Breaking Down the Logo Design Process: Blue Night Mother

Over the summer, when LA-based Doula Morgan Lynn approached me about doing her logo and website, I was thrilled. She is in the birth world (and I was super pregnant), she is a yogi (we met at my studio in DC, Tranquil Space), we went to the same tiny liberal arts school in KY (Centre College!), and she wanted a watercolor logo. It was the perfect fit!

The process of working with Morgan was a very creative and collaborative one. She is an intuitive, creative person herself, and is very detail-oriented, so we went back and forth a lot to come up with the final logos that you see above (and the website that you'll find at the bottom of this post). 

So today, I'm once again breaking down this fun logo design process. Every client is different, and that's one of the things that I enjoy so much about what I do; some people want to be super involved in the creative process and some want nothing to do with it. Some people have an exact idea of what they want when they approach me, and some have no clue. Then, of course, there are clients who fall somewhere in the middle. But it's great fun to work in so many different ways with so many different kinds of people.

Thus, here's how the design process went down when working on the branding for Morgan's biz, Blue Night Mother...

Step 1: Design Inspiration
After a phone call about what Morgan wanted/needed, I had her send me some inspiration images. She sent the following images along with some notes that she wanted to play with incorporating flowers (she sent specific flower names) and/or an oyster and pearl in the logo. She had beautiful reasons for wanting to include these images, which I won't go into here for the sake of keeping this post on the shorter side ;) 

Step 2: Color Palette Selection
Because Morgan had a pretty clear idea of what colors she wanted, after providing her with a few palettes and finding that each was slightly off from what she was imagining, I decided to give her a bunch of colors within her scheme and let her choose which ones she liked best. This worked really well and she was able to send back her favorites, which I compiled into a final palette for her...

Step 3: Initial Design Sketches
Next up, I sent her some composition ideas. Morgan took a look at the first round of sketches and narrowed them down to the ones that she liked best, mixing and matching certain elements/concepts...

Step 4: Second Round of Sketches
As you'll see below, she was most drawn to the oyster idea, but liked both the taller composition and the circular composition. She sent me her feedback and then I provided her with the following revised sketches, taking her requests into account.

Step 5 + 6: More Sketches!
We had a lot of back and forth with the sketches as we settled on a final logo and composition. The last set of sketches that I sent her are below, and as you can see, we'd narrowed it down to two compositions and were just playing with the Oyster's opening and positioning at this point.

​Because she still couldn't decide which version she liked best, we decided she would have two logos--a primary logo and a secondary logo--to be used in different places and ways. 

Step 7: Adding Color
Although we had decided on a color scheme, we hadn't yet decided on how Morgan wanted to see that color scheme in her logo, so I did a bunch of quick, sketchy versions  of her logo in color to show her options. From these sketches, she chose her favorite...

Step 8: Final Logo Design
...Once I had Morgan's blessing, I created the final logos (below) and delivered them to her! Now we were ready to tackle her website and create her style guide ;) 

Step 9: Style Guide Delivery + Website Creation
Morgan's website design process was also a lot of fun, but I won't go into all of that here. Suffice it to say that I love her aesthetic and feel that the final site is a great reflection of who she is and what she does. Her brand style guide and a quick screenshot of the top of her website is below, but you can visit her website here. 

And there you go! Another logo and website in the bag. Want to learn more about my logo and/or web design services? Visit my Art + Design site. 

​Want to learn more about Morgan and her incredible birth + postpartum doula services? Check her out here. She's amazing + her services sound divine!