Brief and category check
What you sell and to whom, plus a look at what already exists around you, before a pencil moves.
A logo gets judged twice. Once on a screen while you approve it, and then every day afterwards on signboards, bill books, shirt pockets and a round profile picture, which is the judgement we design for.
A mark has a narrower purpose than people expect. It has to be recognised in a hurry, and it has to be reproduced correctly by anybody who ever needs to print, stitch, cut or paste it. Almost every problem with a logo traces back to one of those two failing.
So the work runs in a fixed order. A written brief comes first, then a handful of genuinely different directions rather than dozens of near-identical variations, and then refinement of the one you choose. Refinement is where the real hours go: spacing, weight, how it behaves when it shrinks, how it holds up when somebody puts it over a photograph.
What you receive at the end is a set, not a picture. Every version and format you will ever be asked for, named sensibly, with a short sheet explaining what may and may not be done to it. Anybody you hand it to years from now should be able to use it without ringing you first.
The wider system, meaning the colour palette, typefaces, tone of voice, guidelines and the collateral built from all of it, is covered on our branding company in Pune page. This page stops at the mark itself: how many ideas you should be shown, what you must be given, and the checks worth doing before you commit your signboard to it.
A long grid of options is a sign that nobody has thought hard enough. Two or three directions, each genuinely different in idea rather than in colour, and each explained in a sentence about who it speaks to, will get you somewhere better than forty variations of one shape. Pick on reasoning, not on which one you happen to like this morning. Then expect the chosen route to change again during refinement, because that is where a sketch becomes something that can be built. Ask each direction a plain question before choosing: could a customer describe it to somebody else over a phone call? A mark that cannot be described is a mark nobody will remember.
Approve nothing on a laptop alone. Ask to see it in the places it will genuinely live, because that is where weak marks fall apart.
| Where it appears | What survives there | The version used |
|---|---|---|
| A signboard read from across a road | Silhouette and one strong colour; hairlines simply vanish | Horizontal form, with generous space around it |
| A rubber stamp or a bill book | Outline only, no shading, no delicate strokes | One-colour form |
| An app icon or profile picture | The symbol on its own, squeezed inside a circle | Symbol form, drawn with room to spare |
| Embroidery on a shirt pocket | Shapes a needle can follow; small gaps close up | Simplified one-colour form |
| A backdrop behind people on a stage | Reading from the last row, often half blocked by heads | Stacked form, placed high |
| A vehicle or a glass door | Legibility at speed, and whatever moves behind the glass | Reversed form with a defined edge |
Search the trademark register early, while changing direction still costs nothing. Discovering a conflict after the signboard in Camp is fabricated and the packaging is printed is an expensive lesson, and it happens often to businesses that assumed a free domain meant a free name. Look at your own class and the ones next to it, check spelling variants, and check the same name in Devanagari. We can run that search and read the results with you; the application itself should be filed by a trademark attorney you appoint, because that is legal work and not design work.
A single image file emailed over is not a handover. You need the editable vector master, because only that can be scaled to a hoarding or cut into vinyl. You need flat versions for print and lighter ones for screens, a form for dark backgrounds, a one-colour form, and the icon crop. You also need the typefaces named, with their licences understood, so that a future designer is not guessing. Whoever builds your website will ask for that same folder. Ask for all of it as one folder with sensible names, and keep that folder on a company drive rather than on one person's laptop in Kothrud. Add the sheet of plain rules alongside it, covering the smallest size allowed, the space to leave around the mark, the backgrounds it may sit on, and the things nobody should ever do to it, such as stretching it or adding a shadow.
Name one person who approves, and gather everyone else's views before they reach the designer rather than after. Marks chosen by a wide committee tend to end up safe and forgettable, because the only shape everybody tolerates is the one nobody objects to. Give the feedback as problems rather than instructions: say the mark feels too clinical for a family business, instead of asking for the blue to be darkened by a shade. Designers can solve a stated problem in ways nobody around the table would have thought of, but they cannot argue with an instruction. And once it is approved, leave it alone for a good while. Recognition is built by repetition, and changing the mark again resets that count to nothing.
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Expect a small number of genuinely different ideas rather than a large grid of variations. Two or three well-argued directions give you a real choice, because each one represents a different way of talking to your customers. Dozens of options usually mean the brief was never settled, and choosing from them becomes a matter of mood instead of judgement.
The editable vector master above everything else, since that is the only file that scales to a hoarding or a cut sticker. Alongside it: versions for print and for screens, a form for dark backgrounds, a one-colour form, the symbol cropped for an icon, and the typefaces named with their licences explained. One folder, sensibly labelled.
Because the word covers very different amounts of work. A single mark for a new shop is not the same job as a family of marks for several products, in two scripts, with register searches and a usage sheet. The number of directions shown, rounds of refinement, and whether stationery and signage artwork are included all move the effort considerably.
If you intend to build anything on the name, yes. Registration is what lets you stop somebody else trading under it, and it is far cheaper to do early than to fight later. Search the register before approving a design, because a conflict found after printing costs real money. Filing is legal work, so appoint an attorney for that part.
Often that is the wiser choice. If customers already recognise a shape or a colour, throwing it away discards years of familiarity. A redraw keeps what people remember and fixes what is failing: awkward spacing, a version that dies at small sizes, colours that shift in print, or the absence of a usable file. We will say honestly which route suits you.
A few weeks is typical, and decisions set the pace more than drawing does. The brief and the category check come first, next the routes, and finally refinement with the files prepared. Projects stall when feedback arrives in pieces from several people over several weeks. If a shop opening or an exhibition is fixed, say so at the start and the stages get planned backwards.
You do, and that should be stated in writing at the start rather than assumed. On completion the artwork and its rights pass to your company, including the files needed to use and modify it. Keep the master folder on a company drive instead of on somebody's personal laptop, so the mark is still reachable long after people move on.
Identity · Logo · Brand guidelines
Design · Development · E-commerce
Pune · PCMCStart with a mark that lasts
Send your business name and where it will appear most often, and a scope comes back.