fruda - designer, entrepreneur, creativist, polack

Alright guys, I haven’t updated in a long time - terribly sorry. To make up for that, I have a post that many may enjoy. So … enjoy! This is an actual conversation between a client of mine, and a second designer. The post is aimed to put an article I recently wrote to use and teach people interested how to use some of those list items. (Article HERE).

• Starting Out. (Make sure you client is alright with your bluntness, and make sure he/she/they are aware of your honesty and are open to it before you give it to them.) “Okay I always end up doing this to my clients so hopefully you won’t mind if I’m blunt. Here’s what I’m going to do for you: http://www.fruda.com/2007/01/20/the-perfect-client-relationship/ #2 … Being honest with each other. If that’s alright with you, then I’ll go ahead and begin.”
• Fading in, harshly. (Point out everything that’s bad in the most honest way you can, if it makes sense … of course.) “The styles used in the logo are unprofessional. If you look at any 2.0 service, application, software, et cetera - you will not find a logo with those kind of effects. Rather, I believe how it looks now its like looking at a beginner tutorial submitted by an unprofessional and unskilled tutorial website.”
• Show them better. (Back yourself up, and prove a point. Give actual examples of well … better.) “If you take a look at [web 2.0 directory link] you notice, there are glossy logos there obviously, but they’re all insanely clean and nice. Most of them are soft, clean, and extremely well made and brandable. There’s one main shade of color or a complimenting color duo, which isn’t vibrant to the extent of ocular pain.
• Basically, … (Sum up your thoughts again, start out with the word “Basically”.) “Basically, I think the current logo looks dirty. (All I mean is, its the opposite of what I’d think of as “clean”). The font is very bold for a longer word and I don’t think bold text with plenty of effects work well like that.”
• Tell me boy, what’s generally good? (Don’t be too specific in reference to the project in-debate, rather … state a list of adjectives or states of being that you think would be better than the proposed concepts.) “I’m a believer in ’smart’ logos. Either the logo has to look incredibly good with some totally irrelevant concept, shape, whatever … Portrays the website, the service, the product, the software - whatever … Or it smartly fits in a a little touch of what the service is about.”
• Examples, again. (You NEED to prove your point. Your point needs to be logical, and your client needs to know how and why it is logical. Give examples.) “I’ll give some examples to back up my statements above… 1. http://pinger.com/ The logo portrays the service, as well as give a little bit about the service in the logo. What I mean is, its an incredibly clean logo. You can tell that what they offer should be good, simple - all the attributes of the assumed web 2.0 style. Yet, while doing all that, it uses the speech bubble concept … To say its something involved with interaction or socializing. Now, I haven’t actually looked at the service or what it does yet, but after going through the pages and seeing images of a mobile phone, I’m guessing its something to do with C2M, notifiers, announcements, texting - I don’t know. All I know is, at first site without any detail I feel like its a good idea to look into this service. I see that this is a clean service that I’d trust for generation of what content or results I’m after just by looking at the logo.”
• Well, you know … Basically! (Here it is again, basically… this.) “basically I mean, this logo doesn’t portray professionalism, cleanlinism, good color choice, et cetera. At this point, no one is at fault. I think the logo needs to be a little more thought out, and if you’re getting into the market with some big players like [company title], or with some multi million dollar domain names like [domain name] - I think you need a VERY clean logo that is appealing to the eye and possibly barely hints the service. But does hint it. “

The reaction. “Yes, all of that is very true. Great points, thank you for bringing this up.”
Now that feels good, I’ve just convinced a client what I believe should be done differently, and not only that, but WHY and HOW as well. I know it seems like a lecture on how to create a great logo, but if you look past the specifics its basically outlines in the points and (comments).

This article was written with regards to a previous hit article I wrote, using the points I did write about. Find it HERE.

Please, if you enjoyed this post, discuss it by commenting. I enjoy and appreciate every comment left by my readers.

PS - Digg’s are always greatly appreciated. (Thanks for submitting this, David!)

Ciao!