Breaking Down the Logo Design Process: What Diet Next?

It's been a while since I shared any of the logos that I've been working on, so over the next month or so, I'm going to once again share a couple of my recent logo projects and break down the design + creation process of those logos. 

First up: the What Diet Next? logo that I created for Laurie and her new blog of the same title. Laurie is on a journey to lose 100 pounds in 2016, so is trying a different diet every month for the entire year--and documenting the process, of course. It's a great blog and I'm excited to follow-along with her over the course of the next 10.5 months. 

Anyways, when Laurie came to me with her request and told me what she was looking for, I knew we were a perfect fit. Here's the process that led to the creation of her final logo (above)...

Step 1: Design Inspiration
As always, to start the process I had Laurie send me some inspirational images for her logo. She sent me the below color schemes and pictures, along with notes, links, fonts, and thoughts about what she was imagining. We had a quick phone call to discuss her ideas, and together decided that we would work with the first color scheme you see below. 

Step 2: Initial Sketches
After we chatted, I pulled together 5 quick compositional sketches for Laurie, using the different fonts she had identified that she liked--and I stuck in one hand-written font, just for fun. Of course, Laurie was drawn to the hand-written font (most people are!), so we ended up going with font #3 and a combination of the two figures from #1 and #4. 

Step 3: Composition Selection
Once I received Laurie's feedback from the above sketches, I started to pull together a final version of the composition. We tried a version with the first letter of each word capitalized, just so that Laurie could see what it looked like (she liked lowercase better), and then played with the figure until her shape and placement was just right (the last picture is what we decided to go with).

Step 4: Lets Add Color!
Once we'd decided on the final composition, it was time to add color! The first image below is the basic design, but I felt it needed another pop of color somewhere, so played with adding an arrow, a measuring tape underline, and a border. Laurie liked the measuring tape concept (as did I!), so we decided to add that element to the final design. 

Step 5: Finalizing the Figure
Before we could call the logo finished, we needed to amp up our little "Laurie" figure in the logo. Laurie gave me some great feedback about the positioning of her body, so I changed her upper body quite a bit, amped up her facial features and hair, and gave her a few accessories for good measure...finally, we had our final lady! Isn't she pretty? ;) 

Step 6: Final Logo Approval
Before I could call the logo finished, I put all of the elements together, cleaned it up, and sent Laurie a final version for approval. She was thrilled, so I was thrilled! Here's our final version: 

Step 6: Final Logo + Style Guide Delivery
To closeout the project I sent Laurie all of her logo files--including square versions for social media--and her color scheme. I also sent over some font recommendations for her site. 

Oh, and as a clever part of her blog, Laurie has a rating scale for each diet that she tries. So, she had me design fun little icons for each of her rating categories (in her color scheme, of course). Here are those final elements: 

So there you go! Another logo in the bag. Learn more about Laurie + What Diet Next? by hopping on over to her site or by following her on Facebook or Instagram. 

{Thanks again for hiring me to do this for you, Laurie! It was a blast.}

Want to learn more about my logo design process? Reach out and I'll send over a PDF with all of the details. You can also view some of my past logo design projects here.