Branding 101

Well I promised you in my last post that I’d share the step-by-step details in My House of Love’s logo design process, so here goes. Speaking of step-by-step, does anyone remember that show? Suzanne Somers? Patrick Duffy? I’m pretty sure I used to love it. I’m pretty sure I used to love all those sitcoms actually. But I digress …

Lindsay’s first step in designing a brand typically is to ask some basic questions, such as who the target market is, how the brand should be perceived, how the brand stands out from its competitors, etc. She also asks if there are any specific elements that the client would like to see incorporated. Since her job for me was solely a logo design, she asked me to focus on what elements I wanted to see. Simple enough, right? Well one would think, but this is where both my indecisiveness and my desire for perfection started running rampant. It would have been really helpful if I had known exactly where My House of Love was headed at this time, but since I didn’t I kind of had to wing it and somehow envision some elements that seemed appropriate. Here’s what I told Lindsay ~

• I wanted “my house of love” to be part of the logo. This might seem pretty standard but if you think about it a lot of well-known brands don’t have their name plastered on their logos. However, My House of Love is not what you’d consider a well-known brand, so I found this element pretty important. Maybe someday we’ll be known well enough to remove it 🙂
• I wanted a pretty, spread-out, cursive-like font in all lowercase and I wanted to “o” in “love” to be a heart (so original, I know. It’s crazy just how creative I can be)
• I wanted there to be some sort of house or part of a house, since “house” is part of the name
• I wanted to incorporate a bird for no reason other than I really like birds

And that was it. She asked for a link to my WordPress blog, so I sent her that as well as links to My House of Love’s Facebook page and Instagram account. Lindsay worked her magic and somehow (quickly) put all these details together then said to me … “it looks like your brand should convey hand-done, whimsy, nature, earth tones.” Um yeah, pretty much spot on. I mean, it really was like magic. I guess that’s why she’s a graphic designer and I’m not.

Lindsay’s next step in the logo design process was the concepting / sketching phase. I didn’t see these sketches until recently, when she sent them to me so I could use them for this post. I find it really interesting to see what she came up with based on the somewhat vague information I gave her.

From these sketches, she came up with my first round of options. She presented me with five and told me to let her know my thoughts.

MHOL_Logo (1)

I played around with my 2 favorite ones (top left and center) and asked her to make some edits. I also mentioned the color scheme I wanted – blues, greens, purples & yellows.

Lindsay once again worked her magic and for Round Two she presented me with 11 options. I remember seeing her email as I was walking out the door for work and I couldn’t believe what she had come up with. I was pretty sure I was in love with all of them, which was not good for my indecisive perfection.

MHOL_Logo_R2 (1)

When I had more time to sit down and really look at them, I remember one sticking out at first glance but then I would get distracted by how awesome the other 10 were. I probably changed my mind at least 86 times. I got opinions from my husband and from a co-worker, and if I had more time I probably would have asked at least 7 other people. I wanted to get it finalized though because I actually had a use for the logo coming up soon. As it ends up, I FINALLY decided on my original favorite – who was it that said first instincts are always right? I don’t know, but they seem to have known exactly what they were talking about. I decided on (B) from Page 2, but of course I couldn’t just let it be – there were a couple more edits I wanted to see.

• I was really digging the birds from the logos on Page 1, so I asked her to switch these out
• I wanted to see how the “o” in “love” would look as a heart like the one in Option C and Option E
• I wanted to see the coloring changed up a little

Lindsay made the edits and presented me with two final options for Round Three. These options were based solely on a difference in the hearts in the word “love”. It seems like such a trivial detail, but I’ve learned in life that sometimes even the tiniest of details can make the biggest impact. You perfectionists out there with me?

MHOL_Logo_R3 (1)

From here, the final decision was made and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

Last but not least, Lindsay gave me several different file types to use – who knew there were so many?

EPS – for printing purposes, can be resized

PDF – standard for document exchange – can be viewed, printed and electronically transmitted

JPG – for digital purposes, white background

PNG – for digital purposes, transparent background

And that was it! My House of Love had a logo! Lindsay promised me that I wasn’t a pain in the you-know-what. I’m thinking I may have been 🙂

Be sure to check out Lindsay’s on-line portfolio to see just how talented she is ~

https://www.behance.net/lindsayboseman

And don’t forget to follow along with me elsewhere ~

https://www.facebook.com/myhouseoflovely/

https://instagram.com/myhouseof.love\

https://www.pinterest.com/lcetter/

Final words for the day … not sure if you’ve noticed, but my blog content has been deleted thanks to me trying to change up the layout and not knowing what I was doing. I’m hoping to have everything restored later this week. Fingers crossed!