In today’s world there are no black or white areas when it comes to design, but rather one big grey area. Personal taste plays a big role in design and the final product. Incomplete or vague feedback can make it difficult for a designer to understand what clients want and how to implement it in the most effective way. The designer’s main goal is to design something that is not only relevant, but also visually appealing while keeping the client’s personal taste in mind.
When it comes to design, some people will prefer corporate directions and some artistic, elegant or bold, playful or serious, feminine or masculine and so forth. Hundreds of logos can be placed before a client from a hundred different designers. All of these will be equally good and relevant to the client’s company, but the one that is chosen will most likely not be the same as the one that a colleague, or business partner, would have chosen.
Sometimes people expect to receive a euphoric reaction when they see their designs for the first time, whether these are logo concepts or website designs. Sometimes this does happen, but using an emotional response as a yardstick for good design can lead to disappointment. The client should feel excited about a logo, but the expectation of such a feeling should be within reason. Designers take pride in what they do and only want the best for their clients. It places them squarely between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they want to show their creativity and push the boundaries of design, but ,on the other hand, they need to follow the design feedback from the client since it is being guided by personal preferences.
Here are some guidelines to make sure that personal preferences are implemented as part of the design in the most constructive way.
Follow the guidelines of a good logo design.
There are some core design principles involved in the designing of great logos. Follow these basic tips and the logo will be fresh, exciting and will impress the target market. Take a look at these top 10 tips to designing a good logo.
Listen to reason.
The personal taste in colours and imagery are important, but remember that the graphic design studio was hired to create the logo because they specialise in it. The designers of the studio have been doing logo design for years. They know the ins and outs of what makes a good logo, and they will bring it to the table. Then again, the table is only that big. The more the client’s personal taste begins to override the suggested direction of the graphic designer, the more the graphic designer will need to stand back until the project ends up with a client-driven design. The designer has become a blunt instrument and the logo has lost the potential of being great.
Styles differ between graphic design studios.
As with fashion designers, graphic design companies have their own design styles. This is driven by a mix of the designers, the art director and the creative director’s own styles. The result would be a logo that is unique to that design studio. These unique design styles might clash with the overall design preferences of the client. This could result in a client that would never be happy with the work of studio generates since the styles are incompatible. In that case, the client could look at sourcing another studio that might satisfy their design direction.
It is important to note that the final logo should have a 50/50 mix of client’s personal preferences and the designer’s creativity. This will create a logo that the client will feel attached to, and it will be imbued with the practical style from the designer. The goal of the logo is to tell the client’s target market what is being offered, be easily remembered, easy to apply to different media and to be unique. If the client and the graphic design studio work together and leave each other some elbow room, then the product will be something that both parties can be proud of.
