blur if pushed too large, which is exactly why the vector masters matter.

If your project includes wider branding, the handover can also cover the fonts you are licensed to use, a simple set of rules on clear space and minimum size, and a one page reference sheet so anyone you work with later stays consistent.

• Vector master files (EPS, PDF or SVG) for print and signage
• Transparent PNGs for websites, documents and social media
• A full colour version, plus a one colour and a reversed (white out) version for dark backgrounds
• Horizontal and stacked layouts, so the logo fits wide and narrow spaces
• A favicon or small icon version for browser tabs and app style avatars
• Your colour codes written down: hex for screen, CMYK for print and any Pantone reference

Getting your logo ready for print and signage

Screens and print do not treat colour the same way. Screens mix red, green and blue light, known as RGB, while most printing lays down cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink, known as CMYK. A colour that glows on a phone can look flat once it is printed, so part of our job is choosing and specifying colours that hold up in both worlds. Where an exact match matters, for example a colour that must be identical across every batch, we can specify a Pantone, or spot, colour.

When it comes to producing anything physical, print is managed for you. We prepare print ready artwork at the correct size, colour and bleed, arrange the production, and have the finished items delivered to your door. That covers the usual business stationery and marketing pieces, and it extends to the larger applications a Cornwall business often needs: shopfront and pavement signage, banners for a summer event, and vehicle graphics for a van that doubles as a mobile advert across the county.

Because we prepared the logo with these uses in mind, the same mark carries cleanly from a business card to a large banner. That consistency is what makes a small business look established, whether a customer meets you online, on the road or on the high street.

Using your logo online

Online, your logo has to work small and on backgrounds you do not control. The transparent PNG or the SVG is what you will upload to your website, and a tidy square version becomes your avatar on Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere. A stripped back icon works as your favicon, the tiny image in the browser tab, where fine detail simply disappears.

Your Google Business Profile deserves particular attention, because for a local firm it is often the first thing someone in Truro sees when they search. Uploading a clean, correctly sized logo there, alongside good photos, helps your listing look trustworthy in the local results. We can supply the right versions for each platform so nothing ends up stretched or cropped.

The common thread is legibility at small sizes. A logo crammed with fine lines and text might look impressive at A4, but if it turns to mud as a favicon it is not doing its job. Designing for the smallest use is one reason we ask, early on, where the logo will appear.

How long it takes, and what affects it

There is no single answer, because a logo is a collaboration and the timeline depends as much on you as on the studio. As a broad guide, a straightforward logo often takes in the region of two to four weeks from brief to final files, but please treat that as a starting point to confirm with us rather than a promise, because every project is different.

The single biggest accelerator is decisiveness. Gathering your thoughts and any existing materials before we begin, and agreeing in advance who signs the work off, will do more to keep a project moving than anything else.

• How quickly feedback comes back after we send concepts
• Whether one person decides, or a group has to agree
• How complete your brief and assets were at the start
• How many places the logo must work, such as signage or vehicle graphics
• Whether the job is a logo alone or part of wider branding and print