Breaking Down the Logo Design Process: Chamberlain Training

Over the past few months, Sara and I have been hard at work churning out design projects. In just the past month, we've completed 3 new client logos and 4 new client websites, with a few more still in the works. Fun stuff!

So, today I thought I'd share the creation process for a logo I designed for Cape Cod-based trainer and yoga teacher, Nicole Chamberlain. We designed both her logo and website, but I'm going to focus on her logo design here, since that process is a bit more straightforward. 

Read on to view the steps that led to the creation of her final logo (which is pictured above)...

Step 1: Design Inspiration 
I spoke with Nicole about what she wanted her logo to look like and had her create two Pinterest inspiration boards for me, pinning color schemes, logos, and fonts that she liked. Once she provided me with these images and we had talked, I was ready to start pulling together some ideas for her. 

Step 2: Font Selection
Because I knew that font would play a big part in Nicole's design (she told me she wanted it to be pretty simple and to convey a "strong but flexible" aesthetic), I decided to start by just giving her some fonts to choose from. Here are the options I provided her with, and she narrowed it down from here (mixing and matching a few of the fonts used in various designs). 

Step 3: Initial "Sketches" in Black + White
Once Nicole had chosen the fonts that she liked most, I used those fonts to create some initial logo "sketches" for her in black + white. Again, I wanted to start with black + white so she could just focus on composition when choosing the logo she liked best. She obviously chose the third one down on the left as her favorite. 

Step 4: Color Scheme Selection
Next came the hard part--color selection. Nicole was very drawn to a light yellow and grey or navy color palette, but the yellow didn't show up very well and was very subtle. For our first round of color options, I sent her a bunch of variations with the yellow included, but wasn't sold on any of them. Some are below...

Step 5: Narrowing Down the Color Scheme + Final Logo Selection
From the above options, Nicole liked the version of the logo with the dark grey barbell in between the light yellow writing, but we agreed that the yellow wasn't right--she really wanted it to be lighter/more subtle. Obviously, that was a challenge because the lighter the yellow, the less likely it was to show up on the white background.

In the next round of sketches, I gave her the following options--throwing in the last two "inverse" designs as an afterthought, just in case she liked them...and she did! She chose the design on the bottom left as her final logo. Hooray, we had a winner!

Step 6: Style Guide Creation + Logo Files Delivery
I made some tweaks to her final logo and then it was time to deliver it to her! I sent her a bunch of versions of her logo (including a "secondary" greyscale version of the logo for use on white backgrounds) and her Style Guide, and she was ready to roll ;)

Step 7: Website Creation
I won't go into this here, but after we finalized all of her logo files, we were ready to move on to her website. A screenshot of the top of her homepage is below, but if you want to peruse her entire site you can check it out here. 

So there you have it! Another fabulous solopreneur who formerly had no brand or online presence and is now out there making it happen [Nicole said she got a bunch of new clients after launching her new brand and website]. I love it. 

Interested in my logo design and/or web design services? Learn more here.