Picture this: A client asks you for several designs. You have a crazy week and you have lost 2 days of the 10 you needed to work and when you actually want to get things started, you just stare at the white canvas on Illustrator. That was me this week. After freaking out of what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it, I took a deep breath and started working.

I needed to make a bunch of logo proposals, one bunch with the current business name and the other bunch with a complete different name and style. Even though I work as a designer for a living I’m not much of a sketch drawer. Give me a mac, a tablet and illustrator and I can work it. Pencil and paper.. not that much. I needed to do so many things that I was thinking too fast and not working fast enough. I stepped back for a while and I tried to see the project by bits:

First, I started thinking about all the possible names I could think of that would suite the business. After that, I read them again outloud to some friends -needed to see some reactions. What can happen to us freelancers is that we get so excited about an idea, a color palette, a name, a logo, a shape that we think it’s the most amazing idea that has crossed our creative minds… but we forget the purpose of the job we’re doing or often forget about the client’s competitors that may be similar to what we’re suggesting. 

Ok, back to the story. After testing the names, it was evident that I had a winner. Very simple and direct name. I came back home to sketch for a few hours, got a few wild ideas (some that didn’t get all the way to Illustrator) and a few other good solid-start ideas that perfectly be drawn in Illustrator.

Now, with the name picked up and sketches drawn, it was type time. The type that you use on your designs is as important as the design itself. So, there I was browsing around my Font Library. I personally use Linotype’s Font Explorer and I check also for accents and special characters support (most of my projects are in spanish). After that, I was going to scan the sketches, but since I’m not that good of a sketcher, went to grab the tablet and started drawing with the hand made sketches on the side to serve me as a guide.

At the end, I had at least 12 logos to pick from (in two versions each: color and black only). After that, I used those logos to make a presentation and justify the colors, shapes and fonts, so we can decide with the client which one is the most suitable for the business.

So there you go, next time you have a road -ehem- mental block, step away a bit and try to break in pieces your project. It helped me!