Its not the tool its the designer

Story

I was hired to tackle a logo design for a consulting agency. This particular project was different from the other projects I worked on before. Normally the client would tell me what they wanted and I would sketch some ideas but this time the customer (User) wanted me to tell a story.

The user explained to me that she wanted the logo to tell a story depicting the long journey that she had from family to the military to a professional career. She didn’t want the logo to be complex or have a lot of hidden meanings but simple in the design but at the same time tell her journey. 

This was my process

Empathize:

What do you want to get out of this project?

User: The user wants a simple logo that is not complex to tell her story.

What type of outcome would make this logo a success for you? 

User: The fact that somebody could look at the logo and understand what I’ve been through.

Do you have any specifics that you would like to incorporate in the logo?

User: I want my first and last name to be in the logo. 

What is the Takeaway feeling that you would like your customers to notice when looking at your logo?

User: A warm feeling

Define:

The problem the user is trying to tackle is the ability to use a logo to tell a story instead of actually telling the story with words.

• The user would  like a logo with her first and last name in it
• Simple and it’s design and not complex
• The logo needs to be able to tell her story easily
• The logo needs to have a warm feeling to it

Ideation

I thought about all the different ways how somebody could tell a story with a visual representation. 

Color

• what colors

A drawing

• of what?

A photograph

• what is in the photo

Prototype

Design 1

Design 2

Test

I showed the first logo prototype to the user. The idea was to go with a drawn image of a woman with long flowing hair. The letters black and rounded to represent simple put since they were rounded it meant professionally well rounded.

Feedback: The feedback to say was not well. The drawing was not well received because it did not depict the user's version of beauty. The background was very wrong because the user did not want an actual background but something that was a representation of what she was trying to achieve.

We showed the second logo to the user and we got a very different reaction. The customer was in awwww…as we described the logo. We used a picture of a desert for the background. See, the customer didn’t want something drawn but she wanted something that was a representation. So, we went with a photo of the desert for two reasons. First, the desert is not an easy place. If you ever have to travel across the desert it requires not only a lot of preparation but a lot of determination just to make sure that you survive. It’s a long journey depending on the situation and it could either break you or make you. Second, most of the time the sand is warm. It's a feeling that you get between your toes that engulfs your foot but at the same time the warm feeling radiates to your toes and you get a sense of calm. Next we added her name in elegant letters. We use this font to represent classy professionalism. The logo was as simplistic as it possibly could be but yet it meant endless possibilities for the long struggle that you have to overcome.